Ricky McKinnie, drummer and vocalist for the Blind Boys, says, "Don't miss it when them boys are back in town." Stick around after the jump for more from McKinnie and Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall.

The quintet, with (alphabetically) Collin A. Bullock on guitar and vocals, Aaron Gates on drums, Matt O'Neal on bass, Alex Resnick on guitar and Merry Thomas on lead vocals, chatted with Smile Politely out on the sidewalk after their gig about, among other things: their original plan to start a Dolly Parton cover band and how their current sound can be described as a bear fighting a lion. The results are after the jump.

Fast-forward to fall 2008. Browsing through Luna Records in Indianapolis, William and I discovered that Ben Folds’s new album is called Way to Normal. As I scanned the track list, my eyes stopped at "Effington" and practically bugged out of their sockets. “Hey! I think Ben Folds’s CD refers to Normal, Illinois!” I exclaimed to William.

With work, family and pretending to watch Cubs playoff games, who has the time to find out about the best shows happening in Champaign-Urbana? No need to fear, because the editors here at Smile Politely have taken care of it. Here are the must-see shows of the week:

Wednesday October 8: Open Mic at Radio Maria – Radio Maria, 10 p.m., free

If you like acoustic guitar as well as fried plantains, you should come to downtown Champaign and check out Radio Maria’s new Wednesday night open mic. This relatively new development is great not only because it means there is an open mic that isn’t on Tuesday around here, but also because Jake Fleischli of The Tractor Kings is taking hosting duties. Check out some laid back tunes and maybe enjoy some delicious tapas while doing it.

Mercury Rev, the once-proclaimed "weirdest band on planet Rock," performed alongside local heroes HUM at the old Blind Pig in 1995, just after the major label signing spree that included almost half a dozen of bands calling Champaign their home. Since that time, the Rev have gone on to release one of the most important records in recent history, Deserter's Songs, as well as a handful of albums that haven't done much for them in the States, but have steadily increased their worth in Europe and Asia.

• a book of collages on Fantagraphics
• a periodical series
• an upcoming Steven Soderbergh musical
• two albums with his new band, Boston Spaceships, with Tommy Keene on guitar, including their debut, Brown Submarine, released on Pollard's label, GBV, Inc. in September

It's enough to make your head spin.

Pollard's not a prolific tourer, though, which is why it's important that you get your tickets early for his show next Thursday, October 9, at the Highdive. Doors open at 8 p.m., The High Strung open at 9, and tickets are only $15. With the exception of Champaign, it's strictly a big-city tour, so it's a tremendous opportunity to see a legend of indie rock without wasting time and gas traveling.

The crowd throbs and vibrates with Kevin Barnes’ tightly packaged package. One shining beam of glitter on my right is dry humping my leg, and the person to my left’s nylon wing is obscuring my view from the hypersexual spectacle on stage. I’m wearing the person behind me like a furry, sweaty coat as the crowd methodically sways and grinds to the prog-pop fury of Of Montreal.

Of Montreal has become synonymous with a musical parade of sparkle, ecstasy and a traveling clan of alien-esque androids. Their newest album Skeletal Lamping , coming out on October 7, doesn’t drop the ball far from their shiny pedestal.

What 13-year old boy — a middle child in an Jewish-American family of loud-mouthed dramatists — didn't at one point do something, anything, to try to alienate himself from the world?

For me, it was smoking copious amounts of tobacco and weed, and falling in love with the industrial rock scene. Once centered around the city of Chicago and the Denver-turned-Windy City record store/label — WaxTrax!! — that, for so long, dominated the genre, I got my fix by listening in to music that my parents just scratched their head at.

In 1994, I was given the Black Box - Wax Trax Records: The First 13 Years for Christmas, which looking back, was an odd juxtaposition.

Here I was — 15 years old — and angry for the most part, about nothing really.

My hair was long on top, shaved underneath, with NIИ scrawled into the back of my head with a hair clipper. All the while, Amy Grant's cheesy-but-somehow-awesomely-nostalgic Christmas album is playing in the background. Later that day, I pulled a milky tube in my closet, lit some incense and pushed play. What came out was nothing short of pure sonic bliss making fairly dirty love with machines, screaming men and years of pent up aggression.

The best of those tracks? A single from Revolting Cocks' 1985 album Big Sexy Land. To this day, it still remains, one of the finest songs to drive to that I have ever heard. The lyrics, filled with an urgency about a dystopian present where the idea of god and lawfulness have slipped through the cracks, still give me chills.

Guitarist/singer Rick Miller (he's the one with the skinny goatee) chatted with Smile Politely the other day about their music's pelvic component, Porter Wagoner, and why he doesn't like emo. For more goofy goodness, check out the interview after the jump.

How excited are you all for tonight’s debate? So much will be discussed and I, for one, am sitting on the edge of my seat. Debates are excellent because they allow us to see the candidates and hear what they are told by advisors they believe in so that we can decide on our own who we personally believe is best fitted to lead us. Personally though, I prefer someone else to tell me who to vote for. Political figures and newspaper editorial boards are alright sources for finding out who to vote for, but I prefer to be persuaded by people that have no true knowledge or expertise in the political arena – rock stars!

This year, there seems to be one clear presidential candidate choice if you’re into popular music. Barack Obama has support from every genre and every direction on the musical spectrum. Jay-Z is playing a couple shows in support of the Illinois Senator. Bruce Springsteen is doing the same. The Decemberists got tied up in Right-Wing punditry because of their support and this guy’s (pointing at self while typing) favorite New York band, The National, designed a t-shirt for the candidate of “change.” Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not saying that Obama has it in the bag. I’m not saying that at all.

Olney, Ill., (pronounced ull-knee) is the undisputed home of albino squirrels. The chummy police officers sport chalky white rodent patches on their sleeves and wear clear jelly shoes. Without this hairy claim to fame, Olney could just be mistaken for a spot on a map. It was that seemingly insignificant spot that molded and formed New Ruins into the band, and the men, they are today.

New Ruins formed in 2004 with Caleb Means and Elzie Sexton both on acoustics. They created their first album, and The Sound They Make came out on Hidden Agenda Records (a subsidiary of Parasol Records) in April of 2007. In 2006, Means and Sexton played a show at Aroma Café in Champaign. There they met Roy Ewing, previously a drummer in Braid, and Paul Chastain of Velvet Crush who completed the package. This summer New Ruins worked on their second full-length album titled We Make Our Own Bad Luck.

With the possibility that someone who believes dinosaurs and people lived together on Pangaea could vice-lead our nation as well as the questionable use of time travel on the new season of "Heroes," the perception and manipulation of time has become an important issue in our society. Where we currently stand is another interesting one. In one sense, we are on the brink of the next step; be it economic disaster or ruthless robot dictatorship, it seems something is on the way.

But on the other hand, it’s as if we are living in a place where everything has already been done. Our post-modern world merely references or repeats the past. We’ve long moved past supposed apocalyptic dates and the prophesied Ape Rebellion of 1991. So where do we go from here? You can categorize humanity into two major eras – history and prehistory. What will lead to the next inevitability?

Where I am from (Rockford, Illinois) a band such as Santa would find themselves performing in nothing more spectacular than a humid church basement, plugged into an outdated soundboard, amidst a dwindling number of local musicians and supporters. The presence in C-U of a band like Santa reaffirms my faith in what a local music community could be and also what types of acts it takes to maintain the appeal.

By sitting down with some of Santa’s members (the only absentee being bassist Otto Stuparitz), I aimed to gather their insights regarding Champaign-Urbana’s musical community; the positives, the negatives and what could change. Not only that but also touch on what type of transitions they are soon to face when it comes time to expand their fan base beyond this populous collegiate territory.

Perhaps in name alone, New Weird America and Freak Folk may be my new favorite genres. When I came across the terms, I searched my iTunes and Rhapsody libraries to see if I had any songs that were categorized as such. I didn't. "Didn't," however, is past tense.

Devendra Banhart and Greg Rogove's (of Power Mineral) side-project, Megapuss, was the assailant of my iTunes' regular "alternative" and "rock" genre listings. The Stroke's drummer Fabrizio Moretti is a tentative member of Megapuss, but since he's always playing with them I personally would call Megapuss a three-member band. My first introduction to the band was the song, "Duck People, Duck Man:"

Megapuss- Duck People, Duck Man

Ashley Riley is a young, blonde lady whose instrument of choice is an acoustic guitar, so the comparisons to Jewel are ready-made and lazy, but she doesn't reject them. Just getting her feet wet in the regional music scene, Riley will be appearing on WEFT Sessions tonight at 10 p.m. on WEFT, 90.1 FM. Her debut CD, Last One Standing, was released last month and is available on her website and on iTunes.

Ashley was kind enough to answer some questions, and we'd like to call the results an "interview." This ground-breaking format is shared with you, the reader, after the jump.