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As devoted students of rock history know, the most rewarding musical discoveries often are found in the esoteric footnotes rather than in the canned histories offered by hoary institutions like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone and VH1. And as bizarre footnotes go, few are more worthy than the Fugs.

Named for the cuss-word euphemism Norman Mailer was forced to use in the first edition of The Naked and the Dead, the most respectable accomplishments of the Fugs can be encapsulated thusly: Signing to Frank Sinatra’s Reprise Records, the ever-evolving and extremely hairy musical collective released four albums between 1968 and 1970 full of hippie rewrites of traditional folk tunes and typically literate, ’60s flower-power odes inspired by the like of William Blake and Algernon Swinburne. Think of a second-generation Beat musical answer to Allen Ginsberg.

The primary constant and driving force of the band, Ed Sanders, first made his mark on the New York scene that nurtured Bob Dylan by running the Peace Eye Bookstore, the East Coast version of San Francisco’s famous City Lights.

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With Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier disappointing on recent solo releases (including Silencio, which dropped in July) and Charlotte Gainsbourg an immensely talented but much more dour sort, the role of the French indie-rock chanteuse who steals our hearts now belongs to Paris-based musician Melody Prochet, whose self-titled full-length debut as Melody’s Echo Chamber is a charming and thoroughly seductive delight.

Named after a dream in which she imagined that her bedroom was an echo chamber that could produce an infinite delay, this project finds Prochet firmly at the helm after time in two twee-/dream-pop bands, Narcoleptic Dancers and My Bee’s Garden.

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Has Chicago reached Street Fest glut? “Heck yeah!” is my response, as well as the chronic complaint from owners of our beloved music venues whose business drops dramatically every summer as they compete with events ranging from Lollapalooza and Pitchfork to Ribfest and Rock Around the Block. Now a well-reported piece by Paul Wilson on the Roscoe View Journal reaches the same conclusion.

Despite the new challenges the city is placing in the way of street fairs, which were protested loud and clear at the festival-organizers’ “ground-truthing” meeting for the cultural plan, they continue to proliferate.

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Many and widely varyied in quality are coming-of-age films charting the journey of a troubled teen from the world of the lonely outsider to a member of a small but vibrant alternative society offering acceptance, excitement and pride in weirdo geekdom. But I’ve rarely seen one that captures punk rock as the ideal vehicle for this trip as well as Matthew Lillard’s Fat Kid Rules the World.

Based on the 2003 young adult novel by KL Going, the movie made its premier at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year. I missed it there, and its limited release came and went quicker than a hardcore punk tune. But I finally caught up with it last weekend after watching Lillard talk about his decade-in-the-making labor of love in a brief preview for Comcast On Demand.

Lillard, 42, probably is best known for Scream or playing Shaggy in the 2002 Scooby-Doo film (though he also appeared in the much cooler SLC Punk).

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Psychedelia always has been one of many strains running through the long and fruitful career of the great Neil Young. Remember those otherworldly acoustic idylls like “Expecting to Fly,” or better yet, the long, languid guitar jams in songs such as “Mr. Soul,” “Cortez the Killer” and “Down by the River.” So when the 67-year-old musical giant entitles his 35^th studio album Psychedelic Pill and announces that the music will cover two CDs or three vinyl album sides—recorded with the mighty Crazy Horse, no less!—well, there’s reason aplenty for high expectations, if you’ll pardon the pun.

In fact, after nearly a decade apart, this is Young’s second release backed by rhythm guitarist Frank “Pancho” Sampedro, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina this year, following their jaunt through the antique folk songbook on Americana.

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The consultant who spoke about great strides forward in security at the troubled Congress Theater during Wednesday’s fourth Deleterious Impact/Public Nuisance Hearing is a former Chicago police officer fired in June 2011 for what the Police Board called “dangerous and offensive conduct.”

Bill Whelehan is one of three managers of BluCorp Consultants listed in state corporate filings. He formed the new company in February with his father, a retired police lieutenant also named Bill, and his brother-in-law, John Curry, who still serves on the police force. The firm began providing security to the Congress, its first major client, about 10 weeks ago.

The younger Whelehan, the point person for the firm at the theater, was fired by a unanimous vote of the nine-member Police Board after an altercation with a neighbor over an errant pet in November 2009 on the city’s far Northwest Side.

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