photo: Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Saturday at Southern California's Coachella music festival was a day of surprise collaborations, including Solange Knowles lending guest vocals to British indie band the xx's cover of Aaliyah's "Hot Like Fire," and an unbilled John Legend joining Italian DJ Benny Benassi in the dance tent for a performance of their brand-new joint single, "Dance the Pain Away." But there was no Saturday surprise collaboration as truly surprising as the one that took place on the Main Stage during French alt-pop band Phoenix's headlining set, when they were joined by…R&B lothario R. Kelly.

Yes, that R. Kelly. This actually happened.

all photos by Debi Del Grande - click to enlargeRumor has it that the Smiths have been repeatedly offered whopping seven-figure sums to headline the Coachella music festival in Southern California's Indio desert, but so far, that longed-for Smiths reunion has been a no-go. However, fans of the legendary Manchester post-punks still got a dose of (Morrissey-free) Smithery at Coachella this year--when the band's seemingly ageless ex-guitarist, Johnny Marr, performed no less than three Smiths classics during his Friday afternoon set in the Mojave Tent.

Lacoste's annual Coachella pool party [Photo: John Sciulli/WireImage]

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for like, five minutes. Give a man some art supplies and a false sense of entitlement and he'll be drinking for free all Coachella long.

If you're one of the many people who didn't rush to drain a bank account for Coachella tickets this year, you're in luck. The next best thing (or for many reasons, even better) is the plethora of free, celeb-packed satellite parties happening around the California desert. Sadly, not everyone is on one of the tightly guarded lists, or is a perennial party It-Girl who passes through bouncers like a ghost through fog. But this year we're risking our necks and spilling some tricks of the party-crashing trade. By no means are these all the tips you need, or a guaranteed entry, but it's a good starting off point. Use your street smarts; you can thank us later.

NOTE: Revealing secrets automatically puts an expiration date on them, so be sure to use them as soon as you can!

Here's some tried-and-true guerrilla party

Afrojack is one of the biggest DJs on the electronic music scene nowadays, thanks in no part to his collaborations with huge artists, his flair for dramatic displays behind the decks and his tremendous talent in the studio. At only age 25, he’s one of several Dutch DJs who are taking the world by storm; he was already as high as No. 9 on DJ Mag’s “Top 100 DJs of 2012.” Moreover, he invaded the mainstream on U.S. shores when he collaborated with Pitbull and Ne-Yo one of the biggest songs of 2011, “Give Me Everything.”

After playing both weekends at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, Afrojack’s out today with the music video for his latest track, a collaboration with Chris Brown called “As Your Friend.” In the futuristic medieval video, Afrojack (birth name: Nick van de Wall), lords over a kingdom of dancers who seem to bow to his every whim, much like his legions of followers at festivals and clubs around the world.
We caught up with Afrojack in-between gigs to ask him all about what’s going on in his universe right now.