Eye and ear candy

I've got nothin' for the usual Dear So & So on Friday.  But I've got little bits of random shit that might be enough to justify a post... and since my inspiration and motivation for NaBloPoMo went right out the window after last week's hiatus, this is all I can pull out of my butt.

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I listen to just about every type of music, except gangsta rap and death metal - I do like old skool hip hop (Hieroglyphics for example, or Jurassic 5) and some metal (Atreyu, Rise Against), but I hate the crap that passes for music on the pop stations and in da clubs, blasted from some kid's ghetto speakers in his '85 Chrysler so loud it makes his license plate vibrate, etc etc.  How the hell can you consider it music when (a) it's all sampled, (b) every other word is "uh" and (c) you have to use auto-tune to make the 'singer' sound halfway bearable?  Ugh.  My other rule is that you should be able to understand what they're saying, so scream-o is out too.

But I'll listen to everything else.  Really, everything.  I'm still a little picky about it though - if I can't distinguish your voice from everyone else's then I'm probably not very interested.  I like music with a distinct sound to it, something that makes it stand apart.  I'm getting braver about finding new music, thanks to iTunes, friends with expansive CD collections, and the local library that surprisingly carries a pretty good variety.

So today I will share two artists that, while you might recognize their names from television, you might not be aware that they're incredibly talented musicians too.  Christian Kane, and Born as Ghosts.  Kane you might know from Angel (Lindsey the lawyer) and currently, Leverage (Elliott Spencer - yummmm) - but he's an AWESOME country musician too.  No full-length CD yet, except for a live album from a concert in London, but you can check out some of his songs on myspace.  He has a sexy, rough voice that I LOVE.

Born as Ghosts is a SoCal band, and the lead singer is Eric Balfour whom you'd recognize as Milo from 24 (before he got shot in the head... boooo).  The band is VERY SoCal, with a sound kind of like a hybrid of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sublime.  Catchy and fun and unique.  They're also working on a full-length CD, and some of their songs are available for download on both myspace and facebook.

And of course, it totally doesn't hurt that both of these guys are SO. HOT. OMG.  See for yourself...

[caption id="attachment_394" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="Hoooooo boy. Um."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_395" align="aligncenter" width="256" caption="Yeah. Er."][/caption]

(Images courtesy of their respective myspace pages.)

So there's my shameless hot-guy/little-known-musician plug for today.  Anybody else have some good, perhaps little-known tunes you're into?  Hot guy or not.  Either way.