Planetmullins May 2001 News
 

Yo. How's everybody doing? Rob here with the May 2001 news.....
 

SPECIAL EVENTS ROCK OC JAZZ SCENE

The last two weeks of April I put on some special club events and they were very well received...did you make it by?
Jimmy Roberts, saxman from the Rod Stewart band joined me for the last two Fridays of April at Spag's and brought the house down...
We had  a great time blowing through the tunes....and melvin davis came back to join us for one Friday which was very cool.
That particular band was the biggest group of guys I've had on the stand in awhile...Jimmy was the only guy under 6' 2".

The last two Saturdays of the month at Kikuya, I tried something new...The Rob Mullins Superband featuring two horns instead of one.
It was cool hearing that big Blue Note New York kind of sound....and T.J. Hudson from Roland Corp. dropped by to play "Plus Three" (from the One Night In Houston CD). From what I've heard, that is one of the hardest tunes I've penned, and its turned into a test of chops for
anyone who dares to get onstage with me....

Funny moments from those two weekends include Lisa (Kikuya manager) losing it over Doug Webb playing his sax in the sushi kitchen ("I was only testing a reed man.") and Jimmy complaining about us only doing five tunes in an hour (he took the longest sax solos in the history of the band...lol).  Sal Marquez didn't know when to shut up and started talking during the monologue (a definite no no on my gig)...who does he think he is...Andy Richter?  ROFL......
 

Anyways, I'm going to do some more superband stuff in the future so stay tuned......

NEWS OF THE YO CATZZZZZ.....

Brian Zupnick, a fantastic drummer who used to play with Peter Cetera from "Chicago" as well as the View Lounge Band died last month from cancer.
Brian was a great personal friend and a monster player. He will be sorely missed.

Eric Marienthal called to say that his new CD is done and that my songs turned out great......I guess producer Russ Freeman pulled
all of my keyboard parts off of my songs...uh, thanks Russ. I haven't heard the music yet, so I have no idea what they turned out like.

Victor Bailey  (Miles Davis, Weather Report) gave me a shout from New York last week..and he wants to come down to OC and do some gigs with the band...that should be very cool....his buddy Jeffrey Lewis (longtime friend and great drummer) brought him down to Spag's a few weeks ago, and it was a cool hang.

New addition to my group Ian Martin on bass has been working out well....Ian is from the east coast and is new to town..it was funny watching him fall into the California groove....he's a great player and will be back for more gigs.

Greg Vail has been running around like mad trying to do all the label stuff for his new CD "The Gospel Truth" which is due out next month
with the CD Release Party set for JUNE 23 at KIKUYA. More info on that I'm sure at http://www.gregvail.com.

Nat Scott and David Levray came in for a Saturday at Kikuya and did their rythym section thing....Nat was cracking me up because he was so horny to play, I just let him go on a couple of long solos and went out for a break.

David Budway from the Hubert Laws band called to say how much they miss me in that group....its always nice to hear from the BUDMAN.
Looks like I won't be doing any road stuff anytime soon tho....
 

NEW ROB CD STILL IN THE WORKS

I'm still waiting to mix my new CD at Tom Zinc's studio.....Tom called this week and said he has to go out on the road with Brian Bromberg
on the days we were going to mix so its going to be a couple more weeks.....will keep you all posted....I do know that "Old School Groove"
turned out VERY nice. The CD is for Yamaha and is a play along software/grand piano project for the Disklavier. More info HERE.

HOLLYWOOD SNAPSHOT

Hollywood, gotta love it, gotta hate it. The whole Robert Downey Jr. thing has had the news media going crazy on my street, Washington Blvd.
Ever since he got busted at the hotel right down the street from where I teach piano, the street has been crawling with cops and lookyloo's.
Blech. Its making that drive over to the 405 take an extra ten minutes every time I need to hit the freeway. I feel bad for Downey though, any addiction is a hard thing to kill...I'm wishing him the best that he can get that monkey off his back...

CHINA CLUB AT BARFLY has not been without its weekly dose of drama either....longtime LA legend and Rock Promoter Punkin' Pie left the China Club two weeks ago and started doing her own Wednesday gigs at the Latin Lounge....I elected to stay with the homeys and stay at the Barfly gig. Miles is just playing so damn well, and Tim is killin' on the bass, and well, then Steve Ferrone...how could you say enough about him...he is just amazing. We are gigging this Wednesday night May 2 at 10pm. Come down. 8730 Sunset in the Sunset Towers Bldg.

Many of us involved in the TV industry are awaiting tonight's deadline for the writer's negotiations....Mayor Bradley estimates a 7 BILLION dollar loss to our local economy if they don't get this worked out....its already affecting me as I was supposed to start a new show with Farquar Productions this week but its on hold until the talks end. Great.  Personally, I would love to see everybody get a raise, after all, the writers are the ones who think up everything....don't they deserve to get paid for that?

STRANGE EMAIL CAPER HITS PLANETMULLINS

A few people have sent me mail regarding the weird Leroy Ball email that went out from some angry employee of his this past week.
I was pretty shocked to see something so defaming going around the net about a local musician. I hadn't seen Leroy in years, since we both played in the Phil Upchurch band, but it was just an awful email that went out about him, and from someone who I guess hacked his AOL account and sent out the email using his own screen name. Damn! I'm sure glad I'm not on AOL anymore. Anyways, if you were one of those people who got that strange email, write us and let us know..maybe we can help put a stop to that garbage.
 
 

WRAP UP

Looks like I will be doing a major studio upgrade sometime in the next month which will include a new computer, more pro tools, a new
mixer and 24 bit 24 track audio recording. Stay tuned. In the meantime, come join the fun at a Rob Mullins show this month. Its the most fun you can have dressed in LA.

Rob Mullins May 1, 2001