Les Paul was recently named the 2008 honoree in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's American Master Series, with a week-long of tributes that culminated with an all-star concert in Cleveland, featuring Slash, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora, Patti Smith's guitarist Lenny Kaye and many more.

At 92, Paul is one of the few who can say, "They're all old friends of mine."

And the guitar innovator remains charmingly humble about the honor, crediting others for his success. "Those were the fellas that made the guitar possible today," he tells Spinner. "I'm lucky they were looking for a Les Paul -- like Paul McCartney, Slash, Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page. They all wanted to have the guitar and if it weren't for them, I probably wouldn't be known at all."

If only Lou Reed were so modest.

One of the greatest and longest-running bets in rock 'n' roll (second perhaps only to those pertaining to Keith Richards' lifespan) has been decided. The Flaming Lips' years-in-the-making film 'Christmas on Mars' was released before Guns N' Roses' decades-in-the-making CD 'Chinese Democracy.'

"I've heard that 'Chinese Democracy' is coming out at the end of November," Lips' ringleader Wayne Coyne says. Noting that 'Christmas on Mars' hit DVD shelves just last week, he tells Spinner, "I think we beat them. Whew!"

Congratulations to all those collecting odds. But remember: art is not a competition. In an earlier conversation with Spinner, while discussing the Flaming Lips' annual Halloween skeleton march, Coyne said, "If [the Lips] had to be just a rock band -- if Axl Rose called us up and asked us to be his backing band -- we wouldn't want to be. It's not enough for us. We like the idea of being utterly unrestricted. If we want to make a movie, we make a movie."

Apparently, you can even bet on it.

After a series of sold-out tours, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay -- aka Justice -- are releasing the mayhem on DVD. The film, titled 'A Cross the Universe' (get it?), documents the duo's recent global trek, and hits proverbial shelves on Dec. 9. That might explain the non-stop rave next door. Check out an exclusive clip below.

It would seem that everyone is a Tom Jones fan, including two Irish gentlemen best known as Bono and the Edge.

To that end, U2's lead singer and guitarist wrote the song 'Sugar Daddy,' featured on Jones' first new U.S. album in 15 years, especially for the Welsh superstar, which also finds the Edge playing on the track.

Although Jones says he immediately loved the song, he was a little concerned with the title. "I said, 'Is that what you think of me?'" Jones tells Spinner. "Bono said, 'I just like the sound of sugar daddy.'"

The modest Jones was also worried that some of the lines would come across as bragging, but Bono quickly quelled Jones' fears by assuring him he was the right man for the job. "When I first heard it, I said, 'I hope it [doesn't] come across [like I'm] blowing my own trumpet.' And Bono said, 'Well, you're the only guy that's got balls enough to sing this thing.' So, I said OK."

And who are we to argue ... or check.

If you've never heard of Paul McCartney's side project the Fireman -- or if you have and never connected the dots -- you're not to blame. The first two LPs, 1993's 'Strawberry Oceans Ship Forest' and 1998's 'Rushes,' created in partnership with producer and fellow bass player Youth, formerly of Killing Joke and currently working with the Orb, were more than credible takes on ambient electronic music. However, these works were released almost in secret and bearing nothing musically or nominally to identify them as emanating from the man best known for his "silly love songs."

For the upcoming third album carrying the Fireman brand, 'Electric Arguments,' Sir Paul has emerged from his experimental closet, as he and his collaborator are proudly owning up to the eclectic array of sounds and -- a Fireman first -- vocals found on 'Arguments.' McCartney and Youth talk to Spinner about the collaborative process, along the way vehemently defending the commercial prospects for the album.

The previous Fireman albums were released with very little fanfare. Are you worried that the larger profile for 'Electric Arguments' will confuse or alienate the average Paul McCartney fan?

PM: They always say that! "You think you're gonna alienate your fans?" It's a weird idea, isn't it ... putting out a record to alienate people.
Y: I think this is a fan's ultimate album. I mean, I'm a massive fan, and this is a fan's record, really.
PM: I'm not worried about alienating anyone. I think, you know, our fans are fans. They're pretty cool people.

They are known for their big piano-driven ballads like 'Somewhere Only We Know,' but on 'Perfect Symmetry,' British trio Keane's third album, the band wrote themselves a new template.

"There's the sort of poppyness of it and the funky-ness, and I suppose the dancability of the whole thing," frontman Tom Chaplin tells Spinner . "It was just a stream of consciousness. It's just what came out -- what was kind of inside us."

The three piece -- Chaplin, drummer Richard Hughes, and pianist and main-songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley -- took the cuts the latter member wrote to Paris, followed by Berlin, where they self-produced the record earlier this year.

"Everything that we recorded and everything that we added to those songs, really just had this joie de vie about it," Chaplin explained. "We were just excited the whole way through. We were just like little kids looking at each other with starry eyes and just very excited about what we were doing."

Heatseeker Brett Dennen just can't get enough of the road. The West Coast singer-songwriter has unveiled plans for a three-month headlining tour for early 2009. Perhaps it's a reaction to all those years he never left home: prior to attending UC Santa Cruz, Dennen was homeschooled.

"I spent a lot of time drawing, painting, and being creative," Dennen tells Spinner. "Though I may not have been a songwriter at a young age, I believe my homeschooling gave me enough time to explore my creative side."

They raised him well. In addition to his cathartic, often uplifting lyrics, Dennen has used his increasing popularity to rally behind the issues he believes in. During a sold-out show in San Francisco last week, Dennen balanced enthusiasm for a new president with regret that California's Prop 8 passed. "We can do better than that," he told the audience.

Beck's sister, singer-songwriter Alyssa Suede Campbell, didn't always want to follow in her family's musical footsteps. The 23-year-old was once a young championship figure skater who became involved in the sport since the age of five. Campbell was preparing for the Olympics but her goal ended at an early age.

"When I was 12, I broke my tailbone," she tells Spinner. "I did continue to compete for another year but it just became more stressful and painful than it was pleasure at that point. So I decided to quit the skating and I went to boarding school in Oregon to get an education."

It's not that Campbell, who hails from Los Angeles, happened to stumble upon music. After all she grew up in a musical family: her father, David, is a composer and an arranger; mother Raven Kane is also a composer; and, well, we mentioned Beck. Now Campbell is, in her words, "joining the family business" with the recent release of her debut EP, 'Black and White in Color' (under the name Alyssa Suede).

Duran Duran bassist John Taylor remembers one thing about filming the music videos in Sri Lanka for the band's 1982 album 'Rio': elephants.

"It's amazing that we kind of went with that," Taylor tells Spinner. "We were all city boys. But the culture was so strong there, and we had a lot of faith in [video director] Russell Mulcahy, that you just kind of went with it. We never really put a lot of thought into our videos."

The experience in Sri Lanka is one of the things discussed in a recently released Classic Albums DVD documentary about 'Rio,' which is widely considered Duran Duran's best album. It features interviews with original band members John Taylor, Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor, along with Bob Geldof, former band manager Paul Berrow and others.

OK, so despite his name, Pop Levi is not the father of department-store denim. But the former Ladytron bassist is the proud parent of Soul Film®, a self-aware indie-film style that suits his self-aware indie-rock stylings like a favorite pair of 501 jeans. This intentionally lo-fi cinematic approach forms the backbone of 'You Don't Got to Run,' a new documentary that follows Levi's European adventures working the press in support of his latest solo release, 'Never, Never Love.' It was shot by Levi's partner, Lucky Beaches, using the latest YouTube technology: cell phones and pocket cameras.

"I'm fascinated and ecstatic with the possibilities that modern-day consumer technology has given us," Levi tells Spinner. "We started making obscure, psychedelic filmettes on cell phones and pocket cameras because of the immediacy of the technology and the feel that can be achieved when being inventive with these 'low-quality' formats."

If nothing else, apparently you can now make movies on the same gadget you once used only to call your date to say you were stuck in traffic. 'You Don't Got to Run' premieres in Los Angeles on November 24.