I'm still hazy on details, but the night involved Little Red Riding Hood, contestants doing five shots in 45 minutes, and a songwriting challenge that turned into complete chaos. The pandemonium I'm describing is called Iron Composer, an Iron Chef parody held in July at the Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC), and soon to become a monthly event at various venues. The idea behind the Seattle School contest was to bring in two "chefs" from the arts community (the night I was there, it was Pomeranian's Emory Liu and Paul Jensen from Dudley Manlove Quartet), give them a secret ingredient they have to use in their compositions (such as a Q&A session about spiders with an audience member), and present a number of distracting obstacles in the chefs' way to writing a song on the spot with an assigned house band. A screen flashed images informing the packed house of the various "turmoils" for the chefs, an audience member read from "My Burning Man Diary" while images of penises flashed onscreen, and the enthusiastic audience followed screen commands to "Dance" and "Make Out." Imaginary Girl Dana, one of the judges for the night, kept turning to me asking if she was hallucinating the whole thing (of course, she was on her second pint-glass-sized cocktail). At the end of the night, Jensen was the clear winner with an "Eight Legged Freak" funk tune--becoming the proud recipient of seven cans of tuna fish--and it seemed like we all left completely clueless as to what had just happened but sure we wanted to experience it all again.

At one point during last weekend's Capitol Hill Block Party, DJ/music-scene gal Kerri Harrop said it right when she coined 2004 as "the best Block Party yet." I agree, except for the part where I got heat stroke (a miserable condition that makes you feel like you're drunk and hung over without the benefit of alcohol) and missed Pretty Girls and Sir Mix-A-Lot (who I heard invited 50 girls onstage to dance with him). Relief from the miserable heat came from water balloons lobbed from the USE crew (who, despite playing at one of the hottest times of the day, put on a mind-blowingly energetic set), water guns during the Spits set (who'd flown back that morning from playing the Dot Dash festival in New York), and all-white attire by the Turn-Ons' sensibly dressed frontman. Sunday's Party was just as much fun, with packed-out homecoming sets for the Melvins and the Blood Brothers, a flaming trumpet show from the Dusty 45's, and an impressive batch of new material from Cobra High. That's just a fraction of the excellent entertainment that happened across four stages (and multiple water-gun water fights) last weekend. Seattle should really give it up for David Meinert, Marcus Charles, and the Block Party crew for once again showcasing one of the most musically rich cities in the world (and proving that we have the dedicated crowds to support it).

jennifer@thestranger.com