The term “alternative hip-hop” was coined in the early 90s to differentiate politically positive and musically ambitious groups like Digable Planets, Arrested Development, and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy from their gangsta brethren–but it should’ve been saved to describe the fundamentally warped output of the wild crew that revolves around the LA label Mush Records. The imprint’s flagship act, Clouddead–the trio of Doseone, Why?, and Odd Nosdam–uses obscure samples, looped breakbeats, and rhythmic vocal delivery, but there’s no danger of confusing it with Jay-Z or El-P....

Documentaries by Asian adoptees searching for their roots have become a genre unto themselves, but this feature by Kim-Chi Tyler (2000, 72 min.) is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Utterly frank, Tyler confronts her bedridden American stepfather with questions about her Vietnamese mother, and after returning to the village she left in the early 1970s, she interrogates various relatives about her mother’s divorce from her biological father, still a source of rancor between the families....

In the 1950s Chicago produced such an extraordinary number of talented blues artists that many who might have been stars in less heady times never rose above the second tier; harpist Dusty Brown was among them. Born in Mississippi, he moved here in the mid-40s and by the early 50s was gigging with his own band in clubs like Lover’s Lounge, at Madison and Paulina. He recorded a handful of sides for the Parrot and Bandera labels, but by the mid-60s, when gigs dried up for all but the A-list bluesmen, he’d pretty much retired....

Yellow police tape crisscrossed the walls and chalk outlines of bodies dotted the floor at a loft space near North and Milwaukee. At the back of a small stage was the backdrop for a police lineup; standing in front of it was a guy with a tin sheriff’s badge on his shirt and handcuffs dangling from his belt. In the corner DJ Mary Nisi was playing the Fall’s “Cruisers Creek.” It was midnight, and the place was packed....

“Hello. This is President George W. Bush. You will soon receive an application for an absentee ballot. Please take the time to fill out that application and mail it back. Once you’ve received your ballot I hope you’ll support our great Republican candidates. They’re working to make America stronger, safer, and better. I appreciate their support of my agenda. Please, when a vote-by-mail application arrives, fill it out and return it....

By Ben Joravsky Yet Bacon’s still flourishes. Butch Bacon says he met many of his customers more than 30 years ago, when he was a teenager growing up on the far south side and working at his father’s store on weekends. “I used to dream about playing baseball, but that wasn’t going to happen–I wasn’t gonna make that basket catch like Willie Mays,” he says. “So when I graduated from Carver [High School] I came down here to work full-time, and I’ve been working here ever since....

This sharply written play deftly combines hilarious comedy with a serious look at the problem of babies having babies. As a social worker exhorts four gum-snapping teen mothers to respect themselves, the audience glimpses the unhappy relationships these girls have with their own bitter mothers. Written by Chicago Theatre Company managing director Luther Goins, Love Child debuted at Live Bait earlier this year. Four cast members have changed, but returning director Ilesa Lisa Duncan has again gathered a tight ensemble of well-cast women along with the versatile Ansa Akyea playing all the male characters....

Nebraska Strikes Again Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Where Pablo’s Triangle was “noisy and chaotic,” according to Focht, the new group (named for the uppermost section of the thighbone–supposedly the lowest point on Elvis’s body the Ed Sullivan Show cameramen were allowed to film, and thus, the band concluded, “the point where rock and roll becomes sex”) was going for a sound that reflected its members’ interest in the elaborate, meticulously structured pop of 60s groups like the Left Banke, the Zombies, and the Beach Boys....

Lead Stories Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » On May 6 three appellants appeared before Canada’s supreme court to challenge drug convictions by arguing for the decriminalization of marijuana possession; two chose to have lawyers represent them, but David Malmo-Levine, longtime publisher of Potshots magazine, spoke for himself. He waved hello to the justices and then addressed them for 40 minutes, explaining that his “substance orientation,” like sexual orientation, shouldn’t be discriminated against in law....

Thursday, August 1, 2700 block of North Hoyne, 7:30 PM. Theft and battery. Male offender and 63-year-old female victim were talking when offender leaned forward and seized victim’s 12-ounce bottle of beer. After victim ordered offender to “leave it back,” offender pushed victim down and fled. Offender was identified and arrested in different building on same block. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Monday, August 12, 100 block of East Randolph, 12:05 PM....

How do you get rid of a sexual fetish? I’ve got an incest fetish, and while I don’t plan on acting on it, it’s still very annoying. I was raped by a sibling as a child. Repeatedly. And while at first I was upset by this, I eventually began to enjoy the sex. So I hate myself. Is this common? I’m seeing a therapist, but due to my guilt and shame I’m unable to ask her these questions....

I broke up with a long-term girlfriend about two years ago. Last week, while totally drunk, I thought it would be a great idea to see whether I could still log on to her e-mail account, since we told each other our user names and passwords way back when. (Yes, I know I’m going straight to hell for this.) But that’s not the problem. Her e-mails revealed that she’s been in an emotionally abusive relationship for about a year....

Jack Bivans’s voice was raw with anguish. “I slapped my wife…and my children. I drank…” As Bivans rasped the litany of sins, it was easy to forget that he was acting–that the torment he was struggling with was borrowed from the life of a stranger. For a half century Bivans has been a cast member of Unshackled!, a radio drama taped live before a studio audience every Saturday at the Pacific Garden Mission on South State Street....

SUE GARNER & RICK BROWN Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In their sorely underrated bands Fish & Roses and Run On, this married duo’s idiosyncratic songs have always included significant input from others, most notably keyboardist Dave Sutter in the former and guitarist Alan Licht in the latter. But although guests like reedist Doug Weiselman and bassist Douglas McCombs add some nice touches to their new album, Still (Thrill Jockey), Sue Garner and Rick Brown have finally made a record that’s unquestionably theirs....

“Check out this tunic emblazoned with AK-47s,” begins the September 23 post on Lisa Anne Auerbach’s blog, www.knittersforkerry.com. “I made it to commemorate the end of the assault rifle ban which happened last Monday.” “I know a lot of people who do textile work as artwork,” Gschwandtner says. These people are making “knitted things that are pretty far from the world of fiber, where the labor process is evident in the final product....

Rock, Pop, etc. LISA ASHER, JUDY BARNETT, ANNA BERGMAN, DINA JOY BYRD, BRIAN DELORENZO, NAN MASON, AUDREY MORRIS, DENISE PERRIER, JULIE REYBURN, JEANNE SCHERKENBACH, BOBBI WILSYN perform as part of the Chicago Cabaret Convention (see sidebar for full schedule). Sun 2/16, 8 PM, Park West, 322 W. Armitage. 773-929-5959 or 312-559-1212. KEN BURNSTEIN Free in-store performance. Fri 2/14, 8 PM, Borders Books & Music, 1500 16th, Oak Brook. 630-574-0800. ROBB DRINKWATER, UNCLE WOODY SULLENDER, DIMA STRAKOVSKY perform as part of the “Decomposure at Deadtech” series....

WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Singer Robert Fisher has called his Boston-based Americana collective a “happy accident,” and he and the other core member, guitarist Paul Austin, have done everything they can to preserve its ambling, after-dinner-jam spontaneity. The two were playing together in a Boston hard-rock outfit called the Flower Tamers when their drummer, Malcolm Travis, left town to tour with Sugar and their guitarist, Dana Hollowell, invited them to mess around in his new home studio....

Matching wine to cuisines it isn’t traditionally drunk with–Caribbean, Latin American, Asian–is the focus of this periodic feature,in which we pick a BYO restaurant, sample a few dishes, and recommend some bottles. 773-871-2414 Chorizo con Arepa (chorizo with cheesy corn cake) 2 $14.95 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A typical meal at Las Tablas is short on green vegetables and long on South American staples like plantains, yuca, potatoes, and grilled meat....

All That Jazz and Nowhere to Put It Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mayo is still shopping for property, but since ’99 he’s been concentrating on cultivating political contacts and hunting for new board members who can help raise money. As for the bricks and mortar, “We’ve stepped back,” he says. “When I got involved with the group they were still focused on trying to find a site....

Maybe I read too many of John Powers’s Catholic-school memoirs in junior high, but Courtney Shaughnessy’s look at a parochial middle school circa 1987 feels mighty derivative. The play draws on a hoary device: New York writer Mikey Owens returns to his midwestern hometown after his mother’s death and explores the experiences that marked him, all of which revolve around the year he spent at Saint Peter’s refusing to speak after his father died....