Tanja M. Laden

I don't know who won the Grammys, and I don't really care. What interests me is what people had in their swag bags. Luckily, as a reporter I was invited to cover the Official Backstage Talent Gift Lounge, where I was chaperoned like a 13-year-old at a Bar Mitzvah.

See also: Our Best Tweets From the Grammys

It works like this: There are the gift bags, and the gift lounge. The gift bag is on a guest's seat before the awards ceremony and requires no schmoozing. The gift lounge, meanwhile, is where folks physically hand out gifts to famous people, in hopes of gaining their products exposure. Deluxe swag included...

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Last night we sat down with a Milky Way milkshake from Milk on Beverly and tweeted our face off. It was pretty, pretty good! Here are the highlights.

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Carlos Rubio

Queztal and Los Cojolites
The Breed Street Shul
2/9/13

Better than: A Hollywood Grammy red carpet party

Saturday night's celebration of some of the year's Grammy nominees in the Latin category brought the sounds of Son Jarocho music to Boyle Heights. Before doors opened at 8 am, the line for the free show at the Breed Street Shul stretched almost all the way to Cesar Chavez Blvd.

See also: Our Best Tweets From the Grammys Last Night

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Flickr Commmons

In the days of yore, you needed but a shoeshine and a smile to get a Grammy. You'd walk down to your local Grammy-grocer's and fork over a few wooden nickels, and the proprietor would even wrap your new award in butcher paper so it wouldn't get scratched on the way home.

*Al Walser: Our Interview With a Beguiling Grammy Nominee
*Jason Bentley: Al Walser's "Embarrassing" Grammy Nomination the Result of Manipulating the System

Sadly, things are different now. Since the Great Upheaval of the '70s and '80s and the subsequent takeover by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, they're no longer just handing out those grammo-chromes anymore. Sadly, the process for determining who gets them have been locked away in secret bunkers for decades.

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Michael Tullberg

Jason Bentley

Al Walser-gate continues. After the Hollywood-via-Lichtenstein DJ somehow snagged a Grammy nomination for best dance recording last week -- alongside much more famous folks like Aviici and Skrillex -- many suspected fraud.

In our interview, Walser got defensive and posited that simple good old-fashioned self-promotion helped him snag his nomination.

See also: Our Interview With Beguiling Grammy Nominee Al Walser

Lots of folks think Walser is kind of a joke -- this year's Rebecca Black, with a passion for the keytar. But to Jason Bentley, who was "shocked" about Walser's nomination for his song "I Can't Live Without You," all of this reeks.

"I don't think it deserves a Grammy nomination. It's just embarrassing that it happened. It's so disappointing, especially after all the energy we spent last year finally creating a televised feature that got traction -- for this to happen is like taking five steps backwards."

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Since the Grammy nominations were announced Wednesday, folks have been wondering how the hell someone named Al Walser was able to swing a nomination for best dance recording.

See also: Jason Bentley: Al Walser's "Embarrassing" Grammy Nomination the Result of Manipulating the System

The DJs also nominated in his category -- Avicii, Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia and Skrillex -- are quite famous, but the 33-year-old Walser, who is from Lichtenstein and now lives in Hollywood, is not. Or wasn't until yesterday, when he was tagged the next Rebecca Black due to the dubious melodicness of his nominated track "I Can't Live Without You," and the fact that the production qualities of its video (below) are comparable to The Room.

The 20 Greatest EDM DJs
World's Douchiest DJs: The Top Five

The folks at the Grammys haven't returned our calls, but Walser is apparently a member of the voting committee himself, so we caught up with him last night to see if the fix was in.

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Jena Ardell

Guess we hit a nerve when we called out Dave Grohl for his anti-EDM Grammy Awards acceptance speech.

Besides tons of hate mail (our favorite told us to " ... go eat a bag of dicks") and some support (Moby's former manager noted we were there when that real punk rocker went electronic in the early 1990s), lots of folks noted Grohl has uttered similar comments in the past as part of his spin for the Foo Fighters' latest album, Wasting Light, which he has said was recorded with all-analog equipment (but which went digital post-production). Sure, that was his spiel, but the timing was pointed. It was the most "electronic" Grammy Awards ever.

Feeling the heat, Grohl today issued a clarification of his comments, made during his acceptance speech for Best Rock Album at last weekend's awards:

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Lina Lecaro

Deadmau5, Rihanna
House of Blues
1-13-12

See also:
*Why The Grammys Stink
*2012 Grammys: The Best, the Worst and the Weirdest

Better than... The Grammy telecast's attempts to showcase EDM.

Skrillex may have won three Grammys, but it was Deadmau5 who ultimately impacted the celebration, its red carpet and after-party scene the most. The mouse man is, after all, Skrillex's mentor, and his success helped catapult the dubstepper. His little prank yesterday was awesome too; while walking the carpet, Deadmau5 wore a t-shirt with Skrillex's cell phone number on it.

In any case, forget about the show's EDM "moment," and its performances fusing electronic music with rock and hip-hop. The genre was best represented at Deadmau5's House of Blues benefit later, which featured Rihanna, Sen Engrosso and Calvin Harris. It was perhaps the hottest electronic music ticket last night, even if it was a $1000 one, with proceeds going to the Children's Orthopeadic Center and the Mark Taper-Johnny Mercer artists' program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The place was packed throughout the night.

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Rebecca Haithcoat

Drake's after-party

See also:
*Why The Grammys Stink
*Deadmau5, Rihanna - House of Blues - 2/13/12
*Dan Wilson: From "Closing Time" to Adele's "Someone Like You"

Adele won everything. Kanye didn't show. Nicki Minaj out-Gaga'ed Gaga by showing up with a Pope imitator as her escort. Shouldn't he have led the prayer for Whitney Houston? Beyond that, here are our picks for the best and worst of the night.

Person Most Likely to Be Mistaken for a Tranny:
Bruno Mars, whose performance makeup is the best recommendation for airbrush foundation out there. But he kind of redeemed himself for pretending to throw a tantrum when he lost Best Pop Solo Performance to Adele.

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Rebecca Haithcoat

Illegal photo from inside the press room before the show started

See also:
*2012 Grammys: The Best, the Worst and the Weirdest
*Deadmau5, Rihanna - House of Blues - 2/13/12
*Dan Wilson: From "Closing Time" to Adele's "Someone Like You"

So, our Grammy credentials were fairly limited last night. In fact, we were trapped in a room for eight hours, with journalists from all over the world sitting at long black tables staring at screens. Official handlers begged us to ask questions to folks nominated for categories like Best Surround Sound Album, Best Recording Package and Best Album Notes.

The pre-telecast ceremony started at 1 pm, with all the poor bastards who weren't considered worthy of being on screen. The Larry Batiste Orchestra led the way with a jazzy joyful number that would have delighted grannies everywhere. Everyone was very dapper despite the fact that the only ones who would see this are their moms and us; even the hosts compared this part of the program to speed dating. Winners had a couple of minutes to run up to the stage and give a speech before being whisked away. "You should try listening to my record," said the poor man who won the Surround Sound Grammy for Eric Clapton's "Layla." "It's pretty great."

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