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NORMAN — Summer's not quite here, but the time's already right for dancing in the street, since the first Norman Music Festival will be heating up things along three blocks of Main on Saturday with some of the hottest alt-rock bands in the business.

Ex-Tripping Daisy leader Tom Delaughter's heavenly 25-member, robe-draped pop choir, The Polyphonic Spree, will headline a free 12-hour event that includes such homegrown and international talents as British Sea Power, the Octopus Project, Evangelicals, Colourmusic and the highly anticipated reunion of Okie-bred indie-rock heroes, the Chainsaw Kittens.

Just for the occasion, flamboyant "feline” front man Tyson Meade has been flown in all the way from Shanghai, where he's been living and working as an English writing teacher for the past couple of years.

"It is a bit crazy that I live in Shanghai, right?” he e-mailed from Shanghai last week. "For a year and a half I was an English professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and LaGuardia Community College in NYC. The bulk of my classes were writing classes for international students who were preparing for freshman English. I loved this time. I really loved it. And it occurred to me that I could do basically the same thing in the exotic city of my choice.”

A guidebook writer/editor friend suggested China.

"Well, I took his advice and here I am,” he wrote. "I love it. I teach eight (40 minute) classes a week, and it is considered full time. I actually make ‘rock star' pay! And, I find that I get up at 6:30 a.m., excited to go to class.”

The Norman-based Kittens scratched their way to the college-radio big time back in the '90s with such alternative/glam gems as "Pop Heiress” on Mammoth/Atlantic Records and their self-titled cult classic on the Mercury-distributed Scratchie imprint. There were tours with such heavy-hitting headliners as the Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop and John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon's Public Image Ltd., but never enough label support to sustain them. Since the Kittens' last album, "The All American,” was released on the independent 4 Alarm Records in 2000, the band has been inactive, and in the interim, Meade has worked as a deejay (at Oklahoma City's late, lamented alternative station, KSYY-FM, "The Spy”), an ad man and now an educator.

During that time, he's managed to complete his second solo album, "Kitchens and Bathrooms,” which he's just released.

"I recorded it from 2001-2003 using friends' studios all over the country — Oklahoma City, New York, Seattle, Chicago,” Meade said. "Anyone who's interested in purchasing it can e-mail me at ttmeade@gmail.com or check your favorite indie Oklahoma City record store.”

Another featured act that's recorded all over the map is