SYSTEM OF A DOWN are nu metal’s Mothers of Invention: they make left turns out of nowhere, segueing from Slipknot to Sublime, and write dumbed-down but sneakily political lyrics about giant cocks and “gonorrhea gorgonzola” and suchlike. Singers Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian play at being hammy meatheads, parodying the snotty Blink-182 whine and the marble-mouthed billy-goat voice Eddie Vedder made famous: “Radio/Video,” the second single from the new Mezmerize (Columbia), begins with the refrain “Hey man look at me rockin’ out / I’m on the radio....

I hate shaving every day. What would happen if I used one of those temporary hair-removal products on my face? What about the permanent ones? –Dan, Merrick, New York, via e-mail Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Temporary chemical hair-removal products like Nair–depilatories, they’re called–can dissolve some of the hair on your face, but they’re primarily intended to remove the relatively lightweight hair of women....

Rock, Pop, Etc. COMMONBOND Sat 1/24, 7:30 PM, Mountain Moving Coffeehouse, Summerdale Community Church/Good Shepherd Parish Metropolitan Community Church, 1700 W. Farragut. 312-409-0276. JOHN GOODWIN performs with the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra in a tribute to George Gershwin. Sat 1/24, 8 PM, Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River Rd., Rosemont. 847-671-5100 or 312-559-1212. IRVING BERLIN’S AMERICAN VAUDEVILLE under the direction of David H. Bell. Fri 1/30 and Sat 1/31, 7:30 PM, and Sun 2/1, 2 PM, Josephine Louis Theatre, Northwestern University, 1949 Campus Dr....

Alexander Russo was working as a Senate aide on Capitol Hill back in the mid-90s when he heard about the education revolution in his hometown. “Everyone in Washington was talking about it,” says Russo, a freelance writer who grew up on the north side. “All the great cutting-edge themes–accountability, the end of social promotion–began right here.” But by the time Russo moved back to town in 2000 the revolution was washed up....

Babylon by Bus They went in the first quarter of 2004, when Iraq was under the watch of Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, when the chaos still appeared quellable. Neumann, 28, and LeMoine, 25, friends from the east-coast punk scene, had spent the last few baseball seasons hawking yankees suck T-shirts–a fad they invented–at Fenway Park, using the money to get loaded, gamble, and travel the world in the off-season....

Many of the Annoyance’s early hits were antimusicals that twisted the traditions of American music theater to suit the company’s vile ends. The songs were often roughly treated, sometimes croaked out by actors with little or no musical training. But the craft behind them was undeniable, as this “greatest hits” revue proves, covering five faves: That Darned Antichrist, Tippi: Portrait of a Virgin, Manson: The Musical, Your Butt, and Coed Prison Sluts....

As improv goes, this offering in iO’s Homecoming series (a showcase of performers from around the country) packs star power. David Koechner (Anchorman, The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show), Neil Flynn (Scrubs), and Pete Hulne (American Body Shop)–all trained at iO Chicago–are three of five veteran comedians in a long-form group that’s been headlining iO West in Los Angeles for years. Their performances are hypermasculine, with the tall Koechner and Flynn often playing up the brutishness that marks their TV and film work....

“Over the 1991-2002 period, violent crime [in Chicago] has declined by 49 percent, and property crime by 36 percent,” reports the Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium in its January report, “CAPS at Ten.” “Murder was down the least over this period, by 30 percent. As in many cities, the ability of Chicago’s police to solve homicides has waned. While other kinds of homicide have declined, the remaining core of gang and drug-related shootings has proven more difficult to counter....

Founded by artistic director James Morrow four years ago, Instruments of Movement uses an eclectic mix of music and dance styles to explore–well, whatever the company feels like. A year ago, in Lifted, it was the Christ story; last May it was jazz great Chet Baker. This program focuses on male-female relationships. Ruff Side of the Smoothness, by Morrow and assistant artistic director Raphaelle Ziemba with Becca Lemme, is a new piece for five couples....

Since coming to prominence in 1973 as the White House lawyer who exposed Richard M. Nixon and his circle to a Senate committee during Watergate, John Dean has established himself as a cloth-coat conservative who’s willing to cry foul on the betrayal of democratic principles; his 2004 book, Worse Than Watergate, was an incisive critique of the Bush administration’s cloak of secrecy. In his latest, Conservatives Without Conscience (Viking Adult), Dean moves beyond the familiar complaints against Bush and Cheney to make a much broader and deeper statement about an American right wing that pays lip service to freedom and democracy while behaving in ways that more closely resemble fascism....

Ralph Lemon is the dance world’s ultimate contrarian. He never repeats himself, never does things the easy way, never avoids controversy. When he was commissioned in 1991 to make a dance about the African-American experience, he created a solo in which he entered wearing a mask with huge, rubbery lips and mashed a banana into it. In Come Home Charley Patton–the third part of his “Geography” trilogy and the piece his pickup company is performing here–he again addresses the subject of race, but in a far gentler way....

Chicago Public Radio general manager Torey Malatia wants to leave himself some wiggle room. As CPR adds a second frequency for Chicago broadcasts, probably late next year, it’s gearing up for major change, and Malatia doesn’t want to say just what that change will be. But the general direction is pretty clear: Malatia doesn’t believe that WBEZ’s hybrid formula really works. The talk-by-day, jazz-by-night regimen that’s produced there and broadcast on CPR’s three frequencies amounts to “two radio stations in one,” he says....

Director William Brown and a fine cast manage to find the humor in Enid Bagnold’s mannered 1955 play. As the companion-governess, a woman with a secret, Tracy Michelle Arnold makes cool detachment appealing, and Steve Hinger has exuberant fun with the role of a flappable, fey manservant. Elizabeth Ledo can be charming as the precocious, pained 16-year-old, and Deanna Dunagan is entertaining as her feisty, eccentric grandmother. But the actors can’t entirely compensate for the script’s stiffness, and most of the minidramas taking place in this upper-crust living room (well realized by Matthew York) feel too melodramatic....

The Films of Douglas Sirk Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In Sirk’s great 50s melodramas, six of which are showing in a seven-week series of matinees at the Music Box starting April 15, the material surroundings are so powerful they can seem to dictate the characters’ actions and even their identities. Decorating schemes, flowers, picture windows, cars, and planes have a mysterious vitality and agency....

Kuma’s Korner 2900 W. Belmont 773-604-8769 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » First-time owner Michael Cain, an 18-year restaurant veteran with an unglamorous resumé that most recently included the Wabash Tap, has created a quirky, unaffected corner bistro, Kuma’s Corner, in what was a grubby and unwelcoming Harley bar. Cain recruited servers with a Reader ad that read, “Too many tattoos or piercings for Lettuce?...

Philly noise rockers An Albatross have attracted a remarkable quantity of hyperbole, especially considering that their songs tend to speak their piece in less than 60 seconds–maybe their fans use all that leftover time to think up weird shit to say about them. This crazed five-piece (the usual bass, drums, and guitar, plus a Farfisa player and ranting front man Edward Gieda III) could probably fit everything they’ve released so far on the microchip in one of those music-playing cereal-box toys: the EP Eat Lightning, Shit Thunder, a split seven-inch with XBXRX on Gold Standard Labs, and the 11-song, eight-minute Ace Fu “full-length” We Are the Lazer Viking....

Just when I’m ready to write off the mockumentary as an exhausted form, along comes this delightful and hilarious improv comedy from the UK in which a bridal magazine sets up a promotional contest for the best offbeat wedding. The three finalist couples are thematically committed to tennis, musical comedy, and nudism, and a gay couple is assigned to guide them through their elaborate nuptials. Director Debbie Isitt falters when she tries to shoot an elaborate production number but triumphs in her cast’s quirky characterizations and the ensuing complications and contradictions (e....

You won’t hear anything but good about Dionne Warwick in writer-director Jackie Taylor’s latest bio-revue, framed as a tribute concert hosted by the statuesque Ms. Divine. She trades lead vocals with three other actresses playing different aspects of Warwick, a studio vocalist who developed a solo career as the voice for such composers as Burt Bacharach. Forty-five years later she’s still working, though this evening is devoted mostly to nostalgic replications of the brass-driven orchestrations that defined 60s pop (with forays into gospel, jazz, and Philly soul)....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » For Rolling Stone‘s outstanding 9/11 issue, which came out just after the attacks, David Foster Wallace wrote about the events from his perspective in Bloomington-Normal. A recording of Wallace reading the essay is available here (mp3). I think that people who went through the day outside of New York and DC–which is to say most of us–will find his experience of trying to connect what was happening to the view of it on television terribly familiar....

Back in the mid- and late 90s, there were a lot of musicians in Chicago pushing the limits of what “abrasive” meant. These were folks who thought the Jesus Lizard was a key influence for their mellower, poppier moments, and they spent a lot of energy getting together, breaking up, and then re-forming in different configurations. Arista Strungys, the guitarist and front woman of local trio Loraxx, is a product of that scene, and it’s remarkable that she’s retained a primal urge to organize noise when others have moved on to pursue different fashions....