For those of you looking for some cool summer tunes, Apple has marked down some of their best-selling albums on iTunes. There’s U2, Jack Johnson, Daughtry, Corinne Bailey Rae, and a number of movie soundtracks (I particularly like the soundtrack from the movie Garden State).

[Disclaimer: a click on most of the links in this post will cause your browser to try to open the iTunes program on your computer in order to access the requested page.]

All of the music is older, in other words from pre-2007, going back to 2004 (and occasionally, 1973, when Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released). The selection is also not unlimited: I count ninety-two albums for sale — each at a cost of $7.99.

So if you were waiting for something cheaper than Justin Timberlake to come along, now you don’t have to wait - you can get the real thing!

Here’s what the iTunes store has to say about their sale:

As the iTunes catalog expands daily, we’re faced with a massive amount of music that might feel a bit daunting to some. We’ve decided to shuffle some things around and have a sale — and you’re all invited. We handpicked some of the biggest-selling iTunes albums of all time, and dropped the price to $7.99. Enjoy.

I’m not quite sure how discounting their “biggest-selling” albums is going to do anything to make the volume of music in their catalog less daunting, but I certainly ain’t going to complain about the discounts!

[Disclaimer Numero Dos: I in no way want you to support the music of Justin Timberlake. Please do NOT buy his music. Get something like this instead.]

So you may have noticed the two random photos on the sidebar of the site. I’ve taken some pictures lately, such as several hundred in Italy in February.

Of course, if you click on the Photos link, in the site navigation, you can look at all of them. If you’re looking to burn a few hours, I highly recommend it.

The pictures, while displayed here, are actually hosted on a site called Flickr. I use the site because I can put a lot of pictures up, I can easily use a plug-in to show them here, Flickr allows me to organize them, tag them, label them, etc.

Now, my main purpose here is not to say, “oooh, it’s such a great thing.” My designs are more selfish — the site allows you to sign up for free, and I was thinking, gosh, it would be great for other people to put their pictures on Flickr, then we could all be friends and share our pictures!

It’s quite simple. If you’d like to view my photos, just go to flickr.com/photos/schellack. If you want to view others’, particularly others’ interesting pics, try going to flickr.com/explore. Lastly, if you want to see how Flickr works, what it does, how to sign up, etc., just go to flickr.com/tour.

Should you want to sign up and find some more photos of mine that aren’t displayed elsewhere, I just might add you to my friends list, which would allow you to see those photos that I don’t particularly like to show to the whole world, namely those of my friends and family.

Happy Mother’s Day as well, in advance. I’m planning to post some more this weekend on what Mother’s Day has in store for this year, but in the mean time, check out the “Celebrating Motherhood” post on Flickr’s Blog. It’s got a link to a pool of pictures on moms.

Derek Webb does not need to be freed, at least not that I know of. However he is giving away his new album, entitled “Mockingbird” for free. Note that “free” means that you have to give them your email address and 5 other people’s email addresses, each of whom will then receive an email about the free download. Your email address will also be signed up on the site’s mailing list.

The songs sound like Derek Webb, which is a good thing if you like the acoustic guitar. The title track, Mockingbird, does sound like other songs either Webb or his former band, Caedmon’s Call, have done, which is ironic given the song’s lyric, “I am like a mockingbird. I’ve got no new song to sing.” The point is not meant to be taken literally, of course — the idea is that Webb is not saying anything new, which harks to Ecclesiastes 1:9: “…there is nothing new under the sun.”

Many of the songs are more political in nature, such as In God We Trust. I particularly like the line, “In God we trust, even though he favors the nation-state.” The song Love Is Not Against the Law begins with the lyric, “Politics are love.” That song in particular takes an unpolitical view of politics.

Visit www.freederekwebb.com for more info and to get the download.

A couple years ago I actually wrote a piece of music entitled Sinew. You can read a few notes about and listen to a (stinky) MIDI version of the song here.

If anyone might happen to know a pianist, bassist, and cello player (cellist?) that could play something like this, I’d love to be able to make a real recording of the piece one day to actually hear what I wrote. I in no way am a skilled enough musician to be able to play this piece, and it is pretty difficult even for an experienced player (on each of the three aforementioned instruments). I still have the sheet music and would love to be able to share it!