Enough yakking about Seattle showgoers always
standing with arms crossed like they’re guarding secrets of national
importance. You get the right entertainers in town and people will actually
move. Case in point: the acronym-packed M.I.A./LCD
Soundsystem performance at the Showbox last
week. While there was a bit of the armchair appreciation society populating
the back of the venue, the front half was very movement friendly (but I
guess not pot friendly—what’s up with a guy grabbing a security
guard because someone was smoking weed nearby?). Intolerance aside, M.I.A.
(AKA Maya Arulpragasam) had a second MC and her DJ Diplo in tow, and she
jumped around before a video screen of animated bombs dropping and wowed
the crowd with sheer charisma. Reports of M.I.A.’s lackluster
performance in other cities were proved wrong, at least for the night, as
the Sri Lankan MC apologized to the enthusiastic crowd for running out of
material: “I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel; I need to
write more songs,” she joked. A lack of material from two artists who
only recently had their full-length U.S. debut was a theme for the night,
as LCD mastermind James Murphy also stammered in response to a crowd rabid
for a longer encore than he could give. While M.I.A. gave Seattle an
infusion of international color, LCD’s NY-rooted dance instigations
were equally awesome live. Along with Dizzee
Rascal’s set at Neumo’s a couple
months back, electronic music’s rising radio stars seem to be coming
through in person as well as they do in the studio.

Speaking of stepping up to the challenge… Seattle School have made good
on their promise to hold the next Iron
Composer competition with contestants of
national importance. On Friday, June 17, the brilliantly wacky performance
group will host Wayne Kramer of the MC5 and ex–Dead Kennedys loudmouth Jello Biafra in a
smackdown of songwriting talent, super ego, and the ability to consume
copious amounts of alcohol. The Genius Award recipients’ Þrst
large-scale showdown will happen at the EMP’s Sky Church.

In other EMP developments, Ann Powers is leaving the music
museum to become a senior critic at Blender (as Þrst reported in the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer last week). Powers
has been writing for the mainstream music mag for a while (her
resumé also boasts writing/editing stints at the New York Times and the SF Weekly, among other places)
and she feels it’s a good time to leave her post at EMP, where she
has been working in the curatorial and education departments for almost
four years. “All my life I’ve alternated between writing and
administrative gigs,” she says. “The cycle has turned and
it’s time for me to go back to writing full time.”

And in the Þlm world, music fans would do well to
check out this year’s SIFF, as there are a bunch of music documentaries about
subjects ranging from Gram Parsons, the Gits, and Death Cab for Cutie to the original Rock School that inspired the Cameron Crowe feature Þlm playing at the
Þlm festival. See The Stranger’s SIFF Notes pullout for details.