When Pizza Lucé was coming up on its 10th anniversary back in 2003, the small restaurant chain's owners and ever-youthful staff opted to put on "an event that would have a lot of different things going on, one of which just happened to be live music," recalled Lucé marketing director Corey Sax.

They called it a block party because it actually took place on a block in a neighborhood adjacent to their Lyndale Avenue location in south Minneapolis.

Twelve years later, Sax rightfully noted, "There's at least one big block party almost every weekend in summer" in the Twin Cities. And most of them actually take place in parking lots and are centered around live music.

Those latter traits are now true of the Pizza Lucé party, too, which takes place Saturday for the third year in a row in a lot outside the chain's downtown location on N. 4th Street. It had to move there because the neighborhood event literally got too big for the neighborhood (blame it on P.O.S).

Despite being just one of many now, the Lucé bash is still arguably the best block party of summer — or at least it inarguably has the most ambitious music lineup from year to year. Especially this year. Sax conceded the organizers upped the talent budget a bit this year "as one way for our party to keep standing out from the rest of the pack."

Har Mar Superstar will return for his third or fourth year at the party, which attests to the event's fun spirit. Two mic handlers from 2008's Lucé headlining act Doomtree, Sims and Mike Mictlan, will also return as a duo act. Two of Minnesota's best and noisiest rock acts of the moment, the Blind Shake and Retribution Gospel Choir, are in on it. So are Pink Mink, Frankie Teardrop, Tiny Deaths, L'Assassins and Rogue Valley.

And as if that weren't enough, Dillinger Four was added to the lineup after their own parking lot block party on July 4 passed. Go to pizzaluce.com for the schedule.

Random mix

Lots of new album announcements for fall: Motion City Soundtrack's "Panic Stations," recorded with indie-rock vet John Agnello at Pachyderm Studio, arrives Sept. 18; Hippo Campus' second EP, "South" — also recorded at Pachyderm — is due Oct. 2; and Prof's long-awaited LP for Rhymesayers, "Liability," will land Oct. 16 with collaborators including Tech N9ne, Waka Flocka Flame and Aesop Rock. …

Como Dockside, the Lake Como park pavilion eatery/hangout recently opened by the team from the Amsterdam Bar and 331 Club, is kicking off a new August music and movie series this Friday with a double feature of doo-woppy soul-punks Southside Desire and "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" (7 p.m., free). … Meanwhile, the seventh annual music and movies series at Lake Harriet Bandshell also kicks off Friday with worldly funksters the Brass Messengers and the first in a series of road-trip-themed flicks, "Dumb & Dumber" (7:30 p.m., free). …

The fourth installment of the Baumhaus improvised electronic music series at the Turf Club on Sunday will feature an all-star cast including hosts Claire de Lune and Adam Baum performing with their Tiny Deaths producer Grant Cutler for the first time, plus guest vocals by Solid Gold's Zack Coulter and Zoo Animal's Holly Hansen (10 p.m., $8). … Picked to Click 2008 entrants Private Dancer, featuring members of the Stnnng, Hockey Night and Poliça, will reunite Wednesday at the Turf Club to raise money for sidelined bartending fixture Adam Harness, a show also featuring rapper Phillip Morris and psychedelic faves Magic Castles, who are about to head to Europe for a month (9 p.m., $8). …

Minneapolis designer/illustrator Paul Gardner, who heads up Florafauna studio, has seven of his posters featured in Wilco's new poster book, "Beyond the Fleeting Moment: Wilco Concert Posters 2004-2014." … Fiddle- and guitar-fueled local Irish rockers the Wild Colonial Bhoys are dropping a new album in conjunction with this weekend's Irish Fair on Harriet Island in St. Paul, titled "On Our Own," their sixth in a decade of innumerable area pub gigs. …

Some of the clever/arty ideas Justin Vernon had for his recent Eaux Claires festival were already pioneered on a smaller scale by the Square Lake Film and Music Festival, now in its 13th year and looking as eclectic and charming as ever with Sonny Knight & the Lakers, Black Diet, Porcupine and Dosh. Read our story on Martin Dosh's special movie score for the 1960 documentary "Universe" at startribune.com/variety.

chrisr@startribune.com

612-673-4658