The Summerworks Theatre Festival is upon us once again and with it comes their third annual music series and inaugural performance bar. As this year's music coordinator I thought I'd tell you a little bit about all that's happenin'.

Summerworks artistic director, Michael Rubenfeld, and spend many a month coming up with lists of bands we wanted to see at the music series but when we finally compared those lists we realized Summerworks would be to be a daily year-long festival to present every band we loved. A few compromises later we came up with a pretty great pack of shows for the music series and with a sudden inspirational whim the performance bar was birth as well to experiment with more integrated arts madness hosted by improv wizards The National Theatre of The World.

The music series kicks off tonight with the first of a two-night stand by these guys:

The Hidden Cameras, presenting a theatrical interpretation of their latest record Origin:Orphan.

The series continues on Saturday with funk band Elastocitizens and Kamau, thowing it down for their theatre peeps.

Sunday through Tuesday sees the music series move away from bands to present brand spanking new musical type projects, one by local music gent Bram Gielen.

Wednesday sees the return of bands with the sex-romp pop of Diamond Rings and fuzzy guitar riffs of PS I Love You. Let's look a photo of Diamond Rings, shall we:

Yeah.

Thursday brings us back to our roots with a shared set by Entire Cities and The Weather Station followed by a short set from out-of-towner The Mountains & The Trees and taking us into the late night with The Wilderness of Manitoba.

Isn't Tamara's hat the best?

And what a freakin' awesome photo of Wilderness of Manitoba.

Friday takes our roots into bit darker territory with the hauntings of Picastro and the elegiac chants of Evening Hymns.

This is Liz from Picastro.

And then Saturday closes out the music series with a banging party featuring Toronto's Rat Tail and Guelph's Bocce. Don't worry, the venue is air conditioned.

Bocce, plotting to take over the world, one sea at a time.

And while all that is happening upstairs in the Lower Ossington Theatre, downstairs is the performance bar, which will be just madness. Featuring performances by: Allie Hughes, Zeesy Powers, Maylee Todd, Jeremy Bailey, Tasseomancy (Ghost Bees), Company Blonde, Laura Barrett, Istvan Kantor, THOMAS, Snowblink, Colleen & Paul, Grand Analog, Nifty, Bob Wiseman, a Cowgirl Choir and much more, all hosted and warped by The National Theatre of The World (check out the new issue of NOW Magazine to read about this trio).

There's a thing called the Playground in the same building too. Oh, and don't forget, Summerworks also has theatre shows.

All this happens at the Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington Ave.). The upstairs music series shows are $10 in advance or at the door and the downstairs performance bar is PWYC. There's a bar in both spaces and it's air-conditioned, so what better way to beat this August heat?

Summerworks has all the info you need for the festival.

See you there!