Acoustic Astronaut is recognized by the New Mexico Music Awards, VH1’s Save the Music Foundation, Song of the Year, Sirius XM, and has been featured on numerous compilation albums. The Songwriter & Executive Producer of Acoustic Astronaut is Dave Alyassin. His achievements over a 30 span are one small step for Creativity and one Giant Leap for Musical Freedom. Bands that have covered AA’s material include Texas’ own J Ryan , The West Coast original progressive rock band, Hands of Time, & New Mexico’s own songwriter Troy Garrity.
Acoustic Astronaut’s biggest hit single before Destruction Mill, was Mystical Ages released under the Racecar moniker. The self-titled album released in 2004, was distributed and played around the world with Mystical showing up on numerous compilations including the Guess Who’s Canadian label. The album was recorded by David Cragin in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cragin produced all of the songs and added all of the cool instrumentation that make the album the great listening experience that it is. 20 years later the re-mastered song and accompanying new video is splashing down around the world again catching the ears of a new generation.
The 2nd album, Dance Like a Ghost, under the same band name was awarded Best Rock CD in New Mexico and was produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Academy Award nominee, Jeffery Mettling at Trinity Recording Studios. Both Racecar albums were mastered in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Andrew Click at Stepbridge Studio. Guest appearances include Simon Widdowson, Jon Trujillo, Anya Alyassin, Gamze Guckiran and Willy Magee. Also, David Cragin of Santa Fe Soundworks, Steven Howell of Jonasol Studio & Julian Lopez of Crazy Productions Studio.
Judges awarding the album Dance Like A Ghost included Rick Derringer, who has played with The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Steely Dan, Kiss, Todd Rundgren and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Rick’s classic hit, "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" is a standard. Other judges included Elvin Bishop and Randy Brecker. Randy has seven Grammy nominations under his belt and a double Grammy for the album "Out of the Loop'. He has played with Stanley Clarke, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Chaka Khan, George Benson, Larry Coryell, David Sanborn and Frank Zappa.
Now with Acoustic Astronaut, Dave is flexing his production prowess on new releases such as Feathers From My Wing, Destruction Mill and Saving My Dream. Some good recordings recently came out of Stats Movement Records in Albuquerque, notably, an original looped riff called Just a Babe. Rojello and The Crazy Mexican did him right.
Acoustic Astronaut had an underground classic song called Music Heroes of America with their publisher in Nashville, Diamond Garden Music. The song has been pitched to prominent producers who listen to songs for Kenny Chesney, Willie Nelson, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Chris Stapleton among other recording artists. Another song is on the way to them.
