It looks like passes to the Happy Happy Birthday to Me PopFest (August 8-12...see that groovy banner on the sidebar) are about to sell out. The festival has announced: "We are currently offering four-day passes to the event for the price of $40 (that's$0.67 per band). They're about to sell out so make your purchase now! (Reminder: patrons will be unable to get into the Little Kings shows without a four day pass!) One day passes for each day are also available to $10.00. Both are available at our website." August 8 is the free show, which is why the passes are for 4 days, not 5. All of this is a-happening in Athens, Georgia, which will shortly become the crowned citadel of indie pop on that weekend in August, with visiting bands The Apples in Stereo, Circulatory System, The Mountain Goats, Deerhoof, Oh OK (featuring Michael Stipe's sister Linda), High Water Marks, The Instruments, The New Sound of Numbers, M Coast, and oh God too many to mention in a sentence without making my high school English teacher Mrs. Prochaska cry. You can read the whole list at the PopFest page.

We're in the middle of summer, which means that all your favorite bands are on the road. I regularly update tour dates at OpticalAtlas.com, so be sure to check in frequently. And if you know of a date that isn't at the site, drop me a line so I can have it updated. The Visitations have just added some dates, and Of Montreal and The Minders, gearing up for their mega-tour next month, have refined their schedule, so it's worth taking a look at now.

I was at the record store on State Street in Madison on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised to see The Sixth Great Lake's Sunday Bridge in their LP section. I can't recommend this superb outing (still not available on CD) highly enough; if you're in the Madison area, I advise picking it up at B-Side Records. I did pick up something I didn't know existed: SpinArt Records...The Audible Spectrum, an LP-only compilation from 2005 featuring exclusive tracks by Marbles, Frank Black & the Catholics, Clem Snide, Apollo Sunshine, and others. I'm about to have a listen (having just finished listening to Tangerine Dream...not the band...but the 1967 album by the short-lived U.K. band Kaleidoscope; pop-psych collectors...this is the album you need to hear; it's amazing and beautiful). Okay, see you tomorrow with some Black Swan Network in the latest installment of Hooray for Tuesday's MP3.