Pencil This In

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the
2009 Toyota Corolla.

World Music
Allá takes on a bunch of different influences and whip it into an intriguing Latin rock blend heavily informed by '60 French pop. Their debut, Es Tiempo, swerves all over the musical map, sucking in influences and spitting them back out, reconfiguring the sounds to suit their own needs. In fact it's almost as much fun to play the "name that source" game as it is to submerge your ears in the playful songs themselves. Tonight we recommend you take the latter approach.

Empty Bottle, 1035 N Western, 9 p.m., free, 21+

Buck Burgers
Big Chicks keeps the good times going with their 1/4 pound buck burger night. One dollar = a lot of ground beef in this case. Plus, if you need something to wash that burger down, they've got $2 off their sudsy pitchers. payday is tomorrow, so the timing for this budget friendly meal couldn't be better this month.

5024 N Sheridan

Books
Cass Sunstein will be speaking at the International House at the University of Chicago as part of their Global Voices Lecture Series. His new book, Nudge, discusses combating the poor decisions we make in life by constructing a "choice architecture" that can guide us in the right direction. We're going to guess it's a lot more complicated than that though, otherwise he wouldn't be speaking at the University of Chicago, right?

1414 E 59th Street, 6 p.m., free

What the-?
Styx is playing The Vic tonight. Yes. Styx. And who's opening? Koko Taylor. What?! We know, it doesn't make any sense at all, does it? We have to admit, this pairing intrigues us though, so it might actually be worth checking it out.

3145 N Sheffield, 7:30 p.m., $50, all ages

Photo of Allá by Andy Robbins from their MySpace page