Calendar of Events in Denver

Friday, May 24
• 
  Memorial Day Weekend Arts Festivals/Downtown Denver
  Denver Metro Area

  Two major holiday-weekend arts fests open today in downtown Denver, and while there could be some competition for crowds (and their wallets), organizers of both events insist that they’ll complement each other — and give viewers a bigger, bolder taste of (mostly) contemporary Colorado art. The Downtown Denver Arts Festival kickoff will take place from 4 to 8 p.m. at its original... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Friday Flash
  Denver Metro Area

  Downtown Denver, already an arts-and-culture hot spot this weekend, will welcome another new event tonight: Denver Digerati’s Friday Flash, with public motion-based art and animation screenings on the city’s jumbo LED screen at 14th and Champa streets. An outgrowth of some Create Denver projects that Plus Gallery’s Ivar Zeile (and associate Ryan Pattie) masterminded in... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Watching Hour: Welcome to the Dollhouse
  Sie FilmCenter

  Adolescence has rarely looked more awkward, unpleasant or emotionally painful than it does in Welcome to the Dollhouse, Todd Solondz’s 1995 black comedy about the horrors of being the least cool kid in junior high. The film’s unapologetic and unromanticized take on the casual abuse that kids heap on each other and the psychic trauma of living with it day to day have propelled the... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Moon Boots
  NORAD

  Moon Boots maintains a mysterious persona appropriate for a being who's allegedly imbued with sentience in a top-secret NASA experiment, but here's what we know about him: He's based out of Chicago, he's signed on the French Express label, and he has a grasp on the sort of funky, dirty, soulful sound that many house DJs would give their sense of rhythm for. He's been blowing up the... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Weaponizer
  Seventh Circle Music Collective

  Weapönizer sounds like its members incorporated grindcore percussion into the context of noisy thrash, the kind that comes from the pit of hell where Slayer and Venom are looped. With a self-titled 2012 album that draws influence from Napalm Death's 1987 classic, Scum, the band is led by a bassist known as Barbarian, who sings with a voice that suggests he learned how from Cronos... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Michal Menert
  Casselman's Bar & Venue

  Michal Menert has parlayed his snowboarding mentality into a music career. It's all about doing what you love because you love doing it, and Menert embodies that in every way, from the dedicated tours to the free distribution of glitchy, bass-driven music. Read more about this event >>

• 
  Ryan Bingham
  Chautauqua Auditorium

  Ryan Bingham's voice sounds like the guy has spent decades blowing through cartons of cheap cigarettes and gallons of cheaper whiskey somewhere along the lonely, broken mid-American highways. A former bull rider who spent a good chunk of his teens and early 20s on the rodeo circuit, Bingham bounced around the country without a home base before he finally found roots in music. The New... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Twilight Market - A Night Time Art Bazaar/Bazaar-B-Q
  Fusion Factory

  Need a new fascinator for Burning Man? How about some handmade clothes for Apogaea or accessories for that big electronica party coming up next weekend? If you want to stock up on alternative items, there’s only one place to be this weekend: the Fusion Factory’s Bazaar-B-Q. “The bazaar highlights art as well as merchandise,” notes organizer Meghan Woodhouse, so... Read more about this event >>

• 
  A Night at Fawlty Towers
  Bug Theatre

  Fans of cheeky British comedy don’t have to cross the pond to get a dose of Anglophile humor: The Equinox Theatre Company is importing it to the Denver stage with A Night at Fawlty Towers, which opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Bug Theatre. For this production, Equinox has adopted four episodes of the John Cleese-written late-’70s television show Fawlty Towers and combined them... Read more about this event >>

• More Friday Events >>

Saturday, May 25
• 
  Let's Pretend We're Robots
  Good Thieves Press

  Just like a summer blockbuster film, the open-entry exhibition Let’s Pretend We’re Robots, opening tonight at Good Thieves Press, is meant to be a double dip of summer fun. But it’s completely serious, too, notes Good Thieves member Corrina Espinosa. “We genuinely love robots, and we are not the only ones,” she says. “Humanized machines in movies like... Read more about this event >>

• 
  The Hairy Ape
  work | space

  The LIDA Project was named for a Soviet device that was supposedly capable of manipulating human brain-waves through the use of low-frequency radio, and for nearly two decades, this innovative theater company has offered productions that often incorporate technology in unusual ways. It latest effort is a modernized version of Eugene O'Neill's expressionist play The Hairy Ape, re-imagined as a... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Hops & Hooks
  Rakun

  Tonight is all about arts and crafts — art projects and craft beers, to be precise. At Hops & Hooks, the first in a series of Colorado Women’s Beer Club events pairing lager and lady-tailored leisure, Bitter o’Clock crafting entrepreneur Kelli Petersen will teach the art of crochet as participating crafters create bow headbands and rope scarves. All craft materials are... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Music Fest 2013
  Magness Arena

  If someone were to make a movie about the rise of a popular fictional indie-folk band, that person might do well to study the actual story of the Head and the Heart. Formed in Seattle in 2009, this project started out playing open mics at the Conor Byrne pub in the Emerald City's Ballard neighborhood. Within a year after playing countless shows, the group independently released its debut... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Andy Palmer (CD release)
  The Walnut Room

  On Hazard of the Die, the followup to his 2011 debut, Sometime Around, Andy Palmer shows continued growth as a songwriter. The beginning of "The Monk," the eight-song disc's opener, is fairly tame, but strings, arranged here by Kailin Yong, gradually swell, making the song seem damn near epic at points. On "Heart of Colfax," Palmer, backed by his alt-folk act Grub Street Writer, captures the... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Coco Montoya
  Toad Tavern

  Guitarist/singer Coco Montoya started off as a rock drummer. Albert Collins walked into the club where Montoya was working, and the club owner let him use Montoya's drum set -- without asking him. Montoya blew a gasket, and Collins ended up calling to apologize. Collins phoned a few months later, this time with an invitation to tour. Montoya agreed, and the two spent the next five years on... Read more about this event >>

• 
  The Dairy Comedy Showcase
  Dairy Center For the Arts

  While the rest of the country is celebrating a revival of standup comedy, Boulder has had a difficult time establishing a laugh track of its own. “It’s amazing to me that for such a famous town, there’s no local standup comedy,” says James Gold, a Boulder promoter who was surprised to see his first comedy showcase at the Dairy Center attract double the audience he... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Ryan Bingham
  Mishawaka Amphitheatre

  Ryan Bingham's voice sounds like the guy has spent decades blowing through cartons of cheap cigarettes and gallons of cheaper whiskey somewhere along the lonely, broken mid-American highways. A former bull rider who spent a good chunk of his teens and early 20s on the rodeo circuit, Bingham bounced around the country without a home base before he finally found roots in music. The New... Read more about this event >>

• More Saturday Events >>

Sunday, May 26
• 
  The Big Eat
  Sustainability Park

  EatDenver, a group of independent restaurateurs who collaborate on a variety of food-related charitable initiatives, is the force behind the Big Eat, an annual pig-out celebrating the local dining scene. Now in its third year, the Big Eat has made a big move — to Sustainability Park, at 2500 Arapahoe Street. The location’s mission as an ongoing test site for sustainable housing... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Paradise: Love
  Sie FilmCenter

  Taken together, Ulrich Seidl’s three Paradise films will be hard to beat this year for sheer arthouse scald. Seidl has a relentless vision but one worth reckoning with, especially now that he has turned world-class ambitious and crafted his epic: this trilogy of doomed emotional struggle. The first film, Love, is about love’s absence, demonstrated by way of a radioactive portrait... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Dawes
  Gothic Theatre

  You could say Dawes is a little folky, a little country, a little Americana. But the California quartet is also just stripped down cool, playing the autobiographical musings of Taylor Goldsmith -- founder, singer and principal songwriter for Dawes. Along with fellow Sera Cahoone, Dawes brings its slow swagger to the Gothic tonight. Read more about this event >>

• 
  City Beautiful 2.0: A Modern Interpretation of the Built Environment
  McNichols Building

  Create Denver has a new home in the city-run McNichols Building in Civic Center Park, and to show it off, the group is hosting City Beautiful 2.0: A Modern Interpretation of the Built Environment, a four-part exhibition and experiment in integrating modern environments. It all begins with the City Beautiful movement instigated in 1904 by then-mayor Robert Speer; the whole idea is to update... Read more about this event >>

• 
  God of Carnage
  Curious Theatre Company

  Curious Theatre artistic director Chip Walton first saw the Tony Award-sweeping hit God of Carnage -- starring Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, James Gandolfini and Hope Davis -- on Broadway a few years ago, and was immediately inspired by its sharp satire. Think of it as a contemporary Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, only with kids thrown in and a quartet of 21st-century parents all soaking... Read more about this event >>

• More Sunday Events >>

Monday, May 27
• 
  BolderBoulder 10K
  Twenty Ninth Street Mall

  Despite the beefed-up security in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, the BolderBoulder will move forward today, as it has every Memorial Day since 1979. The first waves of Boulder’s storied 10K run start at 7 a.m. at 30th and Walnut streets, setting in motion a spectacle that includes every kind of athlete: runner, jogger, walker, team, wheelchair-bound, costumed and more. You... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Sea Wolf
  Aggie Theatre

  The indie-folk movement has become a plague. What started as an innocent return to roots quickly became a fad and, somewhere along the line, the pining for simplicity and an authentic nod to American roots music turned into a push to get ahead. But the cynicism directed at Americana's revival doesn't apply to singer/songwriter Alex Brown Church, the man behind Sea Wolf. His acoustic-driven... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Catalyst: Colorado Sculpture
  Denver Botanic Gardens

  While past summer/fall outdoor exhibitions at the Denver Botanic Gardens have taken us to South Africa and the bamboo forests of Japan, this year's sculptural blockbuster is sticking closer to home. Catalyst: Colorado Sculpture, which opened to the public on May 4, is strictly an in-state showcase, featuring works by twelve diverse artists working in three-dimensional media and adding an... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Music & Movie Trivia Night
  Sie FilmCenter

  If you’ve got a case of the Mondays -- and know what cult comedy that reference is from -- salvation is at hand. The Denver Film Society and Twist & Shout are joining forces for a weekly Music and Movie Trivia Night. Every Monday, starting tonight, the Sie FilmCenter will offer a chance to use your knowledge of such things as Wes Anderson movies and Guided by Voices B-sides to win... Read more about this event >>

• More Monday Events >>

Tuesday, May 28
• 
  Space in Your Face: Mars
  The Deer Pile

  “Have you ever thought about Mars...like, ever?” That’s just one of the many spacey questions routinely asked of the public by Julia DeMarines, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science astrobiologist who hosts the monthly science-outreach program Space in Your Face at Deer Pile, which targets a younger, hipper adult demographic. And tonight’s installment will indeed focus... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Arctic Monkeys
  Ogden Theatre

  The gradual shift in musical sensibility for Arctic Monkeys (due at 1STBANK Center with the Black Keys on Monday and Tuesday) can be traced through the guys' aesthetic: They wear sunglasses a lot now. They wear them in music videos and on stage, and sometimes when it's not really sunny enough to merit protecting their corneas. As their urban grit has widened into blatant, raucous rock and... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Soundgarden
  1STBANK Center

  "Soundgarden has always shown a willingness to experiment well outside the standard rock mode, which has given the act a greater arc of creative development than that of many of the other bands who were also lumped in with the grunge phenomenon." The band's 1989 album, Louder Than Love, was marketed as heavy metal, but its darkly poetic lyrics, emotionally raw music and psychedelia-tinged... Read more about this event >>

• 
  The Detroit Cobras
  Larimer Lounge

  The saving grace of any good cover band is to not go for the all-too-obvious hit. Credit Motor City's turbo-sleaze outfit the Detroit Cobras for limiting their self-penned material with the full understanding that they'll never write songs as soulful or enduring as the ones by Otis Redding, Bobby Womack or Marvin Gaye. Credit them further for resurrecting vintage R&B obscurities from the... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Juicy J
  Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom

  As a founding member, rapper and producer of Three 6 Mafia, Juicy J helped cultivate a sound that combined a creeping darkness with DJ Screw-influenced, syrup-induced trippiness, pairing unlikely horror-flick sound effects with rolling hi-hats and popping snares. The group complemented their borderline-evil sound with lyrics about murder, dark mysticism and satanism and flows that switched... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Pepper
  Fox Theatre

  Averaging 200 shows every year for the past eight years, the members of Pepper have earned a reputation for being as dedicated as they are hedonistic. With five full-length albums under their belt and the development of their own record label, the Hawaiian-bred members have demonstrated an intense love for music that can only be rivaled by their love for surfboards and Jagermeister. Blending... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Ed Ward's "Stories, Stories, Bring Your Stories"
  Mercury Cafe

  A flaming washing machine rockets through the air and embeds itself in the side of a house. A woman contemplates her own demise while wearing a crotchless body suit. Robert Ripley from Ripley’s Believe It or Not has a massive coronary during a performance of “Taps.” These situations don’t have much in common, but they do have this: They’ve all been featured in... Read more about this event >>

• 
  It Will Not Be the Same Without You
  Philip J. Steele Gallery

  The works of Parisian artist Amande In are long on concept and fleeting in execution, but they have a way of turning a viewer’s understanding of art upside down. Cortney Stell, curator at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design’s Philip J. Steele Gallery, flipped the minute she saw them. After an introduction via a fellow curator at a conference, she worked to bring In, who has... Read more about this event >>

• More Tuesday Events >>

Wednesday, May 29
• 
  Czech That Film: Alois Nebel
  Sie FilmCenter

  The film of the Czech Republic may not have the cultural cachet of the cinema of such powerhouse nations as France, but there’s still plenty to enjoy. And cinephiles can now check it out at Czech That Film, a program of five recent films showing this week at the Sie FilmCenter. “For a relatively small country, they have an amazing output of film every year,” promises Brit... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Cyrus Chestnut Trio
  Mount Vernon Country Club

  Having honed his chops early on with jazz heavies like Jon Hendricks, Wynton Marsalis and Betty Carter, pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who turned fifty in January, is a fine musician and leader in his own right, as evidenced on a number of discs he's released under his own name. The fiery vibraphonist Stefon Harris, who's been through town with the SFJAZZ Collective and the Ninety Miles Project in... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Modern Times
  Chautauqua Auditorium

  When Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times was completed in 1936, silent film was already on its way out. But while the rest of the film industry had moved on to talkies, Chaplin’s last silent film commented on industrialization through his signature physical comedy as the Little Tramp, a factory worker comically struggling with the age of machinery. “His acting is still some of... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Dropkick Murphys
  Fillmore Auditorium

  Like another Irish-American brood in the media, the Gallagher family of Showtime's Shameless, everyone's favorite Boston-based Celtic punk band, the Dropkick Murphys, keep things lightheartedly aggressive and endearingly real. The band is bringing their brazen brand of sing-along friendly hardcore chanteys to the Fillmore along with Old Man Markley and The Mahones. Read more about this event >>

• 
  Torche
  Larimer Lounge

  This Miami band formed in 2004 when Steve Brooks and Juan Montoya of influential doom band Floor got together with their friends Jonathan Nuñez and Rick Smith. Somewhere between sludge metal and noisier punk, Torche's sound has more in common with the likes of the Melvins, Helmet and Baroness than it does doom and stoner rock with which it is often associated, and that's mainly because... Read more about this event >>

• 
  ZZ Ward
  Gothic Theatre

  While riding the bus to school as a child, Zsuzsanna Ward spent her time in headphones, thinking about just how much she wanted to become a singer. As an adult better known as ZZ Ward, she reached the crux of that dream long ago and is now well on her way to moving into the mainstream. Ward cut her teeth in two genres by performing in her dad's blues band as a kid and writing hooks for and... Read more about this event >>

• 
  Spun: Adventures in Textiles
  Denver Art Museum

  Textile arts comprise some of the most grassroots forms of expression. Born of necessity and woven through with elements of creative design since the dawn of mankind, in modern times they’ve morphed into a whole genre of multimedia work that slides right off the functional grid and directly into the realm of fine art. The Denver Art Museum has much to offer in its own newly revamped and... Read more about this event >>

• More Wednesday Events >>

Thursday, May 30
• 
  Huevos Revueltos: Contemporary Art in Mexico
  MCA Denver

  Mixing contemporary art, politics, mysticism and food through a conversational mash-up, MCA Denver’s Huevos Revueltos lecture series starts tonight with “Nuevos Huevos,” a look at contemporary art in Mexico led by Eduardo Sarabia, the Guadalajara-based artist whose exhibition, Tainted, is on display at the museum through June 9. “It’s a multilevel project,”... Read more about this event >>

• 
  The Hairy Ape
  work | space

  The LIDA Project was named for a Soviet device that was supposedly capable of manipulating human brain-waves through the use of low-frequency radio, and for nearly two decades, this innovative theater company has offered productions that often incorporate technology in unusual ways. It latest effort is a modernized version of Eugene O'Neill's expressionist play The Hairy Ape, re-imagined as a... Read more about this event >>

• 
  The Postal Service
  Red Rocks Amphitheatre

  The decade-old phenomenon that was the Postal Service is back. In the ten years since the team of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) made music together as the Postal Service, we got Garden State, we got Owl City, we got an onslaught of music blogs, and the "indietastic" conversations that used to happen in record stores are now bouncing around Twitter. Not to say... Read more about this event >>

• 
  John Digweed
  Beta

  John Digweed needs little introduction. A household name since the 1990s, when he became one of the first European DJs to break into the American market, Digweed rose to stateside prominence via a high-profile monthly residency at New York's famous Twilo nightclub with longtime deejaying partner Sasha and their highly successful Northern Exposure and Global Underground compilations. Known to... Read more about this event >>

• More Thursday Events >>