It's never too early to start planning for next summer. At least if you're Kevin Lyman it's not.

While most of the country begins to break out the winter wear, the founding father of the Warped Tour is already making plans for next year's summertime pop-punk extravaganza, having just announced the first slew of acts that'll be braving the heat and taking the stage at a venue near you.

Motion City Soundtrack, Thursday, Rise Against, From First to Last and venerable punks NOFX are the first confirmed bands for Warped '06, but Lyman said fans can expect more announcements in the very near future. So you can stop e-mailing him now.

"I get bombed with e-mails from kids wanting to know what bands are going to be on the tour, so [we'll] start letting it out now slowly. The only problem is it gets other bands' managers and agents calling relentlessly," he said. "I read a lot of the e-mails from fans, and if I had more time, I would answer them. Warped is always a community, and we're always trying to keep information going out, [but] it's actually fun to read the rumors kids start of who will be the next bands announced."

While the popular Internet rumors this year involve everyone from a reunited Operation Ivy to Marilyn Manson (!) taking the stage at Warped, Lyman said -- for the moment at least -- there have been no more acts booked for the tour. But that doesn't mean he wants fans to stop all the speculating. Just keep it reasonable.

"Fans would never see some of these bands on Warped because they want too much money and we would have to raise ticket prices," he said. "It never gets old to have fans e-mailing me with suggestions ... the only thing I don't like is when bands get their fan clubs to keep e-mailing me the same name over and over again. This year a band called Showbread is taking it way too far."

Fans (and anyone not in Showbread) can look forward to another round of Warped lineup announcements sometime around Thanksgiving, and soon after that Lyman and Co. will have the routing all mapped out too.

As if Lyman wasn't busy enough already, there's still the matter of the 2006 Taste of Chaos Tour, which gets under way February 15 and features Thrice, Deftones, Atreyu and Story of the Year, among others. Venues will be announced next week.

"Taste is going to be massive this year. We're thinking of ways to make it better all the time," Lyman said. "Like right now I'm in working in London, bringing double-decker buses around to promote British bands and some charities for the U.K. leg of the tour. I'm trying to just have to figure out how to make them go faster than 45 mph. And I'm sure there will big stuff like that going on for Taste in the States, too."