Woo, PopWatchers! I am here at Los Awards Del Grammy, and the pre-parties are fiiiiiine! So last night — after EW’s own party in honor of the space king himself, Timbaland — I trotted over to the Black Eyed Peas’ annual benefit for their Peapod Foundation, this year honoring Interscope founder Jimmy Iovine and raising money to build a fancy music academy for kids. (Ostensibly so that more young people can have the opportunity to become a star too young/get addicted to crystal meth/get clean/discover miraculous career rebirth/sweat in unfortunate places on stage, just like Fergie.)

Anyway, I didn’t see the whole thing, but what I caught was pretty fly. (See pics on Flickr.) I walked in to the Avalon just as the waiters stopped handing out the dinner food (dang) and started handing out Twinkies (yay!), but more importantly, there on the stage before me were the Peas themselves (pictured), performing "Pump It," or as it is more commonly known in my household, "That Cell Phone Commercial Song." And then, before I could even catch my breath — and just as I was thinking about how Fergie is all that’s left of Lauryn Hill’s legacy — out pops Wyclef Jean to freestyle with Will.i.am. "My name is Will.i.am!" said Wyclef. "I’m Wyclef!" said Will.i.am. Then they both rapped in Spanish, which, if you’re keeping track, makes two years in a row now that I have heard Wyclef rap in Spanish at a pre-Grammy party. Then they asked the crowd to place their hands in the air and wave them apathetically, and then it was on to bigger and better things…

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The Grammys will be handed out Sunday (check out our coverage here), but we won’t know who scored the most-talked about performance until Monday morning. Who will it be? The show-opening Police? Justin Timberlake and the lucky "My Grammy Moment" competition winner? Rascal Flatts?

Now hold on, there. Someone’s excited to see the country trio perform. (And not just Kelly Clarkson, who’s such a fan she covers them live and has joined them onstage.) They were, after all, 2006′s top-selling act. And when I chatted with lead singer Gary LeVox (pictured, right, with bandmate Joe Don Rooney) last week, he gave me a reason not to make their tribute to country rock a bathroom break:

"We’re gonna do ‘Hotel California’ and ‘Life in the Fast Lane,’" LeVox told me before sounding genuinely concerned that he’ll confuse the words to the latter Eagles hit with those of his band’s recent cover "Life is a Highway." He continued, "Please put a TelePrompTer up: ‘Life in the Fast Lane,’ Gary, not ‘Life is a Highway.’ See, it’s not like a regular concert where you can go, ‘Sing it!’ and hold the mic out [to the audience]. Mary J. and them would be sitting there goin,’ ‘I think he screwed up. That’s the wrong song, I believe, right there.’"

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King of the Grammys: Barry Manilow! Well, we haven’t yet lived to see that day. But the Barry-ster (pictured) was the king of Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy party Tuesday night. As Davis reminded everyone, he gave Davis’ former label, Arista, its very first No. 1 record, and on this particular evening came the announcement that Manilow was about to have his first No. 1 album since the 1970s. It’s a career revivification almost worthy of Davis’ own comeback.

Some say it’s Clive’s ears that have kept him alive all these years well past any reasonable music-biz retirement age. (There was that unpleasant interlude in the late ‘90s where his corporate bosses attempted to put him out to pasture, “but it was corrected,” as Davis told the assembled while introducing the corporate Sony-BMG brass.) Yes, he is responsible for four of the top 10 albums right now. But it really comes down to this damn party. No one in the business wants to lose their invitation to this annual schmoozefest, always the year’s most coveted ticket for insiders. After Clive is gone, I think there’ll be a popular move to have him frozen, just so they can haul him out and have an excuse to keep these parties going in perpetuity.

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Ah, the Grammys. It’s Tuesday night, and somewhere Clive Davis is having his annual party. I wasn’t there, opting instead to hit the LL Cool J/Ciara show at the House of Blues, the Roots jam at the Key Club, and hopefully the late James Blunt H.O.B. show, too — plus, eat dinner, something I neglected to do yesterday.

Instead, here is a list of what I did this evening, jotted down in my trusty notebook while sitting on a luggage cart outside the Mondrian Hotel at midnight (I’ll get to that):

-Sat in traffic going downtown to pick up my credentials. Expected line at Staples Center to take 2 hours. It took 2 minutes. Sat in traffic driving to Sunset Strip.

-At 7 p.m., left car with valet at Mondrian, a nice central location to all pertinent events.

-Walked to Saddle Ranch to eat chicken fried steak with EW’s own Josh Rich. Received text message alerting me that no press was allowed at LL Cool J show. Decided show does not exist if I cannot write about it. Had another beer.

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Ah, Grammy week. Thousands of music industry folks descend on Los Angeles, organize fabulous parties and all-star concert jams, and then spend the next three to four days sitting in traffic trying to get to them. Also, there are awards handed out at some point. Monday night was chock-full of exciting entertainment opportunities, including the Black Eyed Peas, a MusicCares benefit honoring James Taylor, and some sort of Kanye West something-or-another that featured Foreigner offspring Samantha Ronson as the DJ.

All of that was skipped for two very important reasons:

1. Fall Out Boy
2. The Fugees

Yes! The Fugees! Remember them? In 1996, they put out a hip-hop album so good, even I bought it, and in 1996 I was still listening mostly to the Indigo Girls! The Fugees! The press release promised a crowd of 8,000 people rocking out to the refugee sound right smack in the middle of Hollywood and Vine, “the world’s most famous intersection” (pictured). This was not to be missed.

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