Walk down the street at the 38th Annual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, and you're likely to hear more than just somebody trying to sell you a painting.

The music of this year's Arts Festival is all over the map, quite literally. The lineup features bands from all over the East coast, covering a wide range of styles.

Lareau, northern PA pop-rockers, will play at 5 p.m. Thursday on the Allen Street Stage. Frontman Larry Lareau is a fan of the festival from years back.

"I actually went to Penn State," Lareau said. "I keep on missing the festival, so this'll make sure I get there."

Lareau said coming into State College from Erie means having to try extra hard to impress the local crowd.

"It's a little tough, being from far away, to tap into the same feeling as you get with your local following," Lareau said, "but they used to play our song 'Not the End' on Revolution 101, and there are people down there who'll recognize that and enjoy it."

Lareau said he'll try to keep things as exciting as possible for the Thursday afternoon crowd.

"We're high energy, and we move around a lot," he said. "But, I mean, we don't have any major body piercing or anything."

Five-piece PA group The Villas will appear
on the Festival Shell Stage at 6:30 p.m.
Friday. Cofounder Bill Villa described his sound quite well.

"We're a rock and crash-boom-bam kind of band," Villa said. "We've got one foot in the power-pop camp, but we also have some country leanings."

Villa also used some borrowed words to describe The Villas.

"One reviewer described us as Steely Dan if it was Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark [of The Byrds] instead of [Donald Fagan and Walter Becker]," Villa said. "That's more the country side. We've also heard we're like The Raspberries meets Elvis Costello on Abbey Road."

Villa seemed excited to be returning to Arts Festival.

"It's the third time in four years we've played the fest, and we love it," Villa said. "It's the highlight of the year for us."

Chrissy Miller of locals Body and Soul will take the Festival Shell Stage at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

"We're mostly a wide variety dance-party band," Miller said. "We rock it up pretty good."

Miller said Body and Soul, popular in the bars in State College, tries to keep things a little tamer when they play during the day.

"We're pretty interactive in our bar gigs, we tend to get kind of wild," she said. "But we change our show quite a bit for [an audience like that of Arts Fest]. Sometimes we'll bring a kid up to sing 'Sk8er Boi' by Avril Lavigne, you know, because all kids really want to be rock stars."

The Sadie Green Sales Jug Band will play two shows on Thursday: one at 1:30 p.m. on the Allen Street Stage and one at 4:30 p.m. on the Festival Shell Stage.

Member David Driskell explained the history of his group's music.

"[Group member] Tim [Walker] and I have been working together for over 30 years," Driskell said. "We just play a lot of crazy old music based in the jug band style."

Driskell described the group's show, and then let us in on the band's philosophy.

"It's a show kind of thing, you know, a good visual, fun, up-tempo," Driskell said. "Like Tim says, if it ain't fun, I'm not doing it."