Get your shots — AS220 has just announced on its website that the special surprise guest stars for Saturday night are none other than Deer Tick!  Foo Fest has returned this year with a new wrinkle — a $5 entrance fee. Apparently Empire Street will be cordoned off somehow and this will help keep the riffraff out (or in).  That really doesn’t seem like much money for an entire day of music and stuff — and if that’s what it takes to make this possible every year, fine. Also scheduled to perform are, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Tinsel Teeth, Lolita Black, White Mice and Lightning Bolt! There will also be tons of artists doing art, and you can help create the giant pinata. (Are we having a pinata moment in Providence for some reason?) Empire Street will be blocked off between Washington and Westminster with vendors and things to eat and drink.  The weather looks good. Go crazy.

$5, 1pm to 1am, Saturday, 115 Empire Street

And a hat. Great article by Rick Massimo in the Thursday ProJo highlighting the local acts representing at the Newport Folk Festival this weekend — The Low Anthem and Deer Tick.

At last year’s folk festival in Newport, Ben Knox Miller and the rest of The Low Anthem weren’t on stage — they were backstage, helping out with the recycling.

That place should erupt when they take the stage. Come on folkies, go a little mental! Massimo also discusses the unexpected Deer Tick/Brian Williams/Rachael Ray nexus. Impressive lineup for this weekend; folk royalty Joan Baez, 90-year-old Pete Seeger will share the bill with The Decembrists, Neko Case, Fleet Foxes. And Elvis Perkins (on Sunday) also had a Providence connection I believe (Wikipedia is down). The schedule is subject to change, but the weather looks fantastic.

George Wein’s Folk Festival 50, Saturday & Sunday, 11:30am to 7pm, Fort Adams, Harrison Avenue, Newport

The Low Anthem, Saturday, 2:10pm, third stage

Deer Tick, Sunday, 3:30pm, third stage

Local band Deer Tick made Jon Caramanica’s Playlist last Sunday in The New York Times. The following is not language I would use to describe my favorite musicians, but there you are. Caramanica praises (I think) their second album “Born on Flag Day”. . .

. . . which sounds as if someone had run over some old Hank Williams sides with sandpaper: loose, gloomy, desperate country, written entirely, it seems, while looking in a cracked mirror. Lyrically it’s a vacuum of joy.

Okaaaay. At any rate, they are on tour and will return to Rhode Island on August 2nd for the Newport Folk Festival. (photo: Kendall Pavan)

Brian Williams has launched a new music feature–called, hilariously, BriTunes–in which the charmingly blah news anchor talks to some of his favorite new bands. (”Bar bands are best,” says his written intro on the MSNBC website.)  First up, local boys Deer Tick, who everyone in the world seems to really like and whose Dylanesque appeal is all but completely lost on me.  You can watch it here, along with a Yo-Yo Ma interview where the cellist reveals what terrible, terrible taste he has in popular music.

The whole thing sort of seems like a giant iPod infomercial.  Williams actually introduces the band by calling them “casual users of iTunes” as though that means something.  Actually, I’m also not sure who actually watches the web-only entertainment features on msnbc.com, but it’s always fun to see the Rhode Island flag waving around while a sixty-year old anchor talks like a Very Old Person about finding music on the Internet.

Ok by now everyone knows that Deer Tick was the “#1 breaking band at SXSW 2009″! But did you know that the “#1 breaking band at SXSW 2009″ will have a free show at  Newbury Comics on Route 2  in Warwick? Yeah they are. For you see April 18th is National Record Store Day, and a free show and some free stuff while supplies last will be available. According to a posting on Lots of Noise live music starts at noon and will be spread out until 8pm.  Also The Propellers, Six Star General, The Blood Moons and Eric Fontana will be on hand making some fine, fine music.

Newbury Comics, Route 2 Warwick, 12pm-8pm, Free.

As Deer Tick and the Low Anthem keep writing great songs and march towards national recognition — with plaudits from critics all around — Providence is going to start to signify something a bit different to music fans: A little less new-wave and noisy, a little more “roots rock,” “pure Americana,” Waits, Dylan and Guthrie. (Not that there’s much intentionality behind the phenomenon, but it’s there, and notable.)

The Low Anthem made NPR’s song of the day last week.

Deer Tick just announced the (eventual) upcoming release of Born on Flag Day and sets off on a tour that culminates at SXSW. (No Providence date, guys?)