Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

Improbably still, the lake rests contentedly as a sheet of glass. A summer by the lake brings feelings of softness and relaxation. Michigan is home to this eponymous lake, as well as one of the Midwest's finest breweries. Bell’s is known primarily for Oberon, its velvety summer wheat concoction. The versatile Kalamazoo brewery crafts beers as varied as any conscious beer drinker’s palette. Puffy-clouded summer days call for a puffy, slightly cloudy Oberon. Winter’s chill might sway a drinker toward the warming Java Stout.

But those searching for Bell's don't have to travel to Michigan anymore, the Kalamazoo brewery recently reached an agreement with a couple of Illinois distribution companies to start bringing Bell's to the masses in Chicago (and hopefully the Champaign-Urbana market soon), a year and a half after the fued that curbed Bell's sales in Illinois.

Everyone wants to be The Beatles. We’ve all seen our fair share of cover bands, album cover tributes/parodies, and even wardrobe similarities. Every “Best Of” list has, and will always, name check an album or two. Their influence is far reaching and several musicians, from around the globe, have all tuned in at some point. Yet at the same time, admit it, they warped Charles Manson’s mind. Oh, and they’re definitely responsible for boy bands, MTV and, sigh, Oasis.

But as we all know, The Beatles giveth and The Beatles taketh away. The seeds that The Beatles have sown flowered into the honest croonings of Daniel Johnston. And some of those also became weeds known as Coldplay. But some got way too much of that untested chemical fertilizer. When that happened, The Residents' Meet The Residents sprouted.

One of the things about growing up is watching your concept of money change. I remember Bonnie Hunt had a bit when she was a guest on Letterman about how the biggest amount of money she could think of as a kid was "a hunnert dollars." Then, suddenly, you wake up one day and a hundred dollars isn't much money anymore; not at all. Not even a thousand dollars is enough to get a decent wedding, or especially a car.

The Bottle Rockets - 1000 Dollar Car (Live in Heilbronn / Germany July 17, 2005)

Brian Henneman has made a solid recording career by realizing these subtleties of working-class life. His band, Bottle Rockets, is only playing 15 shows this year to celebrate their 15th anniversary as a touring outfit, and one of those will be Saturday at the Highdive. Doors open at 6 p.m., opener Otis Gibbs will come on at 7 p.m. and Bottle Rockets play at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15, and it's a 19-and-over show.

Stay tuned after the jump for an interview with Henneman.

Andre Sider af Sonic Youth, which translates to English as “Other Sides of Sonic Youth”, captures an improvised live set at the Danish Roskilde Festival on July 1, 2005. Issued on Sonic Youth’s own SYR imprint, this recording features SY still as a quintet with Jim O’Rourke. They are joined by Mats Gustafsson on saxophone and Merzbow on laptop. Gustafsson (from Sweden) and Merzbow (from Japan) are two heavy hitters in their musical fields – free jazz and noise, respectively. Gustafsson regularly works with Peter Brotzman, Ken Vandermark from Chicago and drummer extraordinaire Paal Nilssen Love. Merzbow began his high volume sonic terrorism on guitar nearly 20 years ago and has switched to laptop in recent years. This is the eighth release in a SYR series.

Read the "sounds like" section on any bands myspace.com profile and you'll likely get some self-aggrandizing gibberish, something nearly unintelligible, or the drivel of a band member who has no idea what their band sounds like. Two Girls, actually four guys who will be rolling through Mike 'N Molly's on Friday, fills this section of their myspace with an apt description: "the kind of music you wish hippies would make."

Although the band boasts a percussionist in addition to a regular drummer, the band avoids degenerating into a "crunchy" drum circle. Front man Joel Madigan's sludge-tinged, riff-driven guitar work slithers through the layers of percussion, invoking early stoner-psych bands like Kyuss. Maybe they'll make people dance like hippies should dance.

Sharing the stage will be local indie-pop outfit Hot Cops, featuring former Green Light Go bassist Mike Daab. Think textured, and emotive indie rock with towering vocals and harmonies.