Alec Gross on Sirius Satellite Radio!

Alec Gross will be performing his latest release, "All The Pretty Women", live on Sirius Satellite Radio this Thursday, Feb. 28th btwn. 4:30-5:30PM. Tune-in to Jim Breuer's show on Sirius Channel 104 to catch the live performance!

If you're not a Sirius subscriber but would like to listen in to this performance, you can sign-up for a free 3 day trial at the following link:
http://www.sirius.com/siriusinternetradio

Check out "All The Pretty Women" now on Myspace!
www.myspace.com/alecgross

Somer @ Rockwood

Somer rocks..

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!

Trey Anastasio and a Road Recovery Road Trip

Road Recovery Group

I recently had the opportunity to travel with Road Recovery up to Saratoga to meet up and reconnect with Trey Anastasio of Phish. Road Recovery founder Gene Bowen organized the crew for a three hour minivan trip as part of the Road Recovery Master Class series. The Master Class Series is the place where we feel we can bring the most resources and experience to these young people. We try to host the class whenever we can at Major Who and our Threshold Music Studios and we are always keeping an eye out for industry insiders that can come in to share their time, life experiences and positive messages with the youth in the program.

James Walsh, Trey Anastasio, Gene Bowen

I hadn't spoken with Trey in four or five years and I spent the ride upstate recalling the limited time I had spent with him on the phone working together on a 'project'. For me, reconnecting became half the journey. Upon reintroductions and a quick recap of our history together at the start of the class, I instantly remembered what a wonderful, giving, genuine human being he really is and knew the kids were about to experience something very special. The next three hours were unique and wonderful for everyone, the details of which will remain in our little group and our minds eye for the rest of our lives. To be sure, it was unforgettable.

Trey plays us a new song

In a nutshell, Trey looks and sounds great. He is in a very positive place and speaks like a man who has really spent a good bit of time piecing together a fascinating life's journey and looking toward the future. He is a man who wonders at, recognizes the value of, and often expresses the many wonderful gifts that life has bestowed upon him. You can quite literally feel his energy from across the room. Through his conversations it is obvious that he wants to continue to share those gifts with as many people that his own fragile existence allows him to connect with- and that this master class was as therapeutic for him as any of us in the room.

Trey spoke about where he has been, where he is now, and most importantly where he hopes to see his journey with his family, friends and music taking him next. This talented guitarist and singer jammed with the members of the Crazy James Band and debuted for Road Recovery a new song that he was yet to play for anyone else! His guitar playing was delicate, almost fragile as he explored the fingerings of the unique guitar tuning. His voice was- well his voice was simply beautiful. He spoke with the group about where their lives had been and issues that they are currently working through. He shared and related. He took the time to show compassion and empathy for the youth of road recovery. Trey reinforced to all of us once again that although we all travel down different paths in this crazy world, there are basic truths and commonalities that forever link us all in our human condition. We are thankful to him for taking a moment in time to spend with us and for participating in our common understanding that, from this point forward, we all have a shared place to reflect upon and grow from as we continue to "choose" our own individual paths to walk.

Thanks to Trey Anastasio and Road Recovery for another enlightening experience.
James

Todd on Sirius, Randy on WNYC

Wow. It's been quite a couple of weeks with Major Who artists getting coverage all over the place. This time it's Todd Alsup getting a full interview and live performance of several of his songs on Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ with Larry Flick. The show will air sometime in the next few weeks. We'll keep you posted. Nice, huh?



On the classical side and while we're on the subject of radio, Randall Woolf's 'Alternative Music' from the Common Sense CD will air on WNYC's Evening Music program tonight. This piece was produced by Major Who. Awesome Randy!!

Wes performs on Sirius Satellite Radio tonight, January 30th!!

Wes is on Sirius Satellite Radio tonight, January 30th, at 6pm-8pm!!

Wes Hutchinson will interview Wednesday evening, January 30th from 6pm to 8pm, with Patrick Meagher in the Howard Stern building in New York City about life, relationships, and music on Sirius Satellite Radio!!! It's the Cosmopolitan Station. Yay. It's a subscribed commercial free radio station that hits over millions of listeners a day. Thanks to Patrick, you'll hear some new tunes and Wes will be promoting some new things in his life (Sundown, Samaris, Sushi, Saki, etc.) If you are a subscriber, tune in and if not, get a 3 day free subscrition here at http://www.sirius.com/siriusinternetradio

Here's the plug below. Hope to have you hear Wes babylon and play some tunes promoting his record and more!!!

Cocktails with Patrick
Weekdays 5 pm - 8 pm ET
Relationship on the rocks? No need for a secret decoder ring anymore! Our resident guy guru, Patrick, helps us get inside the male mind and serves up a special blend of insight and relationship advice from a "dude" perspective. Then, he mixes it with a dash of the hottest celebrity news stories of the day and, of course, fun and games and new musical guests!

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.

Todd Alsup on Q104.3

Todd Alsup! Just got some play from Jonathan Clarke over at Q104.3 on his Sunday night OUT OF THE BOX show. He played Todd's 'The Good Fight' and it sounded great! Now we're getting some play on Sirius Radio too!
Btw- this is the fourth MajorWho song that Jonathan's played in the last several months. Congrats to Todd- hard work pays off...
To Jonathan: Thanks for the support!! You Rock.

Also, gotta love this review of the disc:

New Artist Spotlight: Todd Alsup

While competing in an "All You Can Review" song review competition at The Consensus over the weekend, I stumbled on Todd Alsup's music. And as News Editor of SSV, I'd be remiss not to give him some main page love, considering his song "Status Quo" is the best pop/r&b hybrid I've heard in more than a year! Merging Stevie Wonder with John Legend and the pop smarts of Jon McLaughlin, this New Yorker has one of the biggest hits of 2008 hidden on his MySpace page just waiting to be given a shot at greatness. His song "Theory" is a worthy follow-up -- both songs have extremely competent playing and ear-bending hooks that will control you for days. He's got a firm grip on his influences and has created several tracks that are worthy of bigger things. If the rest of his album is this good, you'll be hearing more about him in SSV soon ...

Louis XIV Blue Room Shoot

They came into MajorWho last week to shoot a Blue Room session the day before they played their Terminal 5 show. A Charming bunch of chaps right off their tour bus. I like them a lot. Louis XIV (Atlantic). Their CD is coming out January 29th. Check out their song 'Guilt By Association.'

Shayna Zaid's song Take Your Time was featured in the big closing scene of "The Young and The Restless" on Tuesday. Next week they will feature Shayna's song One Kind Of Love. It should be premiering all over the world in the next few days!

Check it out on Youtube. The song starts about halfway through the clip. Congratulations Shayna!!!

People Who Know People or the Who's Who in Weird Music Network

Hearing that Jonny Greenwood is into Messiaen makes us feel good about what we're doing here at Major Who. We're in a constant struggle over whether to emphasize the art and community aspects of what we do or to play up the more commercial side of our company. As a facilitator of new music and a supporter of great artists we're helping struggling artists to succeed and realize their potential. This is a much needed service. However, in order to sustain ourselves, Major Who has to focus on commercial projects to feed the engine and grow the company. The struggle is about maintaining this balance.

I had lunch with Joe Jackson the other day - hadn't seen him in ages. I'm assisting him in putting together some instruments and tech for a theater piece for which he's composing the music. The play is based on the life of Bram Stoker and will likely open here in NY sometime soon. Joe gave me a copy of his new album Rain coming out at the end of the month and told me about his upcoming tour. He asked me if I missed being on the road and I said most definitely. But there are more than enough fun and challenging things going on right here at the moment to keep me busy.












Lastly, we headed up to Pleasantville on Wednesday to assist in the challenging audio and video idiosyncrasies involved in the presentation of Holding Fast, an unusual collaboration by composer Randall Woolf (my bff) and filmmakers Mary Harron and John C. Walsh. Mary and John traveled to Darjeeling, India, to shoot a short documentary video of daily life in a Tibetan refugee camp and brought back uncut footage that served as the inspiration for an original musical piece by Woolf. That composition in turn provided the structure for the final edited short video, a gorgeous, colorful picture of the remote outpost. It was performed live by Jennifer Choi, whom the Times has described as a violinist with "brilliance and command," accompanied by the video and an electronic soundscape produced from the ambient sounds of the refugee camp.

The question and answers showed insight, many of the audience wanting to know more about the lives and plight of the refugees documented in the film. It was the first time I had actually met Mary Harron, though I've known her through Randy for many years. I thanked her for putting my music in the film American Psycho. I'm still getting royalty checks for that!

Major Who has something new brewing. We can't talk about it yet but we're all very excited. Stay tuned.

Angus Andrew from LIARS

Happy New Year to you all! Last week our pal Angus Andrew from Liars dropped by Major Who to do a little workshop session with his nephews Bas and Felix. Liars will be playing at Warsaw in Brooklyn on February 9th.





Here's a great video from a band we like: