The Stranger Suggests
June 28 - July 5
Cloudland Canyon
(PAS DE DEUX) Cloudland Canyon are a German-American kosmische soundclash. Yank Kip Uhlhorn and Kraut Simon Wojan met while the former was touring in Germany in 2002 with his other band, Panthers. The two exchanged tapes and ideas over three years and produced one of this year’s finest brain-massagers, Requiems Der Natur 2002–2004. Inspired by Terry Riley’s cyclical minimalism and Ash Ra Tempel’s solarized guitar haze, Cloudland Canyon open your third ear to new vibrations. (Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave NW, 784-4880. 8 pm, $7, 21+.)
Iron Composer 13
(SACRÉ BLEU!) America’s favorite alcohol-soaked songwriting competition returns with an all-star cast. The battling composers: SNL kook and former Blue Man Fred Armisen versus Martin Crandall and Dave Hernandez of the Shins. The celebrity judges: alterna-comics David Cross, Todd Barry, and Jon Benjamin. The winner: the Vera Project, for which the whole shebang—including opening act Pleaseeasaur— is a benefit. (The Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151. Doors at 8 pm, show at 9 pm, $25.)
Joel Mull
(RECHERCHÉ) For years, the most ferocious and thrilling hard techno came from Sweden. Producers like Cari Lekebusch, Adam Beyer, and Joel Mull laid down girthful grooves at breakneck tempos, embellished them with myriad hand percussion and bells, and made listeners feel as if they were in a war zone—or at some club run by Nietzschean Übermenschen. Mull has been delivering high-impact, uptempo beatdowns since 1996; this rare Seattle date should be a dazzler. (Des Amis, 1013 E Pike St, 322-0703. 9 pm, $10, 21+.)
“Awesome”
(JOIE DE VIVRE) Back before Delaware at Re-bar and noSIGNAL at On the Boards, “Awesome” used to play straight-ahead concerts—or the closest thing to straight-ahead concerts as the theatrical-minded musicians could manage. Tonight the band returns to its roots, with musical saws, comedy, performance art, a clutch of surprise guests, and, of course, songs about robot ghosts, drowned men, bullhorns, birds, and bees. (Open Circle Theater, 429 Boren Ave N, 382-4250. 8 pm, $10.)
‘Stolen’
(AU VOLEUR! ARRÊTEZ-LE!) The art thriller of the 20th century began March 18, 1990, when two unarmed men pretending to be police officers walked off with $300 million in art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, including the priceless Vermeer The Concert. Then things really got colorful. Documentarian Rebecca Dreyfus captures it all: the devotion, the intrigue, the Irish mob connections, the 75-year-old art detective who wears a bowler, the $5 million reward, and most of all, the fact that everything is still missing after 16 long years. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 329-2629. 7 and 9 pm, $5–$8.)
Fireworks
(LIBERTÉ) You could cadge your way onto a friend’s roof to watch the Big Explosions, or be a lame-ass and watch them on TV, or be a triple lame-ass and ignore them altogether, but you should be mingling with your brethren, preferably in the general vicinity of Seattle’s finest intersections: Belmont and Belmont and Bellevue, Bellevue, and Bellevue. Nearby, you can find secret parks, nooks with simultaneous views of Puget Sound and Lake Washington, and small bats that come out and circle at dusk. (Capitol Hill, 10 pm.)
‘Let’s Rock Again!’
(QUEL DOMMAGE!) The death of Joe Strummer at the still-vital age of 50 was a cruel loss. Dick Rude, a close friend of the Clash frontman, documented the last 18 months in the life of punk rock’s most intelligent, compassionate, and talented pioneer—and tonight you can see it for FREE, along with Xerox Babies, Rude’s documentary about the early L.A. punk scene. (JBL Theater at EMP, 325 Fifth Ave N, 770-2702. 7:30 pm, free.)
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