Breaking the Mold. In 2003, Connecticut collector Virginia Vogel Mattern donated some 300 pieces of contemporary American Indian art to the Denver Art Museum. For one of the special shows inaugurating the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building, Native Arts curator Nancy Blomberg has selected over a hundred works for the…
For the past 28 years, Dianne Vanderlip has reigned supreme at the Denver Art Museum as the head of contemporary art, one of the museum’s biggest and best departments. Over the nearly three decades she was there, Vanderlip built a widely renowned collection with real depth in the art of…
To celebrate the Denver Art Museum’s new Frederic C. Hamilton Building, three special exhibitions are being presented simultaneously in the three galleries dedicated to changing displays. I’ve already looked at Virginia Vogel Mattern’s collection of contemporary American Indian pottery (“Breaking the Mold,” November 23, 2006) and the cutting-edge work of…
Aphrodisiac. Playwright Rob Handel’s inspiration is the affair between Congressman Gary Condit and intern Chandra Levy, which erupted into the media when Levy disappeared in 2001. Her body was discovered a year later; although suspicion clouded his career, Condit was never officially accused of murder. Aphrodisiac approaches this story obliquely…
I didn’t want to see Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman; I’d read the reviews from London and New York, which all said that the play — which deals with torture, interrogation, child mutilation and murder — was brilliant, but harrowing to watch. I’ve been trying not to obsess about torture (while…
I once contacted all the girls who had ever played Clara in Boulder Ballet’s Nutcracker for an article. Several were now college students, one at Princeton; one of them was dancing in Canada. In every ballet company — professional, amateur or somewhere in between — the role of Clara is…
Fresh out of the joint with a heroin habit at bay, Sherrybaby’s bottle-blond Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) swoops down on the young daughter she left behind, who’s being cared for by Sherry’s brother and his wife. In her hapless efforts to become a reformed mother, Sherry all but swallows the…
New-school genre junk food: Take a Tarantino wannabe with Sundance credentials, add a large, famous-enough cast and a show-biz backdrop, season the violence with references to Sergio Leone and Takeshi Kitano, serve cool, and garnish with a cynicism beyond irony. Smokin’ Aces is writer-director Joe Carnahan’s third and most elaborate…
Maurice Russell, a septuagenarian actor facing the end of his career and life, gazes raptly at the present that fate has given him: the company of a sullen but strangely desirable teenage girl. At first his appraising looks give her the creeps, but something about his courtliness piques her curiosity…
When I reviewed Royal Hilltop in April 2003, it was barely six months old — a non-smoking, British-themed pub crammed in among the multiplexes and taquerías of southeast Aurora, a joint that catered to the neighbors of a neighborhood sorely lacking in neighborhood bars. I complimented owners James and Tina…
At the Osborn house, we suffered a near-terminal case of cabin fever over the holidays. Part was imposed by the physical realities of the first blizzard. Another part was induced by the astronomical overreaction of greater Denver to the second storm bearing down on the area. Both were compounded by…
The most shocking news last week was not that Sean Kelly (of Aubergine, the Biscuit, Clair de Lune and Somethin’ Else) had taken a job dunking jalapeño poppers for Mark Berzins and his Little Pub/Little Cantina Company (which owns Senor Rita’s, Salty Rita, two Spot Bar & Grill locations, the…
Isaac James, owner of the British Bulldog, has a big mouth. How do I know? He told me. “I’ve got a big mouth,” he said when I got him on the phone after eating at his joint. “I’ve been complaining about the Indian and the Pakistani food in Denver for…
Kettle Black may have recently changed its name to Hello Kavita, but its sound remains firmly intact. The band’s earthy vignettes continue to draw from a broad, familiar palette that offers plenty of variety without losing cohesion. Listen closely, and you’ll hear swelling slide guitar lines that recall Mazzy Star…
New England’s Unearth stands out from the new wave of generic modern metal. Renowned for its live show, the neo-thrash quintet swirls shoulder-length mop tops, burning more calories than your average emo kid consumes in a year. In 2005, the act supported Slipknot and gave the nine-man metal machine a…
Willie Waldman came alive on Death Row. Upon moving to L.A. in 1994, he was introduced to Snoop Dogg, who enlisted the trumpeter to join him in the studio. Waldman’s work with the D-O-double-G led to subsequent sessions with Tha Dogg Pound and 2Pac. A few years later, he met…
In the past fifteen years or so, increasing numbers of people have tried their hand at re-creating the sounds of traditional American music, to mostly mixed results. So when someone as talented and proficient as Charlie Parr does Americana so convincingly, you can’t help but stand up and take note…
Singer-songwriter/visual artist Piers Faccini, who’ll share the stage with Nanci Griffith during a Boulder Theater e-town taping prior to headlining at the Walnut Room several days later, is frequently likened to Jack Johnson and Ben Harper, which makes sense; JP Plunier, who produced Faccini’s latest disc, Tearing Sky, has worked…
Aging vampires with dunlops spilling out over their PVC stretch pants: The prospect is nauseating, and helps explain the high turnover rate in the world of technogoth. The balding Sisters of Mercy, for instance, are touring on gamey material produced before the Crüxshadows ever plugged in a cord. Trent Reznor,…
For decades, mild-mannered Bill Stevenson has been twiddling the knobs for punk-n-ska acts like Less Than Jake and Lagwagon at his Fort Collins compound, his “Drum Ogre” alter ego held secret by his bandmates in Black Flag, the Descendants and All. Recently, Converge guitarist Aaron Dalbec and singer Russ Rankin…
Alice Cooper would be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams if every corpse-painted, absurdly theatrical band that has walked the earth since 1969 paid him royalties. Even at his most shocking, though, Cooper couldn’t hold a candle to guys like Varg Vikernes, who upped the lurid-extreme ante by murdering Euronymous, the…
January 9 was a day of contrasts for singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith. Mere hours before an evening-ending show at a small club in Hoboken, New Jersey, he co-starred on an episode of Conan O’Brien’s NBC chat program with pompadoured troglodyte Donald Trump. “I didn’t get to meet him,” the ultra-polite Canuck…
