3OH!3
Photo: MTV News

MTV's Too Fast for Love Tour drew to a close on June 11, in Philadelphia, after kicking off back in April. And headliners Cobra Starship, Travie McCoy and 3OH!3 performed for a good cause: The concert festival was organized to raise awareness of and promote testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

The sold-out crowd included students from Roger Williams University, who packed the front row after crushing the competition in the GYT: Get Yourself Tested Campus Challenge. In winning the contest, those students underlined the importance of getting tested for STDs. And on Sunday, which marks annual National HIV Testing Day, you can do the same.

A wealth of information on how to track down free HIV-testing locations and events is available at MTV's GYTnow.org. Readers can also find important facts about HIV/AIDS and tips on how to bring up testing with partners or health care providers.

The campus challenge was part of the MTV-sponsored GYT campaign, mounted in response to some alarming statistics. Among them is the fact that one in two young people will get an STD by age 25 — many without knowing it. The GYT campaign seeks to create a social movement around getting tested.

Aimed specifically at college students, RWU beat out 166 schools this year for the top spot in the challenge by successfully recruiting a little more than 500 participants who agreed to undergo testing. Kirstie Goodwin, a junior and one of RWU's Student Health and Wellness Educators, or H.A.W.E.S., led RWU to the win, recruiting 30 percent of the final tally.

"I think raising awareness can make a difference. A lot of people on campus didn't realize that [RWU] Health Services even does testing," she said. "After we did the GYT Campus Challenge, they ran out of HIV tests in Health Services because so many people wanted to get tested."

"Sexual health and sexuality have always been on RWU's radar," said Donna Darmody, director of health education for the H.A.W.E.S. program. "Students are encouraged to have honest talks about sex right from the get-go because they are comfortable about the topic; they're more inclined to be safe."

Exclusive footage from the Too Fast for Love Tour, as well as blog posts by winning students about their trip to Philly, is available on Think.MTV.com.

Will you get tested? Share your thoughts in the comments.

• 3OH!3
• Cobra Starship
• Travie McCoy

Cobra Starship's Alex Suarez and Ryland Blackinton
Photo: MTV News

You could call MTV's Musical March Madness many things (and, in light of Tokio Hotel's Final Four ousting, some of their fans already are), but "predictable" is not one of them.

This was, after all, a tournament determined entirely by your votes, which meant that, really, anything was possible — a fact we quickly realized when three of the four #1 seeds lost in the opening round (and the fourth lost in the second). It was a tournament defined by upsets and run by underdogs, be they the Hold Steady or Panic! at the Disco, Patrick Stump or Alice in Chains — or, most notably, Tokio and Coheed and Cambria, two bands who were basically tossed into the tournament at the last minute and made it to the Final Four. In Coheed's case, they made it all the way to the championship game, where they'll face off against My Chemical Romance — you know, a band that hasn't released a new album in almost four years and is currently without a drummer.

Basically, this whole thing made absolutely zero sense. Watching it unfold was a total blast, but attempting to recap the whole thing has seemed nearly impossible. That's why we turned to a pair of sportscasting legends who know a thing or two about pulling off the impossible — CSPN analysts Dick Bagwell and Vincent Twice — to do the recapping for us.

(And yes, we're aware they look very much like Cobra Starship's Ryland Blackinton and Alex Suarez; we'll just chalk that up to a coincidence.)

With voting now under way in our championship matchup over on the Newsroom blog, we figured now would be a pretty good time to roll out Bagwell and Twice's tournament recap. Watch it while you vote. Perhaps it will help sway you one way or the other (that Dick is a persuasive guy — trust us).

We'll crown our Musical March Madness champion on Wednesday.

Who are you pulling for in the championship game: My Chemical Romance or Coheed and Cambria? Let us know in the comments below! And make your vote count by hitting the Newsroom blog.

• MTV News' Band Bracketology

• Cobra Starship
• My Chemical Romance
• Coheed and Cambria

Gabe Saporta
Photo: MTV News

When MTV News spoke to Cobra Starship magnate Gabe Saporta last week, he knew about his band's upcoming tour with 3OH!3, he just wasn't allowed to talk about it yet.

It seems that even though 3OH!3's Nathan Motte tweeted Saporta about the jaunt, some of the finer points weren't exactly squared away. After some cajoling, Saporta agreed to talk about the tour, under the promise that we wouldn't run anything until the information was good and ready — and now it is. So here's what Saporta had to say about his band's hand-gesture-heavy spring tour with 3OH!3.

"Basically, they had no idea who to tour with. They were like, 'Listen, we have a hand gesture, you guys have a hand gesture, you might call it a gang sign, but we're not really in a gang, so why don't we combine forces and have a hand-gesture tour?' And we were like, 'Yeah, let's do it,' " Saporta laughed. "It had nothing to do with music, or the fact that we're both very tall bands, we're both very funny, good-looking, chiseled abs, stunning features — it's just about the [hand signs]. ... We're not actually going to be on the tour. It's just going to be hand puppets."

He's kidding, we think. And while both acts do share an affinity for the occasional manipulation of digits, there was another reason they agreed to hit the road together: Everyone involved is exceedingly tall.

"Nat is a huge dude. He's taller than [Cobra Starship guitarist] Ryland [Blackinton]," Saporta said. "I think it goes Nat, Ryland, me, [CS bassist Alex] Suarez and — wait, who's taller: [3OH3!'s] Sean [Foreman] or [CS keytarist] Victoria [Asher]? I guess it depends on Victoria's heels — so Sean, Victoria, [CS drummer] Nate [Novarro]. We'll definitely have a lot of basketball games on tour."

And it doesn't stop there. Also joining the tour is Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy — who, in addition to having a solo album in the works, also shatters the 6-foot mark. But, in all seriousness, height has nothing to do with it. Saporta said everyone involved in the tour shares similar ideals, including a love for mashing genres.

"The thing that brings us together is that, both of our bands, our first love is rock or punk rock, but we're also kids that grew up in this generation that listens to lots of different kinds of music," he said. "And I think we have the same kind of aesthetic of, like, not being afraid to blend it in, and also we don't take ourselves that seriously. We have fun with it. It's going to be a fun tour, man."

• Cobra Starship
• 3OH!3

Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta
Photo: MTV News

Late last year, Fall Out Boy fans were shocked when Pete Wentz posted a series of rather grisly photos on his official site, showing him sporting a mean shiner, a knock on his head and a bloody gash across his nose.

Wentz offered no explanation for the injuries — well, actually, he offered 21 less-than-serious ones ("Watched 'Fight Club' in, like, super hi-def, dude," "Called Perez [Hilton] Will.I.Am," etc.) — which left pretty much everyone wondering what the heck had actually happened.

Well, Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta knows. But he's not about to tell.

"The mystery of Pete Wentz's face is going to be solved pretty soon ... and if I may say so myself, I saved Pete Wentz's life. At least his face," Saporta said. "I was on the plane next to him, I saw him in the morning, leaving Seattle. I sent him a text, like, 'Where you at?' We didn't even know we were on the same plane home. He was like, 'You don't want to see me.' And I just thought he meant he was really tired or something, but ... his whole face was covered and bandaged.

"And so I sat next to him, and he would not stop bleeding. I was cleaning the blood off of him," he continued. "I think the stewardesses thought we were a gay couple, because I kept cleaning him up with tissues, very gently, because I didn't want to screw it up. But that's all I'm going to say about that right now."

And while the thoroughly dinged-up Wentz does make a cameo in Cobra Starship's brand-new video for a remix of "Hot Mess," Saporta said the injuries were legit and not, as some have speculated, part of some massive viral campaign. Unless Wentz wants them to be, that is.

"I know the whole story, yeah. It's up to Pete to reveal it when he wants. But we definitely documented the whole thing," he laughed. "Pete likes to turn everything into a viral thing, so if he's gonna do it, I'm gonna let him do it. It is his face. But I will say that I saved it, so Pete, you owe me one."

At press time, Wentz still hadn't revealed what happened.

• Cobra Starship
• Fall Out Boy

Gabe Saporta
Photo: Ben Rose/WireImage

It wasn't very long ago that Cobra Starship weren't even a band, let alone certified hitmakers. Originally little more than the dream of Midtown frontman Gabe Saporta with a song in a Samuel L. Jackson flick, they hung around for a few years before breaking through to the mainstream in 2009 with "Good Girls Go Bad," their party-hearty anthem featuring "Gossip Girl" star Leighton Meester. Now they count Weezer's Rivers Cuomo and 30 Seconds to Mars' Jared Leto among their most fervent fans.

So, needless to say, they know a thing or two about making it big. And with MTV News' Rock Week in full swing, we decided to ask Saporta to name his favorite new band of 2010 (don't forget to check out Paramore firecracker Hayley Williams' picks). In keeping with the scale of his 2010 aspirations, which include world domination, he's gone international. Oh, and just to complete the circle, they've already gotten some "Gossip Girl" love. Here's his pick to click in 2010:

"This year, I got my eye on a French band called the Plastiscines. It's been too long that rock and roll has been dominated by bros. Or bros with a chick singer. (Or bros with a keytar player for that matter.) Once in a while, a group of girls comes along to kick us in the balls and remind us that rock and roll is not a boys' club. The Plastiscines are that band.

"Mixing a '60s aesthetic with an '80s post-punk sound, I was blown away when I saw them live. They shred. Hard. And I'm excited to hear what new sh-- they drop this year. Check out 'Barcelona' — which was produced by Butch Walker — to hear the range of what this band is capable of."

The Plastiscines' American debut, About Love, is in stores now.

• Music That Will Rock 2010

• Cobra Starship

Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta
Photo: MTV News

Last year was definitely good to the guys (and gal) in Cobra Starship. In 2009, they launched the deceptively brilliant "Cobra Cam" Web series, debuted in the top five with their Hot Mess album and scored a massive hit with "Good Girls Go Bad," a collaboration with "Gossip Girl" star Leighton Meester.

So how do they plan on following up the past 12 months? By taking their party-hearty message global — and then hitting the States with a mysterious co-headlining tour.

"This year we're taking Cobra worldwide," CS main man Gabe Saporta told MTV News on the People's Choice Awards red carpet. "We're going to a bunch of places we haven't been yet ... then in April we're doing a co-headlining tour with our boys — we can't announce who it is yet — but it's going to be an amazing tour. Anyone who's a fan of Cobra is definitely a fan of these dudes. It's gonna be awesome."

They're also setting their sights on something smaller: TV screens, with hopes of a cameo on the fourth season of AMC's angsty "Mad Men." It's a move that would require them to tone down the DayGlo (not to mention travel back in time), but they're willing to do it if necessary.

"I would love to be one of those lounge bands on 'Mad Men.' It takes place in the early '60s, [and we wouldn't be able to play] a cool song, because all those guys are uptight," Saporta said. "Then again, there's all those hippies from downtown. Maybe we could be hippies and get into a fight with Don Draper and he could beat us up."

• Cobra Starship

30 Seconds to Mars' Tomo Milicevic and Jared Leto
Photo: MTV News

In keeping with the grand tradition of pretty much everything they do, 30 Seconds to Mars' upcoming This Is War album will feature — no lie — 2,000 different covers, each showing an image of a fan.

And, unbeknownst to them, Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta too.

Confused? Well, let us get you up to speed. Back in June, as they were putting the finishing touches on War, 30STM decided to involve their fans in the creation of the album artwork, asking them to submit pictures of themselves. The band would then select the 2,000 best images, which would be used as covers for the album itself and shipped randomly to stores around the world.

Seeing this as a relatively huge opportunity, 30 Seconds to Mars' fanbase sprung into action, inundating the band with all kinds of images. And, seeing this as a way to play a pretty amazing prank, so did Saporta. He sent in a photo of himself and sat back and waited, never expecting that he'd actually make the cut.

Only, he did. Of course, he didn't reveal this until Thursday, (November 12), when he was talking to MTV News about something else entirely (in this case, Weezer's Rivers Cuomo). During the interview, he randomly mentioned the 2,000 covers project, and then let it slip that he would be featured on one of them.

"I'm on one of the covers," Saporta laughed. "I made it."

We didn't believe him, but he insisted it was true. As luck would have it, we were due to sit down with Jared Leto and company later that afternoon. So, naturally, we had to ask them if Saporta had pulled a fast one. Were they aware that they had chosen the lead singer of Cobra Starship as one of their cover stars?

"That's a surprise. But there are all kinds of surprises out there with these album covers," Leto told MTV News. "We looked at each photo, and yeah, it was a royal pain in the ass, but worth it. I mean, 2,000 record covers is a lot ... to look at."

And, in 30 Seconds to Mars' defense, Saporta's grinning mug probably slipped through the cracks — after all, they were looking at a lot of images.

"All the images all amazed us. I mean, you have people that you would never think would submit. I mean, I think we might have had a few pictures submitted from prison," Leto laughed. "And then we got some from people on the opposite side of the spectrum too. And that was the best part of the experiment to me — you see this cross-section of people that's pretty beautiful."

So, aside from Saporta, who else made the cut? Well, Leto didn't want to give away all of his cover stars just yet — though from the sound of things, This Is War truly will feature everyone. Including Leto's mom.

"Everyone [is on a cover] from a stranger, to my mom, to Terry Richardson, to Gabe and on and on and on. And there are surprises. We're not going to release every name that we put out there," he said. "It will be totally random, and I'm hoping that stores don't just have all the same of one cover. ... But it is a giant experiment and it really rests upon all the people that participated. We're so thankful people did. It drove the record company crazy, but it's always good when you can do that."

• 30 Seconds To Mars
• Cobra Starship

Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta
Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images

The video was posted Friday, but Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta didn't see it until Monday. And even though he's watched it about six dozen times since, Saporta still doesn't believe that it's real.

We're talking about an interview clip with Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, posted on MTV.com last week, in which he says that, if he could tour with any band ever, he'd pick Cobra Starship.

Seriously.

"You might be thinking that's crazy, but I really dig [them]," Cuomo says in the video. "I dig their attitude. ... They've got a very 21st-century outlook. They don't take themselves too seriously. They're there to have a party, put on a good show. That, to me, is the kind of band you want to tour with."

Obviously, Saporta was blown away by the comments.

"Honestly, when I first saw it, I was looking at it on a small screen, and I honestly thought that someone made an app. Like, 'Get Rivers to say whatever you want!' or something," Saporta laughed. "I thought it was just a flash app or something. And then I realized it was real, and I was like, 'Holy sh--.' We're all huge Weezer fans. We can't believe it."

Like most, Saporta fell in love with Weezer after buying their 1994 debut, The Blue Album, and the infatuation only grew from there. He's even a huge fan of their just-released Raditude, mostly because he thinks it shares the same kind of party-hard sentiments that his band expounds.

"There's definitely a lot more electronic beats on the new Weezer record, and that's flattering, because he's saying 'I like how they mix up genres,' and I can tell by listening to the new record that he's thinking about that ... it's new and fresh," he said. "You can tell he gets how music is made these days, and he's trying his hand at it. And obviously, we like to party too, so there's that."

But will Cobra Starship actually be able to tour with Weezer? Well, schedule-wise, it's looking good. And even if it wasn't, well, Saporta would make it work for Cuomo and company, no matter what.

"Dude, I would love to make it happen. There are a bunch of holes [in our schedule]. We're trying to figure out what we're doing," he said. "We come back from Australia in March, and then we're going to see. ... We basically have the spring and summer to tour, so if Rivers wants to go out, we're there. No matter what it takes. I'll even do his laundry."

• Cobra Starship
• Weezer

Pete Wentz's tattoo
Photo: http://twitpic.com/n8mqc

Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz isn't just a friend to Cobra Starship frontman Gabe Saporta — he's also his label boss and friendly rival. As a result, the two have been maintaining a prank war for the past few months, culminating in a recent victory for Saporta.

Paying up on a bet he made a few months ago, Wentz got a new tattoo on his leg — a tattoo of Saporta's face.

"Well, I promised Gabe if 'Good Girls Go Bad' went platinum, I would let him pick a tattoo to put on me," Wentz said in a statement. "A man with such humble beginnings, of course, chose a self-portrait." As a result, there is now a permanent mark on Wentz's calf that features Saporta's face and the inscription "Gabey Baby Made Me Go Bad."

This is merely the latest shot in the public prank war that has been going on between Wentz and Saporta for months. Last month at the MTV Video Music Awards, Wentz wore a T-shirt that revealed Saporta's phone number, and while he was unable to reveal all the digits on the live broadcast, Saporta's number still got out there, forcing him to change it.

Saporta struck back a few weeks ago at Los Premios MTV, where he announced Wentz's e-mail address (in Spanish!) during the broadcast.

For those keeping score at home, Saporta is definitely in the lead, though according to Wentz, there may still be more to come. "I held through with the bet," Wentz said. "But let's see if Gabe holds through with his end of the bet if Hot Mess goes gold."

• Fall Out Boy
• Cobra Starship

Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta and Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz onstage at Los Premios on October 15, 2009 in Universal City, California
Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images

Last month at the MTV Video Music Awards, Pete Wentz decided to play a joke on his pal Cobra Starship frontman Gabe Saporta by revealing his phone number live on the show.

Luckily for Saporta, MTV producers intervened, and Wentz was never able to complete the prank. Unluckily for him, things didn't end there: Saporta's phone number still got out, but Wentz had nothing to do with it (a vindictive T-shirt printer did).

"So basically this year for the VMAs, MTV was very nice to allow me and Pete to present an award together. Little did I know that Pete had a little practical [joke] planned, where he had my phone number printed on the front of a shirt," Saporta told MTV News on the set of Cobra Starship's "Hot Mess" video. "But MTV was like, 'You know, we're not super-kosher with that, you've got to tape it up.' But still, he took his jacket off and started pulling the tape off to reveal my number.

"My number never got out, but here's the catch: That shirt was professionally printed at some T-shirt place, and of course, someone at the T-shirt factory leaked an image of my shirt on the Internet," he continued. "So I would get, like, 20 calls a day, kids pranking me, singing me songs, whatever. I thought it was funny for a while, and I thought that if I neither confirmed nor denied it, it would go eventually away. Guess what? I was wrong. I was dead wrong."

It seems that the phone calls continued while Saporta and Cobra Starship were over in Europe, and, well, international phone calls are expensive. It got to be so much of a problem that Saporta was finally forced to cancel his number ... and to swear revenge on Wentz.

"In Europe, every call that comes in is a dollar. So if you let it go to voicemail, that's another dollar, so I'm getting 40 calls a day at $2 each ... that's $80 a day, man! I mean, I have a hit single, but I haven't seen a dime from it yet, man! Eighty dollars is a lot of money," Saporta laughed. "So I canceled my old phone number, got a new number, and I made sure that my new phone number has '666' in it, that way no one will mess with me ever — including you, Pete Wentz! By the way, Pete, I know your e-mail address."

And he wasn't kidding: Because last week at the Los Premios MTV '09 awards in Los Angeles, Saporta revealed Wentz's e-mail address live onstage, as he was translating Wentz's between-song banter during Fall Out Boy's set (Saporta is Uruguayan). At the time, Wentz didn't seem to realize what was happening — yet another peril of not speaking Spanish — but he sure did later, when his e-mail account was positively crippled with messages. It seems Saporta had gotten his revenge.

Wentz responded to MTV News' e-mail about Saporta's stunt — and from the sound of things, the prank war between the two sides has only just begun.

"Gabe is a 'Hot Mess' in more ways that one. ... He tried to give my e-mail address away when he was translating my banter into Spanish for fans. E-mail addresses are like nuclear weapons, and the other side only has a moment to react," Wentz wrote. "Trust me, I have something up my sleeve for Mr. Saporta. It feels like we're pranking on each other like siblings. Imagine whose number I could give you (friend/family of Gabe) to convince him of a Midtown reunion [Saporta's former band]. Though I did call him a 'puta' from stage."

To be continued, we're sure ...

• Cobra Starship
• Fall Out Boy

Artists' Sign Language

• Lady Gaga
• Jay-Z
• Cobra Starship
• Tupac
• Wu-Tang Clan

Taylor Swift, Ne-Yo, Katy Perry, More In VMA 2009 Storyboard Sketches

• Ne-Yo
• Taylor Swift
• Katy Perry
• Cobra Starship

MTV.com Exclusive: Cobra Starship

• Cobra Starship

Kanye West, Clipse, Cobra Starship Live In New York

• Kanye West
• Clipse
• Cobra Starship
• Lykke Li
• The Roots

Pete Wentz And Cobra Starship At Angels & Kings In Chicago

• Cobra Starship

Lollapalooza 2008

• Duffy
• Rage Against the Machine
• Radiohead
• Katy Perry
• Raconteurs

Cobra Starship, Wyclef Jean, More At mtvU's Campus Invasion Tour 2008

• Cobra Starship
• Wyclef Jean
• Naledge
• The Spill Canvas

Tila Tequila's New Year's Eve Masquerade 2008: Purple Carpet Arrivals

• Paramore
• Good Charlotte
• Mary J. Blige
• Cobra Starship
• Gym Class Heroes

2007 VMA: Fashion By The Numbers

• Nicole Scherzinger
• Maroon 5
• Yung Joc
• Cobra Starship
• Boys Like Girls

Fall Out Boy, Samuel L. Jackson, Kelly Osbourne, More At "Snakes On A Plane" Premiere

• Fall Out Boy
• Cobra Starship
• The Sounds
• Gym Class Heroes