Pop-punks Blink-182, country-rocker Steve Earle and experimental outfit Sonic Youth are among the artists confirmed to play the four-day Digital Club Festival 2000, a cybercast of club shows from around the country.

"We've got some big-name acts returning to their roots and we're building a festival concourse online," event spokesperson Scott Ambrose Reilly said. "We're trying to re-create the whole festival experience, except the porta-john line."

The festival, scheduled for July 22–25, is expected to feature more than 200 acts. Among the 28 confirmed artists are seminal L.A. punk quartet X, jam-jazz combo Medeski Martin & Wood, piano trio Ben Folds Five, blues player Koko Taylor, hard-rockers Kittie, and indie-rock heroes Yo La Tengo, Wilco and Superchunk.

The festival is an offshoot of the Digital Club Network, a company which has installed webcast equipment and high-speed Internet connections in 50 clubs across the country, including Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Brownies in New York; the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.; the Metro in Chicago; and Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey. Each club will be treated as a different festival stage.

"A club in San Diego might have X playing on one night and a club in Providence might have Steve Earle," Reilly said. "You could sit in your house in Miami or Atlanta and watch X followed by Steve Earle, even though they're on different sides of the country."

Other scheduled artists include Patti Smith, King's X, Richard Thompson, Jefferson Starship and Gov't Mule.

Reilly said show times and venues have not been nailed down for all concerts and, for booking and management reasons, some shows cannot be announced until shortly before the festival. Tickets will be available at some venues, but seats for some shows will be available only online. Each club is under the auspices of its own booking staff.

Blink-182 will play the Casbah in San Diego as the last date of their summer tour, Reilly said. A free show featuring Static-X and Kittie will be announced a week before the festival. Widespread Panic will play a sold-out Toad's Place in New Haven, Connecticut, but some tickets have been reserved for online distribution.

An ever-growing list of confirmed acts and venues is available at www.digitalclubfest.com.