*August will be a month of festivals for ZOX, the band that features Newtown resident Spencer Swain. The band has at least eight on its schedule already, including a daytime performance tomorrow at the SoNo Arts Celebration in South Norwalk and then another show that evening at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. All that, after an opening set for Mother Nature’s Son in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., on Friday night.

Saturday’s show will begin around 3 pm on the SoNo Main Stage. Admission to the festival is free, and the event (which runs Saturday and Sunday, August 8) is an annual celebration – now in its 28th year – coordinated by a non-profit group concerned with supporting original music, art and community spirit. Celebration hours are Saturday from 10 am until midnight, with a Saturday Nite Street Party beginning at 8. Sunday’s hours are 11 am to 6 pm, with the annual Giant Puppet Parade stepping off at 3 pm.

The two-day festival will have continuous entertainment, with Main Stage performers including ANTHEM (Saturday, 1:45), BIO RITMO (Saturday, 4:45), COLD DUCK COMPLEX (Saturday, 8:15), THE JENNIFER HARTSWICK BAND (Saturday, 10:45 pm), a gospel choir to re-open the stage Sunday morning (11:15), LISA BODNAR (12:45), SNAKE OIL MEDICINE SHOW (2:15) and KING JOHNSON to close the weekend with a set from 4:15 to 5:45.

That’s just the Main Stage. There will also be South Main Street, SoNo and Dance stages set up. The festival’s comprehensive website is at www.SoNoArts.org.

In addition to all of the performing artists, the festival’s website this week is announcing over 130 exhibiting artists, selected by a jury of fellow artists and craftsmen, will be participating this year. Artists are coming in from across the country as well as locals from Norwalk and surrounding towns within Fairfield County. All artists are required to be present during the show and available to explain or demonstrate the materials and processes the use to create their works, so the weekend offers a terrific learning opportunity for anyone trying to figure out an art form.

If this notice is too short for you then consider making plans to get into New Haven on August 27, when the band returns to Connecticut. The venue is still undecided, but it’s a start to have a date.

SoNo and those other shows are just the first weekend of the month. After closing July in Cleveland at the Feeling Better Than Everfine Festival last Saturday, August also includes an August 14 gig with Summer Splash at Echo Lake in Afton, N.Y.; performances with The Warped Tour on August 16 in Cincinnati, August 17 in Columbus, August 18 in Buffalo, and August 19 at Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts; then August 20 at The Secluded Forest Festival in Lyonsdale, N.Y.; and The Vermont Alternative Energy Festival in Randolph, Vt., on August 21.

These are all in addition to their own headlining gigs in Chicago, Toronto (for their first show in a different country), Ellicotville and Utica, N.Y.; Hyannis and Worcester, Mass.; Cleveland; Great Barrington, Mass.; Ithaca, N.Y.; and Matanuck, R.I.

*Nineteen-year old NELLIE McKAY will bring music back to the recently renovated Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield. McKay is the next performer in the museum’s State A Performance Art & Music series, and she’s scheduled to be in town on Friday, August 13.

Tickets for the 8 pm performance are just $20. Her shows, according to notes supplied by the museum, “feature her witty banter in between self-penned songs and well-placed standards.” Her debut, Get Away From Me, received some of the best reviews of any album this year including a four-star review in Rolling Stone.

Until next week I’ll be seeing you… on the road.

Questions and comments should be sent to Shannon Hicks c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470, or shannon@thebee.com, or call the office at 426-3141.

Shows listed at club locations are for ages 21 and over unless specified.

UPCOMING CONCERTS

AUGUST 6 — Rush at The Meadows Music Theatre, Hartford; Cyndi Lauper at Foxwoods’ Fox Theatre, Ledyard; American Mortar Rock Band at Dean’s, Naugatuck; Maxi Priest at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den, Uncasville; Finch at Toad’s Place, New Haven, Recover, Counterfeit and Days Away opening (all ages); Tony Clinton & Friends at Acoustic Café, Black Rock; Funkestra at The Georgetown Saloon;

August 7 — Zox at 28th Annual SoNo Arts Celebration, South Norwalk (3 pm show); The Bob Dylan Show at Yale Field, New Haven, headlining sets by Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, opening set by Hot Club of Cowtown; Them Bones at Tuxedo Junction, Danbury; The Dave Ross Band at Acoustic Café; DNR at The Georgetown Saloon;

August 10 — Bryan Adams at careerbuilder.com Oakdale Theatre, Wallingford;

August 11 — Cyndi Lauper and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts at the Oakdale Theatre; Toots & The Maytals at Toad’s Place, Crucial Massive opening (all ages);

August 13 — River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs at The Pleasance, Newtown; Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Von Bondies, The Datsuns and Living Things at The Webster Theatre (all ages); Saliva at The Webster Theatre; Ellis Paul at Acoustic Café; Walter Trout & The Free Radicals at Black-Eyed Sally’s BBQ & Blues Café, Hartford; The Mob at Georgetown Saloon;

August 14 — B.B. King Blues Festival at the Oakdale Theatre featuring King, also Dr John, Shemekia Copeland, Elvin Bishop, Magic Dick & J. Geils; Screaming Broccoli at Tuxedo Junction; John Waite at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den (shows at 8 and 10 pm); Smokehouse at Georgetown Saloon;

August 15 — John Mayer at Meadows Music Theatre, Maroon 5 opening.