I remember back in the day we "hackers" would buy bumper stickers that said "Free Kevin." We felt really cool for supporting the cause to expedite the release of hacker Kevin Mitnick who was supposedly thrown in jail without a trial, etc. After his release in 2000, the novelty of cutting the sticker in half and putting it in reverse so that it read "Kevin Free" wore off quickly, so I went and bought a Free Tibet sticker instead.



I'll always remember when Eralda's mom came from Albania for the first time and saw that sticker on the back of my car. "What does that say?" she asked in Albanian. "It says Free Tibet," my wife answered. Her mother smiled, "So that is the car that is going to free Tibet?" We all chuckled.

There is a campaign now called Free Derek Webb. Derek Webb, however, is not incarcerated, nor is he oppressed by a Chinese regime. Instead, he has produced and released an album which he is giving away for free. You can find it here: FreeDerekWebb.com

So who is Derek Webb? I guarantee you that my buddies Tyson Kirksey and Greg McKinzie could tell you a whole lot more than I could about him. The little I know about him is that he used to be a member of Caedman's Call until he broke off on his own and has since release several solo albums, each of which are VERY poignant (and sometimes downright confrontational) regarding the Church.

Why is he releasing a free album? According to Derek, "we hope this bold campaign will provide a jumping off point for conversations about all of these issues," namely "poverty, war, and the basic ethics by which we live and deal with others."

Go. Download. Give it a listen. After all, what do you have to lose? Nothing but hard drive space.

UPDATE: I just discovered that this album (Mockingbird) has already been released. Now all of a sudden I feel kind of bad for the folks who went out and bought the album already. Then again, maybe I feel kind of cheap for getting such good music for free. The lyrics are incredible. Poetic, and as usual, challenging.