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.

The S-Curve Cometh

The world is spinning over here at MajorWho. Every day brings more excitement. Construction continues across the street with regular blasts of dynamite to keep us pumped and on our feet. The MajorWho showcase reel is coming together with some nice additions at the last minute. Theyll be ready in time for SXSW. For those of you who like track listings here it is:

1. You Always Get What You Want - ATOMICTOM
2. Light - Paula Valstein
3. The Good Fight - Todd Alsup
4. Stoned Beautiful - Wes Hutchinson
5. It's You - Shayna Zaid
6. That Kind of Day - Risa Binder
7. All The Pretty Women - Alec Gross
8. No Need To Talk About It - Wes Hutchinson
9. Status Quo - Todd Alsup
10. I Remember - Shayna Zaid
11. Sail - Paula Valstein
12. Friends - Ellie Lawson
13. For the Kids - Henry Ittleson Center Youth


Steve Greenberg, who recently reformed his S-Curve Records brought us a new artist to work with, Diane Birch. She's amazing. We love Diane. Listen to the demo of 'Magic View' hot off the drive. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

SXSW quickly approaches. Shayna was offered a slot as an official SXSW artist but unfortunately (or fortunately actually) she's already booked at the Mosaic Festival in Singapore for those dates. So, next year at SXSW Shay!

Ugh, good morning. Monday morning. Hold on. There's some really cool stuff brewing - check it out.

Vampire Weekend is coming to Major Who!! That's right, you heard it here first kids. They'll be joining us Wednesday for another Blue Room session. A great follow up to the Louis XIV session we had in here last week. Vampire Weekend's new album is coming out January 29th on XL Recordings. Totally pumped!

Atomictom is on tour with The Click Five! See them at The Blender on Thursday Night. We've remixed 'You Always Get What You Want' just in time for these great shows. Go check out the remix at Atomictom's MySpace.

Steve Greenberg, founder of S-Curve, is coming around with a new artist - this one is amazing. We'll keep you posted about it. I've done a bunch of work for Steve in the past. Always fun, always interesting.

Lots of great new songs coming out from Risa Binder, Nate Campany, Shayna Zaid, Paula Valstein, Todd Alsup and more!!

And now, your moment of Zen:
Do not click here, seriously.