| Los Angeles, CA-March 14, 2002
Inside the Grammy Awards Afterparty
at the Biltmore Hotel.
First off, I gotta say HELLO! Hope you all are doing well and having
a great March. It s been a busy time over here the past month with all
the Grammy stuff,
TV work, live gigs and the usual 8 million pieces of paper standing
in between me and my piano. I still get mad every time I go to the mailbox,
but you all know that already. Anyway, onto the Grammy News!
2002 marked the second year that I was selected to be keyboardist in
the GRAMMY ALL STAR BAND. It was quite an honor, and truly a great time
when we
performed with major stars and hung around for the annual schmooze
on Feb. 28 at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA. There are always a ton
of parties going on after the Grammy Awards-Clive Davis has his thing at
the Beverly Hills Hotel, Sony and other labels have their company parties,
and The Grammy Awards has its own bash for the folks at N.A.R.A.S. and
everyone else who is associated with the event.That is the party where
I played.
This year was a pretty cool hang as Nancy came and brought her friends
Tammy and Matthew along for the ride.
 
Nancy, Rob, Tammy on the smoking
patio
Rob,
Tammy, and Matthew
at the Biltmore between sets.
It was really nice having friends around for this gig, and they were
pretty pumped up since it was their first time at the Grammys. Nancy had
a lot of news on the star tip for me which was cool since I couldn't stay
for the whole Awards show because I was working the party with the All
Stars. Matthew and I got into an interesting discussion about music piracy
and downloading (see state of the art story below) and Tammy was having
an absolute blast.Members of the Grammy All Star Band this year included Miles Joseph,
Robin Kirmsee, Rob Mullins, Tim Scott, Mike Finnegan, Steve Ferrone, Billy
Preston, Edgar Winter, Gavin Christopher, Ivan Neville,Jimmy Roberts, Lee
Thornburg, and more.
Rob Mullins, Robin Kirmsee, Miles JosephNot only was the Grammy All Star Band playing throught the night in
the Gold Room at the Biltmore, Tom Scott and his band were in the Grand
Ave. Bar, The Dazz Band was down the hall from us, and Eddie Palmieri's
Big Band was across the hall. What a cool dinner hang it was! I really
enjoyed seeing Tom Scott for the first time in many years, and I also ran
into Nate Phillips who was in the Crusaders at the sametime I was. He
was playing with the Dazz Band.
Tom Scott, unknown, Rob Mullins, Edgar Winter, Marianne Winter,
Jimmy Roberts, Miles Joseph, Patty NicholsJohnny Friday and Ellis Hall who play in The Rob Mullins Band from time
to time were both playing with Tom Scott that night. I always love seeing
Johnny because he is such a cool dooood. Ellis was raving about his newest
keyboard and singing and playing his fanny off as usual. After some nice
food and decent coffee, we all headed down to the stage in the Gold Room
for the gig.During the soundcheck, Ferrone, who is one of the best drummers of all
time, had started up this cool slow hip hop groove, and I started playing
the bassline and changes from Miles Davis' "Tutu." It ended up being
a jam ,and that was what we started out the first show with. I thought
it was cool to be playing jazz as a way to start the evening. We rocked
into some hot funk and blues with Robin Kirmsee for several tunes and stars
and others had packed our room by then. If fact, one label president I
know couldn't get in because the line out our door was so long. Damn.
Then Billy Preston joined us for some real fun versions of his hits
"Will It Go Round In Circles" and "You Are So Beautiful." I was pretty
flattered that Billy, who is credited with the only Clavinet hit other
than Stevie's Superstition, wanted me to play Clavinet on his set. That
must have meant that I was SCHREDDING. lol.
He really loves the changes I play on "You Are So Beautiful" and it
was just way cool to be two feet away from him while he was jamming on
the B3.
We took a break and I bumped into Michael...one of the event planners
I knew from the Brad Pitt/Jennifer Anniston Wedding. We had a nice laugh
over the kid Dekota who got in so much trouble for spouting off after the
wedding. I went down and checked out Tom Scott in the Grand Ave.
Bar for awhile, and said hello to some other friends. Then it was time
to rock the house with Edgar Winter.
 
Edgar Winter holds out the mic to the
audience.
Rob
smiling way too much.
Edgar is just amazing. His energy level is unbelievable. When he strapped
on the synth for Frankenstein, the whole place came unglued. It was a trip
watching Gary Busey and other stars out dancing with N.A.R.A.S execs and
their kids. Pretty cool. As usual, I was smiling way too much and people
were complaining. lol.
We wrapped things up about 2AM and I took the Grammy gift bag down to
the car and put it in the trunk so I could give the contents away Friday
at Kikuya.
What a blast!
STATE OF THE ART
It was a general pat on the back for me to see the other press related
articles surrounding Grammy time basically saying everything that I had
said in my "How MP3 Killed The Music Business" article a couple years ago.
LA Times articles of late are chock full of record execs and industry folks
discussing everything I predicted.
Grammy President Michael Greene spent most of his opening remark time
at the Grammys talking about the precarious position the industry is in,
and Newsweek's recent feature on Pop Music further confirms that I was
a couple years ahead of most with my observations. Excuse me while I give
myself a High 5.<g>
With the oncoming collapse of trad retail (yes, I did say that) its
going to be an interesting time for all of us in the business over the
coming decade to see what ends up happening.
Talking to Nancy's friend Matthew was interesting to me because he
is one of the net downloaders who never buys anything and both the girls
thought we would come to blows over that issue. Actually, it was an informative
conversation for me because I never saw music and art as disposable before.
Since I am an Artist,
I don't consider anything I record to be disposable. I think Matthew
shares the view of many who just want to have the latest trend on the desktop
and then dump it and move on to the next thing. Jazz is nothing like that,
and I did my best to try and explain that to him. Jazz artists have long
careers, care about their music, and rarely does good jazz go out of style.
That is one of the reasons I think so many people like my early stuff as
well as the current stuff, Red Shoes just sounds amazing still even though
it was recorded so long ago. Perspectives are so different for the public
than those of the artists. I hope the Recording Artists Coalition does
some good, I'm glad to see some organized effort for dealing with issues
that have been personally hurting me for so long. This whole debate really
comes down to two things IMO-1. If you don't see the value in paying for
music, then don't take a paycheck from your job. Work for free. Then we're
even.
2. Artists don't create anything when they aren't able to eat and pay
for stuff. The more you download free music, the less real music you will
have in the future
and the worse will be the quality of the music available to you.
Well, its time to get back into the studio, oh wait, I have 90 million
pieces of paper to process....what was I thinking. ROFL.
Have a great month everyone, and I will update in April if I have time.
All the best,
Rob Mullins
3/14/02
LA, CA
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