Pitchfork

Good lord, who isn't announcing a tour today? Sonic Youth have joined the fun, revealing that their summer trek will kick off June 13 at CBGB, the doomed NYC landmark. Purely coincidentally, their new album, Rather Ripped, drops the same day.

After spending much of June as a headliner, Sonic Youth hooks up with Pearl Jam for a series of dates in July. Then they'll hit Australia, Japan, and Lollapalooza (which is large enough to be its own country).

Joining Sonic Youth on bass for the tour is Mark Ibold, formerly of Pavement and Kim Gordon's side project Free Kitten. We guess that means Kim is strapping on the guitar.

If a Sonic Youth tour sounds good except for the unpleasant part about having to leave the house, don't forget to microwave another burrito and tune-up the Tivo for Kim, Thurston, and their daughter Coco's appearance on the "Gilmore Girls" season finale on May 9.(Yo La Tengo and Sparks are also among the special guests.)

No promotional tool will remain untouched:

06-13 New York, NY - CBGB *
06-14 Philadelphia, PA - Starlight Ballroom &
06-15 Washington, D.C. - 9:30 Club &
06-17 Asheville, NC - Orange Peel &
06-18 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo &$
06-19 Atlanta, GA - Earthlink Live &
06-21 Tulsa, OK - Cain's Ballroom
06-23 Austin, TX - Stubb's BBQ +
06-24 Dallas, TX - Gypsy Ballroom +
06-26 Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall +
06-27 Denver, CO - Gothic Theatre +
06-29 Missoula, MT - UM Theatre +
06-30 Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre +
07-03 Sacramento, CA - Empire +
07-04 Reno, NV - Reno Hilton +
07-06 Las Vegas, NV - MGM Grand %
07-07 San Diego, CA - Cox Arena %
07-09 Los Angeles, CA - Forum %
07-10 Los Angeles, CA - Forum %
07-13 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl %
07-16 San Francisco, CA - Bill Graham Civic Auditorium %
07-18 San Francisco, CA - Bill Graham Civic Auditorium %
07-22 Byron Bay, Australia - Splendour in the Grass Festival #
07-24 Melbourne, Australia - Palace
07-26 Sydney, Australia - Enmore
07-29 Yuzawa-machi, Japan - Naeba Ski Resort (Fuji Rock Festival)
08-03 Cuyahoga Falls, OH - Blossom Music Center (92.3 K-ROCK Presents Kuyahoga)
08-05 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza ^
12-08-10 Somerset, England - Butlins Minehead (ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas) !

* with Tall Firs
& with Be Your Own Pet
$ with Radiohead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Beck, Elvis Costello, Cat Power, more
+ with Awesome Color
% with Pearl Jam
# with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Brian Wilson, TV on the Radio, more
^ with the Flaming Lips, Kanye West, Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, the Raconteurs, Queens of the Stone Age, the Shins, the Go! Team, Sleater-Kinney, the New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene, Built to Spill, Gnarls Barkley, Feist, Iron & Wine, Ryan Adams, Andrew Bird, Common, more
! with Iggy & the Stooges, Bardo Pond, Six Organs of Admittance, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Charlambides, My Cat Is an Alien, the Skaters

For those of you who are, like, too cool for the WB, Thurston Moore will perform two solo guitar sets at the NYC experimental music mecca the Stone on May 10. A week earlier, on May 3, Moore's record label, Ecstatic Peace, will host a poetry reading at St. Mark's Church featuring Moore, Richard Hell, Byron Coley, and artist Jutta Koether.