Sports, Foxy Shazam, A Honest Opinion of Since Monroe

Hello,

Both the Utah Jazz and the New York Knicks have won 4 games in a row, I'm not sure which winning streak surprises me more. I love this young and talented upcoming Jazz team. They have a chance to have a lot of success over the next few years.

With NFL free agency just opening there have been many recent moves made. As usual some moves seem to be great and some moves caused me to scratch my head. Rumors this morning were that Tim Tebow might be on his way to the New York Jets. One of the reasons cited for the Jets to make this trade is because of the alleged divisiveness in the Jets locker room. I'll have to admit that logic made me laugh. Bringing Tim Tebow, one of the most polarizing players in the NFL, to the Jets to help a divisive locker room? Really?

Later the Jets did pull the trigger on that trade, trading a 4th round pick to the Broncos for Tebow. The Jets are now set for mediocre quarterbacks on their roster. Welcome to dysfunction junction Tim. When Mark Sanchez struggles, which he probably will, the fans will start calling for Tebow. It will be a media circus again, only this time in the biggest market in the USA. Sadly the Tebow hysteria will continue until he falls flat on his face. Again I love ESPN, but leading off Sports Center with Tim Tebow. That's saying Tebow is the biggest sports story of the day. How is a second string quarterback such a big story? The amount of time that's spent on a over rated back up quarterback is mind boggling. (Update: now comes word that a snag has been hit in the Tim Tebow to Jets trade.)

Matt Flynn signed a three year deal with the Seahawks. I see this as the Seahawks admitting they made a mistake when they signed Tavaris Jackson last season? I have no idea why that would be a surprise to them, I could have told them that last season.  Seattle is saying that the two players will compete for the starting quarterback job. I predict that Flynn will win the starting qb position, but it won't matter. The Seahawks will remain a mediocre team either way.

The Dallas Cowboys signed Brandon Carr, Kyle Orton and other nice pieces in the first few days of free agency. I don't think Orton is a better quarterback than Tony Romo, but I hope he pushes Romo to be a better quarterback. Also Troy Aikman said yesterday that Tony Romo is a better quarterback than him and predicts Romo "will win a Super Bowl before he's done playing." Aikman is drinking the Jerry Jones Kool Aid. How will Romo go from leading the Cowboys to the playoffs infrequently to winning a Super Bowl? Um, he won't. For those keeping score at home, Aikman has won 3 times as many Super Bowls as Romo has won playoff games.

Will Dallas' free agency moves matter? No, it won't because because the Cowboys haven't solved either one of their two biggest issues. Jerry Jones is still making personnel decisions and Tony Romo is still the starting quarterback. It will be another wasted season in Dallas.

The 49ers flirted with Peyton Manning before he decided to take his talents to Denver. I'm not a Broncos fan, but I'm a fan of that signing. (I do pay some attention to the Broncos. That's because I failed as a father and my oldest boy likes the Broncos.) As if people didn't know already, we found out how much John Elway liked Tim Tebow. Just one day after Manning's introductory press conference, Tebow is elsewhere. Does the signing of Manning have some risks, definitely. His health is a big issue, he hasn't played for over a year, he's 36 years old and the Broncos are tying up a lot of cap room to sign him. However Manning is also one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. He's a great quarterback playing for a young and upcoming team. A team that has a great defense. This signing will either go down as one of the best or worst free agency signings ever.

But if nothing else they got rid of the Tim Tebow headache.

In the Men's NCAA Tournament, "my" team got eliminated. That team being Murray State, the Racers just didn't have enough to hang in their final game. Isaiah Cannan is a fun player to watch, but his shooting percentage in the two Tournament games was abysmal. The team I'll be cheering to win it all is the Tar Heels. In North Carolina's last game, Kendall Marshall fractured his wrist. It's unlikely that he'll play Friday against Ohio. The Tar Heels should still be able to get past 13th seeded Ohio. However they'll be vulnerable in their battle to make it into the Final Four.

I receive e-mails from time to time for companies form music pr companies. The press release they issue tells me how great a band is. I received one such e-mail yesterday, the band's name is Since Monroe. From the press release I thought this band would be good as "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor" Arctic Monkeys era. Unfortunately they aren't even close to that. They also aren't the worst band ever. But from the four songs I've heard my initial reaction is that they won't be superstars. They don't have any music on Spotify and only one video on youtube.com. If you like this their debut CD comes out Tuesday. This song is titled "DJ", it has all of 15 views. I think their pr firm needs to work on other things besides e-mailing me. Also their official website, sincemonroe.com, is terrible.



The PR firm, Alt PR, provided me links to four of their songs and asked for my opinion of them. So I sent back my honest opinion of their music. Awhile later I received this extremely defensive response:

"Craig,

Since Monroe are a brand new band that are looking for support. I would rather you not support them at all than write the negativity you included as it doesn't help anyone out being so negative without real reasoning. They don't have music on Spotify because their debut EP is not out yet and they don't have anything on Youtube because, again, they are a brand new band.

We're gonna remove you from our list so as to avoid me and you from having to waste our time like this in the future.
Thanks"

I'll admit I've been wrong about bands before and I may be wrong in this case. If so that's fine with me. However AltPr asked me for an opinion and I gave them an honest opinion. In this corporate America world I know no one really wants a honest opinion unless it's the "right" opinion. I was only stating how I felt, it's just my opinion. I also want to point out there are a lot of brand new bands that have several videos on youtube.com. Lana Del Ray had several videos on youtube a few months before her debut CD was released. I'm not talking official videos either, I'm even including fan made videos. If the music is good, people will follow. I will always give my opinion, feel free to disagree. Feel free to send e-mail explaining why you disagree. Not every person likes the same bands and thank goodness for that. 

Now on to a much better band. Thanks to my bro for introducing me to Foxy Shazam. I don't know if I would have ever heard of this band unless they had broke veryy big. However they have several great songs. Again this is just my opinion, but I didn't need a PR firm to blow smoke up my butt about how good this band is. I heard about this band due to word of mouth. Here's a selection of their great songs:

"Welcome To The Church of Rock and Roll":



This might be my favorite of all their songs, "Holy Touch":



"Last Chance At Love":



And a great song from the past, a great song from Smashing Pumpkins.



Both the latest All American Rejects and "Hunger Games" CDs aren't available on Spotify. That's so disappointing. However thanks to iTunes I was able to hear enough of this song for me to realize this is a pretty cool song. This is another Taylor Swift song from "Hunger Games". "Eyes Open" is a very cool song:



Another cool song, this is Metrics "Gimme Sympathy". "Who'd you rather be,  the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?" they sing. (Actually I'd prefer Led Zeppelin, Smiths or Pink Floyd thanks.)



Speaking of the Smiths:



 themusicaddict