If you saw John Music, the lead singer of Provoke, you would probably be able to guess he was part of the hardcore music scene, with the tattoos that peak out from his chest and run down his left calf. But looking at Terry Johnson from another local hardcore/progressive band named Transmission 13, you could never guess that they had any affiliation at all.

It's easy to blame the legislative leaders at the Illinois statehouse for accumulating so much power. I've done it a lot, myself.

Dozens of reforms have been proposed to curtail their influence.

The leaders raise the vast majority of all legislative campaign cash, so some reformers want to cap the amount of money they can contribute to candidates.

• This Tuesday the Fuel 2000 label issues Ride Pony Ride, a terrific new anthology documenting The Golden Palominos and the band's 1980s underground avant-funk clique. Built on the rhythm of drummer and bandleader Anton Fier, the group's ever-changing coil featured ace players such as saxophonist John Zorn, guitarists Nicky Skopelitis and Arto Lindsay, and bassists Bill Laswell and Jamaaladeen Tacuma.

The inventor of the modern computer and the Blues Brothers are among the figures that could be memorialized through public art as part of a capital-improvement project over the next few years on and near the Great River Plaza of Rock Island.