Pick Up Games

So I’m a sports guy. Two of the 7 links on this blog are sports blogs from friends of mine. I’ve found that a lot of people in the music industry are not sports guys (or girls). Either you were in the band or on the football team. The two are kind of mutually exclusive, and there is still some latent resentment over high school slights that permeate so many people in the industry.

But as a sports guy I read “The Sports Guy” the espn columnist Bill Simmons who loves the fights on MTV’s the real world as much as the fights in Madison square garden. (I was also considering the real world as much as real Madrid, but lets be honest no one likes soccer) So low and behold when reading his column this weekend which turned out to be a chat there is a discussion about indie rock.

Bill Simmons Chat

PattyO (Austin): Maximo Park or The Fratellis?

SportsNation Bill Simmons: like the Fratellis - interesting album. some really good music out right now, 30-40 songs I love in the past 3-4 months.

Ben ((Charlotte)): Bill, you seem to be in to indie rock, mind if i throw a couple bands out there? Broken Social Scene, Pinback, or Minus the Bear?

SportsNation Bill Simmons: Good choices... the new Modest Mouse album is really good (the return of Johnny Marr!), look out for Voxtrot as well.


Jason (ATL): alright simmons, whats your top 5 bands that get no love from mainstream media??

SportsNation Bill Simmons: Silversun Pickups, definitely... that album was unbelievable. "Lazy Eye" isn't even one of the best 3 songs on it, and that's the only one they've been playing so far.


SportsNation Bill Simmons: Mute Math is underrated. The Hold Steady. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Voxtrot. Blue October. The Cloud Room.

It then goes on with a discussion of Buffalo Tom who apparently has a new album out. You can read the rest at ESPN.

Now this is interesting for a number of reasons. Simmons has a large and rabid fanbase. Think of him as a poor mans Oprah, if Oprah’s core audience was between 18-40 and male. I think this mention will do more for the Silversun Pickups then a cover story in billboard. Your average person doesn’t read Billboard. Your average person does read Bill Simmons though.

Their current sales numbers look like this
This Week 5,426
Last week 7,498
Overall 126,200

I think they will have a jump in sales sometime in the next two weeks, due to this mention on ESPN, and the increased traffic from the Avril Lavigne and Nine Inch Nails new releases. Either that or they will have less than a 24% drop off which in some ways is a win anyway.

Stay Tuned to see if I’m right, or just throwing out random ideas. I can’t be the only one who is intrigued about the potential of the Simmons Sales Bump.