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It's another red carpet at another prestigious celebrity happening for SPIN.com, this time under the flashing bulbs of Las Vegas’ main drag.

Hard Rock Hotel and Casino invited us to the grand opening of their new club, Wasted Space, where guests like Dave Navarro, Slash, Reggie Bush, Jenna Jameson, Good Charlotte, and more are scheduled to help break in the new venue, and Gavin Rossdale and Camp Freddy are set to perform.

Watch the videos below in our SPIN Live player starting after midnight EST on Saturday night, July 19, for all the red carpet and behind-the-scenes goodness.

We're in the thick of the summer's dog days and you're either loathing or adoring 'em, depending on how well you’re air conditioner works. But our sweat glands have been heavily secreting as well, as SPIN.com stalked the red carpet at VH1 Rock Honors' tribute to the Who; worked up stern warnings to superstars like Bruce Springsteen and Madonna to stay alive and avoid getting heinously remixed like Johnny Cash; and sat down with Anthony Green, who played us a little ditty. Now, Cool down:

What we learned from VH1 Rock Honors' tribute to the Who: Any band that can bring David Duchovny, Margaret Cho, and Wayne Coyne together must be important. Armed with miscellaneous gifts including glow sticks and a marshmallow cheeseburger, SPIN.com correspondent Ben Lashes berated the A-listers and rock superstars in a hilarious video available here.

What we learned from Johnny Cash: If you've made great music, don't pass away because someone will screw it all up.We listed The Most Likely Living Superstars to Be Posthumously Exploited as music fans everywhere hung their heads in shame at the release of Johnny Cash Remixed.

More highlights from this week…

AUDIO/VIDEO:
-- Circa Survive's Anthony Green Plays Solo, Chats Inspiration
"The raucous frontman-gone-solo treats SPIN.com to a rendition of 'Dear Child (I've Been Dying to Reach You),' off his forthcoming debut, Avalon, and discusses the tune in a video interview."
-- Exclusive: New I'm From Barcelona Stream, "Paper Planes"
"The Swede popsters premier the vivacious, grand first single off their forthcoming sophomore set, Who Killed Harry Houdini?"
-- Premiere of Pretty Good Dance Moves Video, Starring Flight of the Conchords Comedienne Kristen Schaal
"Check out this funky fresh clip for electro-pop crew Pretty Good Dance Moves’ 'Demons Dancing,' featuring Schaal, a bike-messenger beau, and -- you guessed it -- some sweet dance moves."

NEWS:
-- Exclusive Interview with Perry Farrell About Lollapalooza '08
"The loveably spacey Lollapalooza founder and onetime Jane's Addiction frontman chats about keeping the 'alternative nation' alive."
-- Nas Unveils Summer Tour
"Hip-hop legend to span the U.S. with Talib Kweli in between appearances on the Rock the Bells tour, in support of new, untitled album." Check out this week's Artist of the Day on the Queensbridge, NY MC as well.
-- New Jenny Lewis Album Due in September, Tour with Conor Oberst to Follow
"Rilo Kiley frontwoman-cum-solo songstress preps second full-length, Acid Tongue, for a fall release, plays dates with sometime-Bright Eyes maestro."

IT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT:
-- Torche Terrorize Toronto
“Miami metal-stoners support avant Japanese rockers Boris at Canadian stopover.”
-- 311, Snoop Dogg Amuse Coney Island Revelers
"At America's playground, '90s mainstays recall the spoils of the past decade-plus with thugged-out party jams and spitfire, reggae-tinged rap-rock hits."

REVIEWS:
-- Black Kids, Partie Traumatic (Almost Gold/Columbia)
-- The Hold Steady, Stay Positive (Vagrant)
-- Jay Reatard, Singles 2006-2007 (In the Red)
-- Wire, Object 47 (PinkFlag) -- Daedelus, Love to Make Music To (Ninja Tune)

San Francisco (live review!), New York, and even the riotous, pissed-off songstress' onetime hometown of Chicago have all had their taste, and now, to quell fervent fan demand, alt-rocker Liz Phair will deliver her 1993 opus Exile in Guyville to Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Boston this August.

More on SPIN.com:
>>Liz Phair Revisits 'Guyville' in S.F.
>>ATO to Reissue Liz Phair's 'Exile in Guyville'
>>Liz Phair to Perform 'Exile in Guyville' in NYC

The reunion gigs, launched to honor the album's 15th anniversary and its re-vamped re-release via ATO records, will hit Philadelphia's Theatre of the Living Arts Aug. 27, Washington, DC's 9:30 Club Aug. 28, and at the Paradise in Boston Aug. 29.

Who? Like the four-piece's New York City stomping grounds, the Vanguard are a bubbling melting pot of sounds, influences, and ethnic backgrounds -- yet exude an air distinctly their own. Formed by eastern European immigrants David Zawadzki (guitars) and Rasko Ristic (bass), and rounded out by Argentinean Luciano Rovner, the trio soon meet their frontman -- a Virginian named Aaron Barr -- and hit the Big Apple's well-tread live circuit. And now, after a steady regiment of gigs, the quartet are culling buzz with both their live sets and The Vanguard EP, their recently released debut, which spouts ethereal guitars, haunting vocals, and spare yet complementary rhythms.

Their latest: The Vanguard EP, which was released June 28. Currently, the quartet are prepping material for a debut full-length.

Recommended if you like… U2, New Order, French Kicks

Now Hear This: The Vanguard, "Rio" (DOWNLOAD MP3)

Attention Bands! The Vanguard was selected for our Buzzcatcher section via the band's electronic press kit, which was submitted to SPIN.com via Sonicbids, a website aiding up-and-coming bands. To be considered for a Buzzcatcher spotlight, sign up at sonicbids.com and submit your music today!

This past Wednesday, SPIN.com premiered its interview footage from the red carpet outside the VH1 Rock Honors tribute to the Who, featuring our man Ben Lashes unleashing shenanigans on everyone from Wayne Coyne to Pete Townshend. We also gave you a glimpse into the post-event After-Party, where well-knowns hob-nobbed and exchanged fond memories of getting drunk and emulating Keith Moon by blowing up their Rock Band drum kits.

More on SPIN.com:
>>Red Carpet Footage from VH1 Rock Honors
>>VH1 Rock Honors After Party
>>VH1 Rock Honors Adds Tenacious D

And now we'd love for you to see what happened in between -- the meat in the Who's celebratory sandwich if you will. So if you haven't already happened across them or your TiVo malfunctioned during last night's broadcast, enjoy these clips of full performances from the evening's participants (and head to the program's web page for more):

View Videos >>

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The Flaming Lips, Tommy Medley

Tenacious D, "Squeeze Box"

Pearl Jam, "Love Reign O'er Me"

Foo Fighters, "Young Man Blues"

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As we travel around the country this summer from festival to festival, one of the topics at the forefront of everyone's mind from roadie to fan, journalist to musician is the upcoming presidential election. And with this new feature, SPIN.com chats with artists backstage, gathering their opinions on the most important issues in '08.

More on SPIN.com:
>> Rogue Wave, Asleep at Heaven's Gate (Brushfire)
>>Rogue Wave Take a Dip in 'Lake Michigan'
>> Rogue Wave Washes Over the District

Today's clip: Rogue Wave, whose frontman Zach Rogue and drummer Pat Spurgeon chatted backstage at Bonnaroo about their opinions on the election and future of our country.

And to do your part, head to headcount.org, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization devoted to voter registration and participation in democracy.

Click the button here to visit their site, and register to vote!

Now Watch This: Rogue Wave sounding off on the election

As the Pritzer Pavilion’s signature shards of steel swallowed the mid-summer eve’s sun last night (July 17), the budding Seattle five-piece howled an a cappella ode from their first EP Sun Giant, drawing all walks of the Central Park of Chicago denizens -- especially wild-haired, barefoot children and their hip mothers -- to a vortex of harmonizing energy.

More on SPIN.com:
>>Album Review
>>"White Winter Hymnal" Video
>>Artist of the Day

Part of Music Without Borders, a free concert series sponsored by the city, time constraints would only allot the band a half hour, which is not such a bad thing for a crew enduring their very first tour. But the hipster Beach Boys vocal parts never missed a note. And coupled with Frank Gehry’s 120-foot, orchestral masterpiece of a venue, otherwise stomping grounds for the Chicago Symphony, every baroque guitar pluck and falsetto beamed pristine towards the sky.

Some of the infinite, mountain-quiet production was indeed naturally lost on tracks from their debut LP, but instead the Foxes improvised with jokes about each others' "weird" dreams, and selected more rocking tunes from early works, with encore duties going to the Band Of Horses b-side-a-like, "Mykonos," with percussion entering tribal mode as the moon fully replaced the sun. And par for their course, the five-piece slowed the track to a meditative pace before stacking vocal upon vocal around the park-outing-worthy, organic reverb exit phrase, "You go wherever you go today."

More photos from this show >>

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Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold / Photo by Laura Gray

Keyboardist Casey Westcott / Photo by Laura Gray

Bassist Christian Wargo / Photo by Laura Gray

Guitarist Skyler Skjelset / Photo by Laura Gray

Wescott strikes a chord with the crowd. / Photo by Laura Gray

Pecknold's Fleet of falsetto. / Photo by Laura Gray

Skjelset takes a breather. / Photo by Laura Gray

Pecknold may be pictured in black and white, but his band's songs are all bright colors. / Photo by Laura Gray

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Pardon the jaded adult inside us (especially because he's hungry and hasn't napped in a while), but generally, the paradox of pop stars reworking their adult-themed lyrics for Sesame Street's preternaturally peppy musical performances comes off a tad creepy to anyone over 13 months. Of course, a built-in bias leads us to be relatively less appalled by Feist's reworking of "1234" (which has been adjusted to wax poetic about "monsters walking across the floor") in a segment set to air on Aug. 11.

More Recent Lists on SPIN.com
>>The Most Likely Living Superstars to Be Posthumously Exploited
>>Musicians in Danger of Graveside Robbery
>>Best Fourth Songs

Fortunately, there remain enough clear-cut examples of disturbing interactions between musicians and elementarily educated Muppets to poke fun at while leaving Leslie out of the muck. And if the underlying throughline connecting guest spots by the likes of R.E.M., *NSync, and Hootie and the Blowfish could be summarized in one phrase, it would probably be: Kids, don't talk to strangers.

Read on for our list of the five most supremely slack-jawing Sesame singalongs:

Check out the list on Page 2... >>
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1. R.E.M.
A few dudes playing music in some amorphous outdoor landscape, helped along by amorphously furry, brightly colorful "furry happy monsters feeling glad," before suddenly, "something has gone wrooooong, faces have turned loooong" and there's nothing but "cryyyyying," as the Muppets begin to dramatically "sob and whine." Until Michael Stipe reminds everyone, "C'mon monsters, you don't have to cry, we can be happy," before bobbing and flapping with an unfettered glee that feels entirely too instinctual. Basically, it's the trajectory of an acid trip condensed into three-plus terrifying minutes, and is eerily more kindred to this classic Mr. Show clip than appropriate for children.

2. Billy Joel and Marlee Matlin
In this fantastically fucked clip, Joel serenades Oscar the Grouch with "Just the Way You Are" as deaf celeb of the moment Matlin sign-interprets the tune beside his garbage can. The whole scene is presumably intended to serve as an uneasy metaphor for acceptance of people's differences, whether they were born with an involuntary hearing impairment or, ya know, choose to live in filth. Outside of maybe Lionel Richie's "Hello" video, the world had never seen such a pandering musical paean to physical disability.

3. 'NSync
While a hearty honorable mention goes to their peers in the Backstreet Boys, the sight of Lance Bass badgering Bert and Ernie ever so gently to simply "believe in yourself" is just simmering with subtext too good to pass over. But getting a blast from Justin Timberlake's post-pubescent, pre-street-cred past -- donning a hat he presumably stole from the set of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer while snapping along with his cohorts as if they were a self-help barbershop quartet -- is tickle-me-queasy priceless.

4. Hootie and the Blowfish
Offering "a little hand from a grown up friend" seems less a gesture indicative of Sesame Street's guiding principles than an invitation to be kidnapped and taken across the street to Barney's playhouse. The most perverse aspect of Hootie and his Blowfish's reworked "Hold My Hand" is that it's drastically less noxious as a PSA about conscientious street crossing. Of course, when one of the Muppets squeaks, "That feels good" after being offered one of the Blowfish's big, strong man hands, and then amorphously moans with delight, the purple-people-eating man claws of Barney's warm embrace suddenly seem like safer hospice.

5. James Taylor
Maybe it's the moustache that gives this a calamitous cringeworthiness. Maybe it's the storied tales of Taylor's drug abuse and suicidal tendencies during the '70s. No, it's probably the group of small children screaming, "Jelly Kelly come" with uniquely fervent delight as the "Fire and Rain"-man plucks his guitar and no doubt thinks to himself, "Enjoy your inability to project discomforting euphemisms onto harmless kids' tunes now, because in 20 years you'll be making love to a tourniquet and calling monsters much less innocuous than Mr.Snuffleupagus your best friend."

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