The controversy, which stormed around the video and for good reason, has only heaped more hype on an already massively hyped album. Tracks have slowly been sneaking out all over the web for months now, but finally on July 13th we get the full /\/\/\Y/\ album. We’ve heard XXXO with it’s huge vibrating beat. We’ve heard the killer remixes of Stepping Up with their grungy catchiness. We’ve heard the hot track produced by Diplo and featuring Nicki Minaj called Teqkilla with its just straight dizzying sound. But still, the people want more! The blogs are abuzz with what has yet to be released. Will there be another phenom like Paper Planes? Will Michael Jackson rise from the grave screaming “/\/\/\Y/\ is the new Thriller!”? Will music as we know it cease to exists once this album drops!? Probably not, but I can’t wait to find out.

Catch M.I.A. at HARD NYC on July 24th at Governor’s Island. There will be some heavy dubstep with acts like Skream, Benga, and Borgore. Also Theophilus London will be there. You have to peep his Humdrum Town if you haven’t. It’s too good. Die Antwoord will be there too – damn that music video for Enter the Ninja is just…I don’t know just check it out. Wow. But I digress…This will not be a show to be missed. You know I’ll be there, I just hope I don’t get killed because I have a speck of ginger in my beard…

On July 13th, School of Seven Bells is releasing their sophomore album Disconnect from Desire, and it features an enchanting tune called Windstorm. The group was kind enough to release it early, and it gives you hope that the rest of the album is just as good. School of Seven Bells is made up of identical twin sisters (creepy right?) Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, along with Benjamin Curtis of the Secret Machines. The Secret Machines’s Now Here is Nowhere is one of my favorite albums. Seriously, I own two copies. Go get it, it’s that good! The School of Seven Bells first album Alpinisms was critically acclaimed, and with the windstorm of buzz Windstorm has already generated (see what I did there?), it looks like Seven Bells is ready for a repeat. Get excited for Disconnect from Desire, and get it early, because Windstorm has all the catchiness of an iPod commercial and the shape-shifters at Mac won’t hesitate to rip another great track out from under us. Grab it or not, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

July 20^th Major Lazer drops the Lazers Never Die EP on us. Doesn’t it seem like just last week they gave us amazing Lazerproof, a collaboration with La Roux, and features my prediction to be the jam of this summer, the Major Lazer remix Hold You by Gyptian?

Sound of Siren featuring Busy Signal and M.I.A has already been circulating the blogosphere and its sure to quake the nearest d-floor. M.I.A. and Diplo have teamed up on tracks in the past, including the monstrous hit Paper Planes. He is even featured on her uber-hyped new album /\/\/\Y/\, which is due out July 13^th. Another track already floating around is a rework of Cash Flow, featuring Jahdan Blakkamoore, retitled Good Enough. It features Bermuda’s dancehall champion Collie Buddz, known for his hits like Come Around and Blind to You, and also Canada’s (wait Canada? Isn’t it too cold to dagger there?). Regardless, the track also features Lindi Ortega, known more for her indie conquests in folk rock like her latest EP, The Drifter. Next, Bruk Out, a quaking dance jam, is remixed again this time by celebrated Mad Decent artist Buraka Som Sistema, who most recently released a summery remix of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own. Can’t Stop Now, a lovely number from Guns Don’t Kill, hopefully gets the ravey treatment by throw back UK electro pioneers Kicks Like a Mule, who are must widely known for their break through single The Bouncer. Finally, lets not forget the most anticipated track on Lazers Never Die, the remix of Jump Up by none other than Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. The music world can breath a sigh of relief as Diplo and Yorke finally work together. Let’s just hope the track lives up to the hype.

Major Lazer is currently on the Lazer’s Never Die Tour, and having caught two of their live performances, I can attest that I’ve never sweated so aggressively in my life. Catch one of their live sets, and prepare to be sore for days. Listen to some of the other remixes of these tracks on Last.fm, and remember kids, always stretch before you dagga!

To top it off, I live above a Chinese restaurant, which explains my recurring nightmares about being stir-fried alive. Normally they begin calmly, if not enjoyably. I am a judge on Iron Chef America. The challenger calls out Iron Chef Morimoto, everybody rejoices that he didn’t call out Bobby Flay like everyone else, then the secret ingredient is revealed and its ME! The chefs start ripping parts off of me, marinating me, and sticking me in that crazy vacuum chamber machine. Sometimes I wake up here suffocating in my sweat soaked sheets, but most of the time I don’t wake up till Morimoto throws me in the wok where I scream, burn and finally wake up covered in defrosted vegetables trying to remember when I took the bag of peas and carrots out of the freezer.

Last night just to fall asleep, I soaked a t-shirt in water and then froze it in the freezer. Then I draped the frozen shirt over my body and passed out. I woke up not an hour later and the shirt was literally seaming. No, my apartment isn’t hot at all. 

Does anyone have any idea what that’s like? Please someone sympathize with me about living in this horrible heat. Diddy, you’ve got remember what it was like to have no AC as a kid. You were born in Harlem. You grew up in Mount Vernon. Stop telling me to Dream! Believe! Do! Repeat! I just want Fan! Cool! Relax! Repeat! Hate is for suckas! No, more like heat is for suckas! Help a brother out Dids.

So I asked @iamdiddy. “I know. And its 120 degrees in my apartment. Wanna buy me some AC with that dirty money?” You know what his response was? Not a damn thing. Does Diddy remember what it was like to have no AC? You weren’t always a mogul Puffy. I propose that Diddy and Oprah combine forces and become Doprah. If I go see “Get Him to the Greek,” I expect for Doprah to come on during the credits and say, “Everyone look under your seats. It’s a free AC unit!” Until then Bad Boy Records can freeze to death.  I prefer a record label that more represents me—like the Hot Boyz.

By day, Phil’s is a little bar-restaurant, with great sandwiches, including a killer Club and a Sailor that gives you enough sausage for a porn or a coronary, whichever comes first. The milkshakes are straight out of a Rockwell soda fountain scene, and the beer selection actually goes far beyond the PBR cans, not that you’d ever need to look any further.

But come 9pm on any given Thursday night, the moms in lilly dresses and the 50-year-old sloths in IronMaiden shirts creep out, the jukebox shuts down, and the karaoke machine flips on. All the precious elbow room melts into a swarm of young Richmond booze-hounds, groping for their next double order of shitty canned beer and an over the pants rubdown. Fuck yeah. And the best part? You know that point when not enough people are drunk enough to sing yet, but we’re already committed so the house music is off, and all we’re left with is dark lights, lots of speakers, and no goddamned sound? Doesn’t happen here, cause the staff is way too eager to get in there for a terrifying version of Thunder Road, as if they had just axe-murded the Boss didn’t care who knew it. The next best part–the mic-man will turn you down if you can’t pull off a song, so the competition for a good one is brutal. And the crowd always wins in that scenario. Who ever liked a shitty, low-octave rendition of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Nobody. That’s why Elton John sang it in the first place.

Check out Phil’s website here. They’re open every day and night for food and drink, and Thursday nights is for karaoke. Bring your singing shoes. If you can make it to Richmond.

Hold Yuh (Major Lazer Remix) by Gyptian

4th of July (Rusko Remix) by Kelis

The track that 4th of July breaks into is the following, pretty freaking filthy.

Gold Dust (Flux Pavilion Remix) by DJ Fresh

The Outline | Isolene (EXCLUSIVE RELEASE) from Tommy Sobel on Vimeo.

Tenacious D covering the Who… on the What stage…

The Kings of Leon covering the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind?” at Bonnaroo. Amazing.

I thought Stevie was about to break into some Frampton Comes Alive (Do You Feel Like I Do!) but then he broke into something completely different. “I Heard it Through the Grape Vine.”

The Blues Traveller covering Radiohead’s Creep:

Norah Jones covering the Kinks’ Strangers. I love her. Yeah, I said it. Rusko and Norah Jones, thats how I wake up in the morning. 

Weezer covering MGMT’s Kids and then breaking into Lady Gaga’s Pokerface. Interesting…

Dave must have had a tough day because his set was a major downer as demonstrated by this cover he chose to do… Dave Matthews Band covering Neil Young’s “The Needle and the Damage Done.” Jesus… things got dark…

The Dead Weather just kill it. Like the court seen in Big Daddy (please someone get this) Jack White is just parading his friends up there… The Dead Weather covering Bob Dylan’s “New Pony”

Another Dylan cover this time by The Dave Rawlings Machine, here is Queen Jane Approximately 

I love a good string interpretation. This one is particularly fun. The Punch Brothers covering Reptilia by the Strokes.

And some Bowie! Ween covering Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”

Moar to Come