Arts & Entertainment >>

• Best Tuesday-Night Entertainment
  So What
  Rock Island
  Yes, it's a school night, but that doesn't bother the lively and loyal crowd on the dance floor at Rock Island. So What, a weekly dance night at this LoDo institution, finds DJs K-Nee, Style 'N Fashion and Aztec playing just about anything they and the crowd feel like. The Tuesday-night gig grew... More >>
• Best Wednesday-Night Entertainment
  Country Gone Wrong
  Streets of London Pub
  A pub named Streets of London might seem an unlikely place for a night of country-flavored entertainment, but don't tell that to DJs Stagger Lee and Chester Fields. These good ol' boys are the hosts of Country Gone Wrong, an inside-out C&W show that pairs heartbreak with hilarity. Country... More >>
• Best Autobiography by a Furniture Magnate
  An American Tiger
  Jake Jabs came out fighting when the News and Post announced their proposed JOA. But then, he's taken on wilder beasts than rampaging publishers, as becomes clear in the first few pages of his self-published autobiography, An American Tiger ($19.95 at an American Furniture Warehouse store near... More >>
• Best Musical Advertisements for a Local Venue
  Road Rock V.1 and Red Rocks Live
  Neil Young
  Recorded and/or filmed at Red Rocks, Road Rock V.1, an in-concert CD, and Red Rocks Live, a DVD, aren't just fine documents of Neil Young's undimmed musical energy. They're also reminders that the natural amphitheater located in the foothills west of Denver remains the most primordial place to... More >>
• Best New Online Music Resource
  www.bandguru.com
  Mark Bliesener's decision to expand his musician consulting business to the Web is a gift to bands and artists anywhere, not just those who share his Denver area code. Bliesener is what those in the music industry refer to as an "insider": a former critic, performer, publicist and manager who... More >>
• Best Web Site for Agoraphobic Music Fans
  www.jammingconcerts.com
  While there ain't nothing like the real thing, jammingconcerts.com provides a pleasant alternative to the live-concert experience. The Denver-based site hosts a dizzying archive of live audio and digital video footage of local and touring artists, all culled from performances in Englewood's... More >>
• Best Musical Education on Radio
  KVCU-AM/1190
  KVCU-AM/1190, the student-run station at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is staffed by musical enthusiasts who break down barriers as a matter of course. They're eager to inform young listeners about great music of the past through the use of artist features focusing on acts that rose to... More >>
• Best Specialty Show on a Commercial Radio Station
  Doo-Wop Sunday Morning
  KXKL-FM/105.1
  Jay Mack is no spring chicken. He's been in the radio biz for decades and made news last year after having an on-air respiratory attack; a concerned listener who called 911 on his behalf may very well have saved his life. But the years have made him terrifically knowledgeable about rock and... More >>
• Best Radio Show
  Destination Freedom
  KUVO-FM/89.3
  For three years running, KUVO's Destination Freedom has been broadcasting its own brilliant re-creations of historical black radio dramas every third Tuesday at 9 p.m. The scripts were written in the late 1940s by Richard Durham, who wrote 104 plays about significant African-Americans. His... More >>
• Best Commercial Radio Station
  KBCO-FM/97.3
  KBCO is easy to take for granted. But despite being part of the enormous Clear Channel conglomerate, which critics charge with contributing to the homogenization of radio everywhere, the station is still in touch with the singularly Bouldery vibe that it's emitted from the beginning. And for... More >>
• Best Non-Commercial Radio Station
  KGNU-FM/88.5
  In a day and age when too many public-radio stations are generic and canned, Boulder's modest-sized KGNU remains intensely local, proudly idealistic and wonderfully idiosyncratic. Sometimes smaller is better. More >>
• Best Radio DJ
  Alisha
  KVCU (AM/1190)
  The morning personality on the CU-Boulder station, Alisha is perky without being cloying, and she goes out of her way to give listeners new information about the tunes she spins. Special features include regular interviews with the station's music director, Denise von Minden, that highlight the... More >>
• Best Band Name (1 Comment)
  Anne Frank on Crank
  Let's be Frank: She got da stank! You can take it to the bank. More >>
• Best New Non-Fiction Book
  Powder Burn
  Daniel Glick
  When Newsweek correspondent Daniel Glick set out to chronicle the October 1998 fires that did $12 million in damage to Vail, he wound up writing what could be Colorado's ultimate whodunit -- albeit one still without a conclusion (the list of suspects is long, however). But in shining a light on... More >>
• Best Matching Stage Attire
  The Orangu-Tones
  From navy blazers to red vests to bold Hawaiian luau-wear, Denver's frat-rock revivalists, the Orangu-Tones, are always in complete harmony -- from a fashion standpoint, that is. "Authentic" is the key adjective here: These guys wouldn't look out of place at a 1962 sock hop. The Tones' reliable... More >>
• Best C&W Club
  Grizzly Rose
  Denver's long-lived country establishment has had its share of troubles over the past year. But despite a little scandal, some ownership troubles and battles with state liquor law-enforcement agencies, there's a bloom on the Rose again. Thanks to new management -- the place is now helmed by... More >>
• Best Place to Dance the Night Away
  Mercury Cafe
  From swing to salsa, dance crazes come and go with an almost Swiss precision. (We're still awaiting the return of the Freddy.) At the advance of each new wave, the Mercury Cafe is ready, opening its funky doors to dancers of all persuasions. While swing and lindy hop are still going strong,... More >>
• Best Latin Club
  Sevilla
  You needn't know how to dance when you enter Sevilla, but it helps: Five nights a week, the gorgeous, Euro-style nightclub inside the Icehouse ushers in hordes of well-dressed dance-floor denizens, who move to the cardio beat of live Latin sounds, from merengue to mambo and salsa. Even if you... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Joint
  Fox Theatre
  For a theater stuck in the middle of a college town that's about as white as the inside of a hospital toilet bowl, the Fox Theatre sure knows how to kick some flava: More than any other venue in the state, it consistently hosts fine performances by up-and-coming hip-hop talent along with its... More >>
• Best Place to Keep It Real
  El Chapultepec
  It's hard to keep it real these days in chic, overpriced LoDo, but no place keeps it real better than Jerry Krantz's El Chapultepec jazz club, an undeniably divey institution. It's smoky, true. And crowded, yes! But it costs only one beer to get in, and you can count on the local musicians to... More >>
• Best Jazz Club
  Vartan Jazz Club and Restaurant
  The neon sign beckons you downstairs, and the soothing, softly lit room, the comfortable chairs and the consistently great jazz will keep you inside Vartan Jazz Club. This venue has welcomed the likes of trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard, hard-bop pioneer Horace Silver and the amazing Cuban pianist... More >>
• Best After-Hours Club (16 Comments)
  Amsterdam
  Amsterdam's owners cast an even larger net over the local club scene with the opening of Pure last year, a sort of pulsating oasis on Welton Street. But it's Amsterdam that stands out as their most brilliant achievement. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, the club opens its door to dancers... More >>
• Best Dance Club
  Vinyl/Club Next
  Earlier this year, the folks at Vinyl, the club that rose from the ashes after a fire gutted its interior in 2000, got smart: They invited Hardy Kalisher, the brains behind the internationally recognized Boulder club Soma, to help them brainstorm a new direction for their space. The result is... More >>
• Best Place to Make a Shag Last All Night
  The Snake Pit
  Every Wednesday night, The Snake Pit puts aside the dance and Gothic music that normally dominates its sound system to make way for Shag, during which Anglophiles dance to new and old music from the canon of British pop. Introduced in the spirit of the Pit's original Brit-pop night, Quid, Shag... More >>
• Best Mini-Marathon of Local Music
  People's Fair Auditions
  Every year, the Capitol Hill United Neighborhood-sponsored People's Fair showcases some of the finest local artists in mediums ranging from aura photography to basket weaving. It's the music, though, that's of particular interest to many People -- and before the nearly 100 bands converge on the... More >>
• Best News for Movie Buffs
  The Starz Encore Film Center
  Last November, cable-TV giant Starz Encore and company chairman John J. Sie pledged $5 million cash and launched a $7 million fund drive to finance a three-screen, state-of-the-art movie theater facility in the Tivoli. The Starz Encore Film Center, scheduled to open in summer 2002, will become... More >>
• Best Drag Wear
  Lamecia Landrum
  When Pigs Fly
  When the impossibly fanciful costumery creations of Howard Crabtree had to be re-created for a local production of Crabtree's campy revue When Pigs Fly at Theatre on Broadway, costumer Lamecia Landrum was completely up to the task. While other career costumers might have been slammed by the... More >>
• Best Festival Dedicated to Flower Power
  Wildflower Festival
  Take a walk on the wild side at Crested Butte's annual Wildflower Festival. Now about fifteen years old (in good Crested Butte fashion, the origins of the event are a little vague), this festival remains as fresh and invigorating as an alpine meadow after a summer shower. Crested Butte is known... More >>
• Best Character Actress
  Lori Hansen
  Past seasons have seen Lori Hansen play a lewd nun (Nine), and a failed poet, chorus member and disturbed nun (Suddenly Last Summer). Last fall Hansen eschewed her twisted-sister ways and turned in a nicely controlled performance as a wronged Cherokee bride in part one of The Kentucky Cycle. As... More >>
• Best Singing Hero
  Christopher Simmons
  PHAMALy
  Before Christopher Simmons died of an aneurysm last year, he had begun working on improving the singing skills and overall professionalism of the group he'd performed with for several seasons. According to one of his colleagues at PHAMALy (The Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actor's... More >>
• Best Friday-Night Entertainment
  Shabbat Unplugged
  While some young Jews have drifted away, organizers of the regular Friday-night Shabbat Unplugged at Temple Emanuel have figured out a way to make the Song of David ring out. Featuring modern instruments and a rabbi who can riff, the monthly event has been catching on. Where once there were... More >>
• Best Concert (since June 2000)
  Neil Young
  Backed by a band that included sister Astrid and wife Pegi, Neil Young ably demonstrated that he still has the chops, the power and the appeal to keep fans coming back again and again. And again. In three consecutive sold-out appearances at Red Rocks -- one of which included a freakish downpour... More >>
• Best Steps Taken by a Public Institution
  Poets Way
  They're four small steps for Boulder, but four giant steps for poem-kind: The first four of fifty proposed engraved sandstone slabs were laid in a walkway at the Boulder Public Library's south entrance last fall, featuring quotes by poets Wawatay Eninew, Rabindrath Tagore, Thomas Hornsby Ferril... More >>
• Best Way to Appreciate Local Art
  Documents of Colorado Art
  Over the years, Ocean View Books (the press relocated from the West Coast in the mid 1990s, thus the name) has published a series of volumes on the history of Colorado art. The two-person operation -- Lee Ballentine is the designer; his wife, Jennifer MacGregor, is the editor -- has just put out... More >>
• Best Annual Transformation
  Lannie Garrett into Pasty DeCline
  You know the cows are coming home when normally sleek and sultry local entertainer Lannie Garrett pulls on her cowgirl outfit and emerges as Patsy DeCline, a country singer who's never going to make it to the Grand Ole Opry. On Friday and Saturday nights through May 5, the popular sendup of... More >>
• Best Outdoor Art Show
  Joel Shapiro
  In an unprecedented collaboration between the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Performing Arts Complex, the outdoor exhibit Joel Shapiro was presented on DPAC's lawn on Speer Boulevard; an additional piece has been placed in front of the DAM. The traveling show, which was put together by New... More >>
• Best One-Man Band
  Trace Christensen
  Rather than let a shrinking market for live music and shriveling pay end his career, Trace Christensen rolled with the changes. He's now replaced bandmates with his own pre-recorded tracks, taking his one-man karaoke company into area clubs. As one musician playing the parts of four or five... More >>
• Best Installation Show
  Chuck Parson
  Vertical Garden
  Vertical Garden was the best of three solo exhibits mounted this past winter that showcased the most recent work of Lakewood sculptor Chuck Parson. An apparent workaholic, Parson created two complete environments for this show along with a group of related sculptures, all of which attempted to... More >>
• Best Career Upgrade by a Former Local
  Clark ov Saturn
  Clark ov Saturn was a multifaceted contributor to Denver's scene before his 1999 move to New York City. His local-access cable show -- one teaching German, no less -- never seemed to get in the way of his ambient DJ gigs or the touring schedule of his techno/industrial unit, ph-10. Now ensconced... More >>
• Best Drawing Show
  Robert Motherwell: Early Drawings
  The Robischon Gallery usually offers museum-quality shows, but few have matched Robert Motherwell: Early Drawings, which came down in early March. The late modern master was represented by some of his signature action paintings on paper as well as several examples of his later, and equally fine,... More >>
• Best Hire by a Museum
  Cydney Payton
  It's been a rocky start for the still-fledgling Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver: During the last few years, the museum has had two permanent directors and an interim one. Now a third permanent director has been hired: Cydney Payton, who rescued Boulder's Museum of Contemporary Art from... More >>
• Best Kiddie Recording
  Permanent Teeth
  Natural Selection
  Denver-based songwriter Mark Ledwig first penned Permanent Teeth as a classroom tool: An elementary-school teacher in Los Angeles, he knew his catchy numbers might help bilingual students comprehend such things as punctuation, the alphabet, multiplication and environmentalism. But after hauling... More >>
• Best Theater Production (since June 2000)
  The Kentucky Cycle
  The time commitment required to see all of The Kentucky Cycle didn't deter area theatergoers from sampling Robert Schenkkan's nine-play, six-hour epic. Even though the evening could have easily degenerated into a Roots-length version of the old Daniel Boone television series, director Jeremy... More >>
• Best Tribute to a Bluegrass Performer
  Charles Sawtelle: Music From Rancho deVille
  A longtime member of Hot Rize and a well-liked member of the local music scene, Charles Sawtelle died in 1999 at age 52. But he touched a great many people while he was here, as Charles Sawtelle: Music From Rancho deVille (Acoustic Disc) amply demonstrates. Guest appearances by acoustic artisans... More >>
• Best Horrifying Success by a Local Writers' Group
  The World Horror Convention 2000
  The World Horror Convention 2000, held last May in Denver, wasn't for people with propellers whirling on their beanies; it was a feast for professional writers of horror. According to organizer Ed Bryant, generally accepted as the Colorado godfather of the genre, about 300 of the 500 people... More >>
• Best Comedy and Improv Space
  Bovine Metropolis Theatre
  Tucked away on a side street just a block from the 16th Street Mall, the Bovine Metropolis Theatre is a gem of a performance space, where comedy troupes like the Acme Comedy Players and the SansScript Players regularly bring out the laughs. Audiences can expect everything from improvisation to... More >>
• Best Movie Theater -- Comfort
  Denver Pavilions 15
  United Artists' vast, fifteen-house multiplex on the teeming 16th Street Mall may not be the most pleasing edifice, architecturally speaking, but when the lights go down and the credits come up, moviegoers can revel in every postmodern comfort: sculpted, well-cushioned seats arranged in the... More >>
• Best Groove Revival
  Cherry Bomb Club
  Technically, the Cherry Bomb Club never really went away. But the release of last year's self-titled album on DivineShaker Records cast the collective -- which counts prestigious Denver music alumni, including members of the Warlock Pinchers and Foreskin 500, among its members -- in an exciting... More >>
• Best Blasts From the Past
  Flyin' West and Hughie
  Shadow Theatre Company
  A lesser director might have turned Flyin' West into a hiss-filled potboiler. But in director Jeffrey Nickelson's capable hands, Pearl Cleage's play became an expansive ode to courage, self-determination and the price of freedom. Despite the dramatist's frank treatment of the subject of... More >>
• Best Promoter of Musically Uncategorizable Weirdness
  Tom Steenland
  The man behind Boulder's Starkland Records continues to put out some of the county's most intriguing avant-garde CDs, and now Tom Steenland has branched out into a new medium: immersion. Starkland's first DVD turns the spotlight on worthy performers such as Paul Dresher, Pamela Z, Meredith Monk... More >>
• Best Music Venue in LoDo
  Soiled Dove
  Although most people equate LoDo more with baseball than bands, Frank Schultz and his team at the Soiled Dove have been presenting living, breathing music almost every night of the week in a high-end setting. The venue's music calendar has received a considerable boost from former Herman's... More >>
• Best Approximation of a Concert at the Apollo Theatre
  D'Angelo
  Despite the hefty ticket prices, D'Angelo and his band, the Soultronics, put on a blazing show that quickly had the many pretty thangs in attendance rushing the stage and dancing in the aisles. With the lights dimmed low, the Virginia-bred funkster unleashed his smooth, soulful grooves on a... More >>
• Best New Film Festival
  Reel/Real Black: Pan African Film Festival
  Now in its second year, the Pan African Film Festival is coming into its own as a significant cultural resource. More than fifty movies from black filmmakers all over the world will be screened this year, ranging from shorts to features to documentaries to works in progress. The festival, which... More >>
• Best Actor
  Greg Hicks
  Tantalus
  It isn't often that local audiences get the chance to spend extended periods of time in the company of actors capable of commanding any stage in the English-speaking world. This past fall, though, Royal Shakespearean Greg Hicks treated Denver to a nine-hour-long display of consummate skill.... More >>
• Best Festival Dedicated to Electrical Power
  Telluride Tech Festival
  Where's Lucius Nunn when you need him? Back in 1891, the Telluride resident electrified the world when he and some colleagues built the first industrial hydropower plant (the Ames Plant) to produce alternating current. Two years later, the country's energy industry was revolutionized when Nunn... More >>
• Best Heroine in the Making
  Betsy Taylor
  The Fantasticks
  This crowd-pleasing revival of The Fantasticks was full of entertaining performances -- the most promising of which was Betsy Taylor's rendering of the vocally demanding role of Luisa. Only the most stoic individual could have maintained a stony countenance when Taylor attested to her undying... More >>
• Best Reason to Get Hammered on Friday Night
  Hangover Brunch
  KVCU-AM/1190
  Ask not for whom the seltzer fizzes, kiddies: It fizzes for thee -- especially when the cheerful hosts of Radio 1190's Hangover Brunch take to the late-morning airwaves on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Milkman Dan, Steph and a rotating crew of bleary-eyed guests count down their favorite... More >>
• Best Performance by a Denverite at the Grammys
  Dianne Reeves
  Jazz chanteuse Dianne Reeves finally had a well-deserved moment in the spotlight -- and at the podium -- at this year's Grammy Awards. Reeves snagged the award for Best Jazz Vocal Album with In the Moment -- Live in Concert, her stunning album released for Blue Note in the summer of 2000. The... More >>
• Best Way to Get in Touch With Your Inner Hemingway
  Lighthouse Writers
  Is the Great American Novel lurking inside your overworked brain? How about just a good American novel? A short story? Maybe you simply want a new way to express yourself. Whatever you're looking for, Lighthouse Writers can help. This ever-growing outfit, started by the husband-and-wife team of... More >>
• Best Blockbuster Museum Exhibit
  Painters and the American West
  Exhibition designers at the Denver Art Museum have been getting cutesy recently with kid-friendly gimmicks and other tricks that make it easy to ignore the art. But there was no ignoring the high quality of the paintings in last winter's Painters and the American West, which highlighted the... More >>
• Best Tour de Force
  Ed Baierlein
  Fakulty Frolix
  This loosely related trio of one-acts (Anton Chekhov's On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, Maria Irene Fornes's Dr. Kheal and Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson) explored knowledge's capacity to empower or paralyze. Propelled by Ed Baierlein's tour-de-force performance in each play, the evening was by turns... More >>
• Best Painting Solo -- Old Master Division
  Vance Kirkland, Asian Paintings
  To organize Vance Kirkland, Asian Paintings, a breathtaking show displayed late last summer, Hugh Grant, the director of the Vance Kirkland Foundation, which is the keeper of the late Denver artist's legacy, selected a combination of Kirkland's 1940s surrealist landscapes, and his... More >>
• Best Place to Channel Jerry, Man
  Sancho's Broken Arrow
  An evil barber's wet dream, Sancho's Broken Arrow provides a safe place for Denver's hairier denizens to converge, drink microbrews and compare notes on Dead bootlegs. A sister establishment to Quixote's True Blue (also on East Colfax), Sancho's tie-dyed, trippy interior is an atmospheric... More >>
• Best Cartoon Bands
  The Apples in Stereo and Dressy Bessy
  The Powerpuff Girls: Heroes & Villains (Kid Rhino) is ostensibly a CD tie-in to the Cartoon Network series in which a trio of tots named Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup regularly triumphs over animated evil. But it's also an exceedingly enjoyable indie-pop primer in which two first-rate local... More >>
• Best Print Show
  Select Prints
  Over the years, Bud Shark's Lyons print studio, Shark's Inc., has attracted famous artists from across the country who wanted to make prints at the mountain compound. Oddly, these prints have ended up more often in New York and London than in Denver. But that changed when the William Havu... More >>
• Best Recording
  Secret South
  16 Horsepower
  Secret South proves that 16 Horsepower has survived the hurdles of record label fallout (the band has signed with Razor & Tie) and shifting membership with its creative faculties not only intact, but heightened: This swirling mass of music, informed by the skewed American traditionalism of David... More >>
• Best Place to See Minimalism
  Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery
  Paintings done with stripes, bars, lines and planes is what you'll find at Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery on most days. Director Robin Rule fills the rooms with a mix of minimalist old masters from New York, like Carl Andre and Mary Obering, and local talents, such as Clark Richert, the... More >>
• Best Local-Music Reissue
  Early Plague Years
  Thinking Plague
  Arguably the best art-rock band ever to hail from Denver, Thinking Plague first introduced itself to the public with ...A Thinking Plague and Moonsongs, a pair of platters recorded in the early and mid-'80s, respectively, that have been out of print for ages. Early Plague Years (Cuneiform)... More >>
• Best New Play
  O.T.
  Smartly directed, honestly acted and imaginatively written, HorseChart's production of O.T. took on prickly issues with the kind of spunky tenacity that one expects from a group of theatrical renegades. Clay Nichols's drama, which was mounted as part of the National New Play Network, mixed... More >>
• Best Bluegrass Recording
  Open Road
  Open Road
  The self-titled debut from Open Road is a bone-chilling masterpiece of Kentucky-grown sound. Leader Bradford Lee Folk sports a harrowing voice, and he and his mates possess a commanding, retro-respectful grasp of their adopted music. From giddy stompers to tear-jerking laments, this record... More >>
• Best Place to Raise Your Consciousness
  Cafe Nuba
  The revolution will not televised; instead, it will be in multimedia, and it's already getting started at Cafe Nuba in Five Points. Located at the Gemini Tea Emporium and run by Denver's Pan-African Arts Society, the cafe hosts monthly sets of hip-hop poetry, performance art and political prose,... More >>
• Best Community-Theater Troupe
  The Evergreen Players
  The oldest community-theater group in the state, the Evergreen Players celebrated their fiftieth anniversary last year by winning the regional American Association of Community Theatres competition in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The group's production of All in the Timing qualified the actors for the... More >>
• Best Performance by an East High Graduate
  Don Cheadle
  Traffic
  Teachers at Denver's East High School remember Don Cheadle (class of 1982) as an able student and a dedicated student actor; his turn as the Artful Dodger in Oliver is still cherished there. Since then, this talented character actor has stolen a show from Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue... More >>
• Best Alternative to the Screaming Guitar Wank (1 Comment)
  Neil Haverstick
  Following his own muse and intuition, local six-stringer Neil Haverstick coined the term "micro-noodling" a few years ago in reference to his disciplined knack for coaxing more than twelve notes from a musical scale. Using custom-built instruments (including an electrified ax capable of... More >>
• Best Revival
  Playwrights Unit
  Before it was disbanded, the Denver Center Theatre Company's Playwrights Unit gave local playwrights a chance not only to see their works receive a major production, but also to collect some actual cash. The group rewarded us with an embarrassment of artistic riches, including such plays as... More >>
• Best Promoter of Jazz Weirdness
  Alex Lemski
  Alex Lemski, the driving force behind Denver's Creative Music Works, is on a mission to keep the spirit of jazz alive, and his fanatical promotion of concerts featuring acts that share his goal is doing just that. His efforts to bring underground music into the light help make Denver a more... More >>
• Best New Club (since June 2000)
  The Cat
  When the proprietors of perennial punk establishment the Raven got tired of their old digs on Welton street, they simply packed up and moved down the road to a space they christened The Cat. The new club is not an entirely different animal, however: The adornment is still minimal, the crowds are... More >>
• Best Hospitality in a Music Venue
  Gothic Theatre
  Matt Need and his friendly staff do what few proprietors of Denver music rooms do: They treat local bands with respect. Beneath the Gothic Theatre's large stage lies a greenroom with furniture you're not afraid to sit on, a shower you're not afraid to step into, and bathrooms with toilet paper.... More >>
• Best Outpouring of PLUR
  Colorado Dance Music Awards
  Peace, Love, Unity and Respect. The raver's clever acronym seemed almost like an actual religion during the second annual Colorado Dance Music Awards, where club kids, candy ravers, promoters, performers and DJs put down their pacifiers to give each other big fat pats on the back. The event,... More >>
• Best Performance by a Coloradan on National TV
  Steven Cowles
  The Mole
  Undercover cops develop a sixth sense about people who may not be what they seem. That skill is probably what helped Steven Cowles win $510,000 on ABC's reality show The Mole. For 28 days, Cowles, who works for the University of Colorado Police Department when he's not in the limelight, ran... More >>
• Best Annual Festival Dedicated to Food
  Olathe Corn Festival
  Save the first Saturday in August for all the Olathe sweet corn you can eat. Last year the Western Slope Vegetable Growers Association donated more than 70,000 ears of the Colorado specialty, which were consumed by an estimated 20,000 attendees, all to benefit nonprofit organizations in the... More >>
• Best Actress
  Robin Moseley
  Much Ado About Nothing
  Her scathing portrayal of an unhappy daughter in last season's The Beauty Queen of Leenane was as hard-edged as they come, but her more recent turn as Beatrice in the Denver Center's Much Ado About Nothing showed that Robin Moseley is an accomplished light-comedy actress as well. She captured... More >>
• Best Collection Dedicated to a Best-Selling Author
  James A. Michener Special Collection
  Shortly before he died in late 1997, best-selling author James Michener revealed that he wanted the University of Northern Colorado -- where he'd gotten his master's degree and first started writing -- to become the official repository of his works, a gift he wrapped up with a... More >>
• Best Devil in Disguise
  Nils Kiehn
  Lucifer Tonite
  Driven by Nils Kiehn's riveting turn as a raconteurish Satan, Don Becker's Lucifer Tonite stimulated playgoing nerves that, for too long locally, have been deadened by the dumbed-down din of floor-show-style musicals and hapless revue sketches. Despite its in-your-face tone, this play felt... More >>
• Best Open-Mike Night
  The Ice House
  Located in the old Evergreen Hotel next to the famous Little Bear on the main street that runs through town, the Ice House hosts an open-mike night every Thursday evening from 6 to 10. The "unplugged" musical fare is much better than the usual two guys playing old Eagles covers, with a variety... More >>
• Best Song for a Brave New World
  "World Anthem"
  Francis Scott Key could not have envisioned a time when his "Star-Spangled Banner" might be fused with the state song of, say, Namibia; in those days, it would have been impossible to foresee John Guillot's World Anthem Project. The local producer used a computer system called Experiments in... More >>
• Best Literary Service Threatened by the JOA
  Rocky Mountain News Books
  Rocky Mountain News Books editor Patti Thorn likes mysteries and light fiction. She also respects serious literature. And she harbors a profound curiosity about the current publishing scene, from self-published e-books to monolithic houses, the travails of local writers and the struggles -- and... More >>
• Best Gallery Show -- Group
  Time and Place: 100 Years of Women Artists in Colorado 1900-2000
  In an effort to come up with a millennium show last fall, Sally Perisho, director of the Metro Center for the Visual Arts, had the idea for a historic exhibit that would survey women artists working in Colorado during the twentieth century. To carry out her plan, she collaborated with freelance... More >>
• Best Right-Hand Man
  Bill Curley
  As the Denver Center Theatre Company's principal designer, Bill Curley has fashioned an impressive string of stage settings over the years. There was the Venice Beach storefront set, complete with a flying plane inviting patrons to renew their subscriptions, that served as the backdrop for The... More >>
• Best Painting Solo -- Young Master Division
  Jeff Wenzel: Painting
  Expectations were high for Jeff Wenzel: Painting, but even the highest of those were exceeded by this magnificent show held at Ron Judish Fine Arts in February. Educated as a ceramics artist, Wenzel works his paper surfaces as though they were made of pliable clay. He twists and tears, paints... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop DJ
  DJ Chonz
  DJ Chonz is the consummate hip-hop DJ. From his successful mix-tape series to his own online radio show to the packed houses he regularly rocks, Chonz has helped Denver heads appreciate one of hip-hop's often overlooked elements: the artist behind the turntables. Respected by artists from both... More >>
• Best Photo Show
  Fresh Eyes
  A group of five of Colorado's most interesting experimental photographers were brought together for Fresh Eyes, a cutting-edge exhibit organized by Kathy Andrews, head curator and exhibition director at the Arvada Center. Strong pieces included the uncharacteristic bottle shots by Mark Sink and... More >>
• Best Blues Recording
  White African
  Otis Taylor
  Otis Taylor is one of Colorado's many undiscovered treasures -- but if White African, an early release by NorthernBlues Music, a new Canadian blues imprint, receives the attention it deserves, he won't be undiscovered for long. The album isn't just the top blues recording by a local... More >>
• Best Evidence of Life on the Alternative Scene
  ILK @ Pirate
  It's sad but true: Denver's alternative galleries have seen better days. Nevertheless, that little hole-in-the-wall ILK @ Pirate keeps chugging along. The small room is typically the site of wonderful shows, and the exhibiting artists, almost always the members of the two-venue ILK co-op that... More >>
• Best Country Recording
  Always Say Please and Thank You
  Slim Cessna's Auto Club
  Thanks to the beneficence of former Boulderite Jello Biafra -- the onetime leader of the Dead Kennedys who created the Alternative Tentacles label -- Slim Cessna finally got the opportunity to display his eccentric take on country to a sizable audience beyond these parts. And he's made the most... More >>
• Best Avant-Garde Recording
  Scream of Consciousness
  Mike O'Neill
  Intimate solo-guitar improvisation filtered through casually chaotic sleight of hand (you know -- the induced vertigo from digital delays, ebos and assorted effects-laden gewgaws) is too easy a description for Mike O'Neill's impressive Scream of Consciousness. Scratch deeper and you'll discover... More >>
• Best New Novel
  Kissing the Virgin's Mouth
  Donna Gershten
  Before she moved to Colorado, Donna Gershten ran a health club in Mexico -- and she put that experience to good use in Kissing the Virgin's Mouth. Her haunting, lyrical novel won not only raves from critics, but also the first $10,000 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, established by Barbara... More >>
• Best Theater for Younger Audiences
  ...And Now Miguel
  Jim Hughes and Will Graveman's musical, ...And Now Miguel, examined an adolescent boy's agony in wondering whether anyone else understands what it's like to feel like an adult and be treated like a child. Thanks to Tony Garcia's astute direction, the joint production of Denver's El Centro Su... More >>
• Best Place for an Afternoon Coffee Klatch
  Mayan Theatre
  Three words: atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. Sure, you might be able to get a bigger selection of fancy java drinks at Starbucks, but can you drink your skinny caramel macchiato with sprinkles in a locale imbued with such genuine art-deco flair? Arrive early at the Mayan Theatre, buy some... More >>
• Best Uncategorizable Recording
  Carnival Detournement
  Hamster Theatre
  What began as a creative outlet for multi-instrumentalist Dave Willey has turned into a real band -- and a unique one, at that. Carnival Detournement (Cuneiform) is a cornucopia of jazz, art rock and Eastern European folk music that's at once endlessly intriguing and unexpectedly accessible. More >>
• Best Living Book
  1933
  Randal Myler and Brockman Seawell's adaptation of onetime Boulder resident John Fanté's novella 1933 Was a Bad Year entranced from start to finish. That's mostly because Myler, who also directed 1933, staged the play with near-cinematic fluidity. He was aided by an ever-shifting backdrop... More >>
• Best Bluegrass Vocalist
  Bradford Lee Folk
  Bradford Lee Folk's voice is the musical equivalent of Rogaine, a hormone-rich wonder that raises the hair on the head, neck and everywhere else. One of many highlights in his stellar acoustic group, Open Road, Folk sings pre-country music with ache, anger and appreciation for his forebears. His... More >>
• Best Perfect Change
  The cast of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
  An outstanding quartet of local actors drove beyond the shortcomings of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change to offer up an insightful, sometimes hilarious look at America's love-hate relationship with dating games. Whether they were dovetailing in four-part harmony, pairing off in... More >>
• Best Street Promotion Team
  3Deep Presents
  3Deep Presents, which started in 1992 as a mobile DJ unit on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, consistently brings some of the best hip-hop music to town. In the past year, the crew promoted the DMC Technics Regional DJ championships at the Fox Theatre. And in conjunction with House... More >>
• Best Rock Club
  15th Street Tavern
  The sound can be murky, the toilets are often dubious, and the neighboring establishments range from simply divey to dangerous. But, hey -- no one ever said rock and roll was pretty. The 15th Street Tavern is still the best place to get rocked, both for the quality of its musical fare and for... More >>
• Best Bathroom Graffiti in a Punk Club
  Seven South
  Okay, so the pinball machine is poorly maintained. And the music is generally targeted at only the most grizzled eardrums in Denver. But the walls in the men's bathroom at Seven South offer enough philosophical lunacy (okay, idiocy) to amuse those with even the most television-addled attention... More >>
• Best Multimedia Musical Mindfuck
  Negativland
  In what might have been the group's final outing, Negativland -- the wildly experimental music-and-art collective from San Francisco -- brought its True/False 2000 Tour to a packed house at the Bluebird Theater last spring. At nearly three hours in length, the mind-altering spectacle featured... More >>
• Best Campus Film Series
  Stan Brakhage Film Forum
  Say what you will about the experimental, sometimes difficult work of longtime Colorado filmmaker Stan Brakhage, but his films have stood the test of time. For four decades, Brakhage has been regarded as one of the most forward-looking of all American filmmakers, for his individuality and... More >>
• Best Costumes
  Joan Kuder Bell
  The Rivals
  The Upstart Crow Theatre Company's version of The Rivals was a gorgeously costumed affair. In addition to providing the comedy with adequate staging, director Joan Kuder Bell took on the assignment of designing the play's eighteenth-century garb. With the help of four seamstresses, she crafted a... More >>
• Best New Festival Dedicated to Food
  Chex Mix Day
  February 23, 2001, will live in Colorado history as the day Chex Mix was declared the official snack food of Sterling. The event, the result of an on-air survey of snack preferences conducted by KPMX DJ Jason Murphy, was marked by a parade complete with marching band and float and crowning of... More >>
• Best Character Actor
  Randy Moore
  Since arriving from Dallas a few years ago, Randy Moore has played a wide array of memorable parts, including a slimy jewelry salesman (The Comedy of Errors), a slithering witch (Macbeth), a blustering patriarch (Life With Father), a bumbling bumpkin (The Winter's Tale) and, most recently, a... More >>
• Best Collection Dedicated to a Fashion Curmudgeon
  Historic Costume and Textile Collection
  Richard Blackwell is best known for the acerbic eye he turns on the fashion faux pas of the rich and famous, a public service that culminates in Mr. Blackwell's ten-best-dressed and ten-worst-dressed lists released every January. (This year's worst of the worst: Britney Spears.) But CSU knows a... More >>
• Best Singing Nun
  Joyce Castle
  Dialogues of the Carmelites
  That unfunny dramatic theorist, Aristotle, probably would have loathed the idea that the high point of the Central City Opera's production of Dialogues of the Carmelites occurred in Act One, long before a proper "rising action" developed. Even so, audiences appreciated the fact that... More >>
• Best Thursday-Night Entertainment
  All-Star Karaoke
  Cafe Cero
  Cafe Cero is hip: It's cool and casual, it serves gourmet bar food, it attracts big-name local acts to perform acoustic sets and comedy acts, and it hosts All-Star Karaoke every Thursday night at 9. With more than 5,000 songs available, there's no excuse for you not to make a total fool of... More >>
• Best Thanksgiving Performance by a Man Hearing Too Many Goddamn Voices in His Head
  Wesley Willis
  Wesley Willis, a schizophrenic Chicago street artist and Casio accompanist, played fiasco-free last Thanksgiving to a receptive Tavern crowd, rendering timeless (and preprogrammed) such holiday classics as "Eat That Mule Shit," "Shoot Me in the Ass" and "I'm Sorry That I Got Fat." The evening's... More >>
• Best Free Entertainment
  Mayor's Millennium Celebration
  Denver's major cultural institutions offered free admission all day on December 31, but that was just a taste of the big, big fun still to come. By 11:58 p.m. on New Year's Eve, the 16th Street Mall was one mass of happy, freeloading humanity, eagerly awaiting the fireworks that were set to... More >>
• Best Annual Festival Dedicated to Art
  Salida Art Walk
  South of Fairplay, west of Colorado Springs and east of Gunnison, one of America's "100 Best Small Art Towns" devotes a weekend each year to the visual and performing arts. In 2001, Salida is set to go artsy June 22-24 for the ninth annual Salida Art Walk, with nationally known painters,... More >>
• Best Gallery Show -- Solo
  John DeAndrea
  Colorado sculptor John DeAndrea is one of only a handful of local artists to have achieved international renown. But there's no mystery to his success, as the incredible sculptures in last fall's John DeAndrea make clear. The spectacular show was a knockout even from the sidewalk on Wazee... More >>
• Best Piano Man
  Paul Lopez
  You'd have to look pretty hard to find a less pretentious entertainer than Paul Lopez, pianist at Charlie Brown's Bar & Grill. The perpetually congenial Lopez, a fixture behind the bar's ivories since the late '80s, always has a good word for patrons, whether they're participatory-show-tune... More >>
• Best Ceramics Show
  Martha Daniels
  Grotto
  Denver ceramics genius Martha Daniels threw everything into Grotto, her outlandish installation in which most elements were made of clay. She painted the walls, created architectural elements and even put in an operable fountain. The resulting atmosphere was dark and heavy, exactly her... More >>
• Best Lunar Landing by an Experimental Caucasian
  Whitey on the Moon
  Besides spinning tunes for KUVO's Sleepless Nights once a week, Jamie Osborne hosts open-stage gatherings of vast proportions every other Wednesday at the Mercury Cafe -- an impromptu offering that launches listeners into twisting orbits of found sound, electronica, spoken word, jazz noodling... More >>
• Best Craft Show
  3rd American Tapestry Alliance Biennial Exhibition
  For an upstart small business, the Bayeux Gallery scored a major coup by presenting the 3rd American Tapestry Alliance Biennial Exhibition last summer. The two previous biennials had been held in public spaces; this was the first time the show was presented in a commercial gallery. But Bayeux,... More >>
• Best Jazz Recording
  Faith
  Fred Hess/Boulder Creative Music Ensemble
  Instrumentalist/bandleader Fred Hess has been among Colorado jazz's saving graces for a generation. Better yet, the years have dimmed neither his talent nor his musical curiosity. Faith (Cadence Jazz) finds Hess and a collection of impressive collaborators working at yet another creative peak. More >>
• Best Theater Company Season
  Artistic director Nicholas Sugar has returned the Theatre Group to a high level of quality -- something the organization, best known for producing plays at Theatre on Broadway, has lacked since it expanded some seasons back. This past year, Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing was a competently... More >>
• Best Ozzy Cover by a Country Act
  "Crazy Train"
  The Railbenders
  This up-and-coming honky-tonk band plays the stuff that made Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and their peers famous. Like those artists, the 'Benders know a sense of humor is a key ingredient in successful classic country. The group's re-creation of Ozzy Osbourne's classic "Crazy Train" on its solid... More >>
• Best Local Appearance by a National Author
  Dave Eggers
  After his mother and father died, 21-year-old Dave Eggers was left to raise his younger brother -- a situation that he turned into a best-selling memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The cutting-edge tome inspired Amy Slothower, a fundraiser for the Webb-Waring Institute for... More >>
• Best Musical Revue
  Ain't Misbehavin'
  Director Hugo Jon Sayles's choice to present Ain't Misbehavin' as a New York City "rent party" lent the collection of Depression-era tunes a laid-back informality that made audiences feel at home from the first note. The Broadway musical revue paid homage to the works of legendary blues man Fats... More >>
• Best Movie Theater -- Food
  Cinema Grill
  Tired of cold hot dogs and overpriced nachos that wind up in your lap every time Sylvester Stallone blows something to smithereens? Aurora's Cinema Grill offers an alternative: a selection of salads, burgers, subs, pizzas and grilled-chicken dishes served to you, at table, while you take in a... More >>
• Best Colorado Symphony Orchestra Kudos
  ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming
  It's not the first time Marin Alsop and ensemble have received ASCAP accolades for being different, but in a time when the magnificent Maestra's days in Denver seem numbered as a result of her fire and enthusiasm, it's especially worthy of note, concrete evidence of what everyone's been saying... More >>
• Best Sifted History
  ...becoming non grata
  The actors in ...becoming non grata performed each episode in this production as though they had personally lived it -- which, in a way, they did. The collaboratively written piece, which focused on events at the Japanese internment camp at Amache, Colorado, was developed over a six-month period... More >>
• Best Battle Rapper
  Kingdom
  Over the past year, Kingdom has gone head-to-head with some of the best rappers in the business, including Wyclef Jean, with whom the Royal One faced off during the recent Campus Invasion Tour. Kingdom's skills at the mike also earned him a slot on The Source magazine's battle competition; he... More >>
• Best Indie Producer
  Mike Jourgensen
  In addition to fronting the explosively guitar-centric Abdomen, Mike Jourgensen records and distributes music through www.noisetent.com, an indie hub of punk-friendly Denver-based bands including Jet Black Joy, Dumbass Brothers, Stuttering Bishops, Blast-Off Heads, Negative Man, Fast Action... More >>
• Best Place to Probe the Unknown
  Herman's Hideaway
  Herman's Hideaway is not exactly known for hosting the best local music. But it does deserve kudos for hosting the most. With live music every night of the week, Herman's offers bands ranging from the well-established to the unknown; the New Music Showcase series on Thursday nights is often... More >>
• Best Experimental Theater
  Tantalus
  For more than a year, pundits the world over wondered whether John Barton's Tantalus would be a millennium-defining hit or flop. Much like the nature of Greek myths themselves, the grand, lavishly staged show was less absolute, and the joint effort of the Denver Center Theatre Company and... More >>