Gary Stewart, iTunes, Diane Birch

I was in LA recently attending a seder with Gary Stewart, former head of A&R at Rhino who is now head of A&R at iTunes. I thoroughly enjoyed hanging with him. Gary was the king of reissues at Rhino back in the day and was responsible for turning people on to tons of amazing legacy music during the 80s and 90s. He produced many of my favorite box sets including 'Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968'. Gary is a close mutual friend of Steve Greenberg's, whom I've had the pleasure of doing a lot of work for over the years.

Speaking of which, I'm deep into the vocal production of Diane Birch's debut album for Greenberg's S-Curve Records. This is the first project I've worked with Steve on since Joss Stone. Diane's talent is true and deep. These are trying times in the music business but the combination of an amazing talent like Diane with Steve's genius for song creation and promotion is very powerful. Keep your eyes peeled and your fingers crossed.

Major Who has been incredibly busy lately, so much so that we've put out a job ad for an administrator / assistant manager. Taking on another employee is a bold move in these times, but we just can't handle the workload by ourselves anymore. What's really interesting is the flood of e-mails and resumes that have come in since posting the ad. We're overwhelmed with going through and picking out the qualified candidates. The job market must be really tight right now because we're getting a lot of extremely qualified applicants. It's going to be difficult to choose. The primary purpose of the position is to have someone full time to work the catalog and find licensing opportunities for our songs and artists.

If you're up near the Ridgefield Playhouse in Connecticut, go hear Paula Valstein opening up for Colin Hay tonight. It'll be a great show.

Mike Doughty and Dave Grisman in One Weekend

Mike Doughty at the Highline Ballroom on Friday

I caught two great shows in a row this past weekend, Mike Doughty at Highline Ballroom on Friday and Dave Grisman (The Dawg!) at Ridgefield Playhouse on Saturday. Both shows were fantastic. The trip up to Ridgefield, CT is well worth it - this theater has played host to many of my favorite artists over the past couple of years. I've also really been getting into the Highline lately - becoming one of my favorite clubs in NY.