Top banana!

Downloading an album from iTunes: UK£7.99.
Listening to it and falling in love with it: an afternoon.
Realising much later that the familiar voice that's performing all the backing vocals does in fact belong to Jensen Ackles: priceless.

Let’s back up here. Got a cyber-cookie about a week ago, a real gem of a track called ‘Come Around More Alabama’ by some American bloke called Steve Carlson. Absolutely loved it, played it over and over, decided to root out his other stuff and buy, buy, buy. Found out it came from the album ‘Spot In the Corner’, found it on iTunes, and a paid download later, I’m completely in love with the entire album. Now I know why the donator in question sent me the track int first place.

A couple of the tracks remind me a little of Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts at times, mostly cos of the (sparse) use of violins. But the songs themselves are bloody ace, not least of all numbers like ‘Radio In My Head’ and ‘Pinata Novia’. ‘Kinda Crazy These Days’ is pure gold, but without doubt my absolute first love remains ‘Come Around More Alabama’, for many more reasons than the fact that you can sing along so easily. I’ve stumbled upon music that I would never normally give owt more than short shrift to, but I’m finding it’s just terrific. I can’t stop listening to it. And of course it doesn’t hurt that Jensen Ackles’s harmonising int background is all kinds of fab. In fact, there’s only one reason the album’s not constantly on repeat on me iPod, and that’s cos there’s another album to bang on about tonight.

The very tenuous connection between Steve Carlson and the next act, Jason Manns, is Jensen Ackles. Mr Manns got up on stage at some ‘Super-bloody-natural’ convention to sing a cover of Van Morrison’s ‘Crazy Love’, and Mr Ackles got up and provided backing vocals for fun. I’d never heard the song before, but found it so bloody catchy I wanted a copy. Again, a very short hunt on iTunes found the guilty album and it was bought and paid for before you could say ‘musical diversity’.

Jason Manns’s self-titled debut album is nowt short of fantastic. He’s got a nice strong voice without being harsh, singing all ranges without sounding like a girl. The entire album is full of excellent guitar arrangements, easy, upbeat numbers that are both cheerful and comfortable without being cloying or saturated in saccharine. It’s a real ray of sunshine on any day of the week, and it’s temporarily replaced Steve Carlson’s ‘Spot In the Corner’ as my favourite music. There are too many definite winners to mention, but if I had to choose just two tracks they’d have to be ‘Another Number’ and ‘Perfect Spot’. The first is just so jumpy-jump-jump cheerful and celebratory in an acoustic kinda way, and the latter is so goddamn bluesy and loveable. The reason for buying, ‘Crazy Love’, is also excellent still (though without Mr Ackles providing the wonderfully harmonised backing, it’s strangely singular). The whole thing is chock full of ace lyrics, wonderful guitars and just a nice easy-going feel to it, instead of the usual Madchester / Sheffield new rock / Britshit I listen to. It’s just a pleasant diversion, one of them albums I’ll remember for the rest of my life because of the change it saw.

So because I’ve been feeling more sociable of late – I’m normally very anti-social around Christmas and New Year, ask anyone trying to get me off me arse and out down the Winchester White Stag – I’ve bothered to update both the ‘Doctor bloody Who’ Wallpapers of the Week and the ‘Super-bloody-natural’ Winchester Wallpapers. And yes, 4D, the Kylie wallpaper thing is for you.


I’ve also done the unthinkable and finished a fan-fic for ‘Super-bloody-natural’, available over at my place on the Fan Fiction Archive. Immense fun, and although I said I’d never do another, guess what? Yeah, that’ll be me poring over the latest the second and last fert plot holes and such. Sad, I know. But it keeps me off the streets.

And that’s about it, really. Off to watch possibly the second best Christmas movie of all time, namely ‘Scrooged’ with Bill Murray, and see if I can’t make the best damned Purple Nurple this side of Crawford Hall.

Peach and lube, people.

Tags:
iTunes ~ Jensen Ackles ~ Steve Carlson ~ TOFOG ~ Supernatural ~ Jason Manns ~ Kylie Minogue ~ wallpaper ~ Bill Murray ~ Scrooged