MARCH-APRIL 2002
 

Welcome to the planetmullins march-april 2002 news.
Come on Springtime!!
 
 
 

Rob makes the Grammy All Star Band two years in a row.

Inside the Grammy Awards Afterparty at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A. Story below. left to right-Tom Scott, unknown, Rob Mullins, Edgar Winter, Marianne Winter, Jimmy Roberts, Miles Joseph, Patty Nichols

Above is my badge from the Grammys. Its the only thing I kept,  the whole gift bag I gave away at Kikuya two nights afterward. Drop by the gig, you never know who might stop by or what great music you might hear during the jam session!

CHINA CLUB ALL STARS COMING BACK TO HOLLYWOOD SOON!  get on the mailing list to find out more!   join now!

March-April 2002 News
 

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 Joseph Not 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 same time I was. He was playing with the Dazz Band.  Tom Scott, unknown, Rob Mullins, Edgar Winter, Marianne Winter, Jimmy Roberts, Miles Joseph, Patty Nichols Johnny 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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