Good reasons for not going to the Grammys

Regina Spektor is up for her first Grammy this weekend. Is she going to go?

No.

This isn't a principled stand against the idea of judging music and awarding prizes in this way.

She's got a reason:

"Hi there friends! I was so happy to be nominated for my first Grammy!" she wrote. "I would have definitely gone to L.A. for all the fun, in a party dress and with bells on, if I wasn't so super pregnant at the moment. (!!!!!!!!!!). Jack and I are very excited to be expecting a brand new human together!!!"

Of course, this might just have been a very clever ruse to avoid having to go to the Grammys, albeit one that calls for almost as much commitment as Keith Moon's "pretending to be dead for 35 years" Grammy swerve plan.

Spektor at the feast: Regina acts like the Queen

It looks like Regina Spektor had a smaller band thrown off the Secret Garden bill at the weekend, which is a bit disappointing. Electric Banana reports:

Eddy Temple-Morris, the curator of the Temple of Boom for SGP, took to Twitter to slam the singer. He Tweeted: “I’m heartbroken. Regina Spektor has thrown her toys out of the pram and threatened to pull unless we cancel the wonderful @cleanbandit.”

The official reason was that the bass from Clean Bandit was reverberating through the entire site, but site rumours are suggesting Spektor's demands were motivated more by worry at the relative size of crowds at her stage and Clean Bandit's.

Whatever the motivation, Eddy Temple Morris (who curates the festival) is going to put things right:

Clean Bandit will headline Temple Of Boom next year l promise. In a slot that even Axl Rose couldn't pull. @cleanbandit

— Eddy Temple-Morris (@eddyTM) July 28, 2013

Spektor doesn't appear to have addressed the story anywhere, yet. Clean Bandit, however, are making out like bandits on the publicity. It could turn out to be the best thing that's ever happened to them, although it clearly didn't feel like that at the time.

[Thanks to @houmansadri for the tip.]

America the beautiful

It's not often I wish I had US TV over the UK stuff, but the late-night line-up this Thursday is quite something:

1/31 - Lisa Loeb on Jay Leno [NBC]
1/31 - Tegan and Sara on Jimmy Kimmel[ABC]
1/31 - Regina Spektor on Carson Daly [NBC]

[via Absolute Punk]

Embed and breakfast man: Regina Spektor

Enjoy, while you can, Regina Spektor from last night's Jimmy Fallon:



[Buy: Regina Spektor Live In London]
[via The Audio Perv]

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Punctuation

Bill Walsh calls for a shift at Filter:

Filter magazine's review of the Regina Spektor album "Far" begins:

The lowercase 'f' in far is telling.

No, it isn't.

The review continues to lowercase the album title (and, in an extra added bonus blow to reading comprehension, uses neither italics nor quotation marks), presumably because that's the way it is on the album cover, while uppercasing "Regina Spektor" (also lowercase on the album cover) and "Begin to Hope," a previous Spektor album whose cover art also lowercases both title and artist. ("Begin to Hope" and the other pre-"Far" albums merit italics.)

Regina Spektor:

Good news: Assuming it doesn't leak online and have its launch date brought forward, Regina Spektor's new album will be with us on June 23rd [US release date]. There's going to be a "world" tour in support, or at least a tour of parts of the world.

Regina Spektor felled by ears

We understand she's going to be alright, but nasty for a moment: Regina Spektor collapsed minutes before last night's Nashville gig. An infection of the inner ear gave her megavertigo, and down she went. The gig, of course, was cancelled; it's now been shuffled off to next month.

LollapalYouTube

It's been Lollapalooza Weekend, and some of the footage is starting to turn up on YouTube:

Satellite Party doing Been Caught Stealing
Muse doing Hysteria
Daft Punk doing Technologic
Regina Spektor doing Fidelity
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists doing Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?
Yeah Yeah Yeahs doing Date With The Night

Of course, some of this has the quality of the roughest field recordings, but worth seeing nevertheless.