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By SHANE HARRISON / sharrison@ajc.com

There are fans. And thenthere are Fans.

Lucy Piller is a Fan. The Roswell resident

and devotee of Britishband Free and its offspring,Bad Company, has done allthe things a Fan should do.Attended dozens of con-certs. Snapped backstagephotos. Sent fan mail. Butwhat makes her stand outeven among Fans isAllrightnow.com, the ulti-mate fan Web site for thebands that she runs out ofher home. That and thefact that she has taken onthe task of booking showsfor Simon Kirke, the manbehind the drumkit in Freeand Bad Company.

“She’s been the mainstay of the Bad Com-pany and Free fanbase for 30-odd years,” saysKirke, who’ll be appearing at the Gwinnett Per-forming Arts Center tonight, thanks in part toPiller. “She knows more about the bands than Ido.”

Piller has traveled from fan to friend over the

Bond with bandstretches 35 years

JEAN SHIFRIN / StaffLucy Piller has a guitar signed by Simon Kirke andPaul Rodgers of the band Free and its successor, BadCompany. She and her husband, Robert, run a Website dedicated to the bands.

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➤ Please see FAN, F5

Simon Kirke of Free andBad Company performslocally tonight, thanks inpart to Lucy Piller.

THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION CHECK FOR BREAKING NEWS UPDATES AT AJC.COM

“Brewster Rockit, Space Guy!”blasts his way onto the AJC’s dailycomics pages Monday. The comicreplaces “The Norm,” which wascanceled by its artist.

Tim Rickard’s space adventurestrip, a spoof of science fictionmovies and TV shows, is a popu-lar recent addition to the AJC’sSunday comics. Meet BrewsterRockit and his crew of spaced-outmisfits in their new orbit on Mon-day’s comics page.

COMING TO COMICS PAGE

COMINGMONDAY: Ashort inter-view with‘’BrewsterRockit,Space Guy!’’cartoonistTim Rickard.

Happy 50th, Lassie(now save Timmyfrom that well)By PHIL KLOER / pkloer@ajc.com

Woof!What is it, Lassie? Is there a fire in the barn?Woof! Woof!What’s wrong, girl? Did Timmy fall down

the well again? Is he trapped by a cougar? Ishis leg pinned under a log and thecreek is rising and he’ll bedrowned unless we go save him?

WOOF!Oh, you’re turning 50 years

old? Well, you and a whole lot ofbaby boomers, girl. Of course, indog years, you’re 350.

Lassie, the fictional colliesmarter than most game-showcontestants, is actually older than50. Eric Knight got the bone roll-ing with his Saturday EveningPost short story “Lassie Come Home” in 1938,which then birthed the movie version with Eliz-abeth Taylor and Roddy McDowall, and a litterof eight sequels in the ’40s and early ’50s.(Knight’s own pet collie, the model for Lassie,was named Tools, and somehow it’s hard toimagine an entertainment franchise built on adog named Tools.)

But it was on Sept. 12, 1954, that “Lassie”debuted as a TV series on CBS, and woofedhis/her way into the Beloved Doggie Hall of

Lassie

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➤ Please see LASSIE, F3

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BOOK BUZZ

By DON O’BRIANTdobriant@ajc.com

By day, Chr is topherDickey writes about theworld of terrorists, spies andsuicide bombers as News-week’s Paris bureau chief andMiddle East editor.

By night, he writes aboutthis same world, but as a nov-elist. Sometimes, he admits,it’s difficult to know wherethe facts end and fictionbegins.

His new novel, “TheSleeper” (Simon & Schuster,$24), begins on the morningof the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,with American-born Muslim

Kurt Kurtovic watching thenews from his home in Kan-sas. Kurtovic knows who’sbehind the attacks because hewas once one of them.

Kurtovic, a former ArmyRanger (who was introducedin Dickey’s first novel, 1997’s“Innocent Blood”), is sooncontacted by a federal agentwho wants him to help trackdown the terrorists. As thestory unfolds, Kurtovic’sbloody pursuit takes him toLondon, Spain, Kenya andGuantanamo Bay. Althoughhe is determined to thwart al-Qaida’s plans, he is disgusted

Facts of terrorism propel fiction

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➤ Please see DICKEY, F4

MEET THE AUTHORChristopher Dickeywill talk about hisnovel “The Sleeper”at 2 p.m. Sept. 18 atChapter 11 bookstoreat Ansley Mall. 1544Piedmont Ave., Atlan-ta. 404-872-7986.

iPodguilty

pleasures

Shakira, Burt Bacharach, the New Kids on the Block, Ace of Base,the Carpenters, and even the legendary Temptations are among

the artists readers wouldn’t fess up to downloading . . . until now

By DON FERNANDEZ dfernandez@ajc.com

Face the music — that Bananaramahas been busted.

Those saccharine pop tunes andschmaltzy ballads cloaked from friends?There’s no excuse anymore. No blamingit on a CD that had just one song youliked. No claiming it belonged to yourwife, husband or friend.

You selected each and every tune.Like it or not, these are your greatesthits.

Now, let the melodic mocking com-mence.

“I have all of Shakira’s CDs on myiPod,” said Matt Barnett, 23, of Acworth.“Everything else is standard rock ’n’ roll-type music. People just usually laugh atme.”

The advent of the iPod and similarstorage-rich MP3 players is a boon forconvenience and portability. But thesedevices, which are passed around,shared and showcased among friendsand co-workers, make exposure of one’spreviously private tastes an unintendedside effect.

Take an iPod for a jaunt in your car,and a passenger’s light spin of the selec-tor wheel could land on something like,say, some Wilson Phillips. Or Juice New-ton. Yanni, perhaps. Or the theme to“The Golden Girls.”

Lindsae Phillips, 22, of Kennesaw,fancies “hard alternative where they yelland scream a lot and are mad at their

dad” but still finds room for the “Chica-go” movie soundtrack.

Her friends, though, have deemedother selections even more scandalous.

“I love Motown,” she said, notingthat her pals “don’t even know who theTemptations are.”

What’s cringe-worthy to one might besweet audio succor to another. What’shidden on an iPod can often strip down

any bravado or boasts of highfalutintaste.

“You’d be surprised how many peoplehave Britney Spears on their iPod whenthey swore they’d never listen to that idi-ot,” said Brian Cooley, editor at large fortechnology news and reviews Web siteCNET.com based in San Francisco.

iPod mini from Apple

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➤ Please see MUSIC, F4

➤ Plan yourweekend: YellowDaisy Festival,ArtExpo, UrbanChallenge, muchmore in andaround town onaccessatlanta.com.

ACCESSATL ANTA .COM INSIDE TODAY

Radio ‘Apprentice’

ajc

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

LivingCONTACT US: Nunzio Lupo, Features editor / nlupo@ajc.com / 404-526-5487

F FRIDAY, SEPT. 10, 2004★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

George McKerrowJr. (left) and TedTurner will beinvolved in an FMversion of the TV

show. InPeach BuzzF2