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The Hold Steady wrings out more 'America' dates

Indie rockers The Hold Steady will prolong a road trip that has already lasted over six months as they continue to back last fall's "Boys and Girls in America" with a string of May and early June dates.

The band, which just finished up a run of March shows, will kick off its next outing May 12 in Harrisburg, PA, playing a free show at a microbrewery. The first concert with paying customers on the trek will come the following night in Cleveland.

The 17-date outing runs up to the band's June 16 slot at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, TN. Details are included below.

"Boys and Girls in America," which hit stores last October, was recorded in early 2006 and produced by John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.). The album's title was taken from a line in Jack Kerouac's beat classic "On the Road," according to lead singer Craig Finn.

"The line goes, 'Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together,'" Finn recently told Billboard.com.

"Basically the songs are about guys and girls, and love. It's not a concept-type record like the last one. It's more of a theme record."

The group recently unveiled the video for its latest single, "Stuck Between Stations," on its MySpace site.

"The video was directed by our long time friend Moh Azima," the band wrote in a post on MySpace. "He has made a few videos for us in the past and is a solid great guy. We taped the video in our rehearsal space in Brooklyn. We did it a day before leaving for the UK and there are some great stories to accompany the shoot but we'll get into that later."