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…
I don’t put much stock in shows installed in non-art businesses, because they’re typically thrown together and feature the work of hobbyist-artists. So it wasn’t until I’d heard a lot of positive buzz about OBJECT + THOUGHT (3559 Larimer Street, 720-226-9196), the graphic-design firm that presents exhibitions in its lobby,…
Like the art world in general, Denver is focusing in on photo-based pieces (pun intended). More likely than not, you haven’t seen the many excellent offerings currently on display because of the difficulty in getting around on deeply rutted streets. Last week I braved the elements to check out some…
The Big Bang. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to think too much, to just settle back and watch a couple of frenetically energetic guys working really hard to earn your good will — and your entertainment dollars. Oh, and to make you laugh. The Big Bang posits the following…
I loved Our Town when I was sixteen and played Emily at school, but I didn’t remember much about it. I knew that Thornton Wilder’s play was a sweetly moving evocation of small-town American life at the beginning of the twentieth century, but with a plot involving perpetually kitchen-bound women,…
Yes, yes, yes, we all know that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, although I think it’s seduced more powerful men into selling their souls — like Henry Kissinger, the morally decayed author of that quote — than it has nubile young women into hopping in bed with the old goats…
The Good German, directed by Steven Soderbergh from Joseph Kanon’s bestseller, is as much simulation as movie. Specifically, it’s the simulation of a 1940s private-eye flick. It’s not just a period film, but one that feigns being shot as it would have been in that period. Filmed for maximum chiaroscuro…
In the new Clint Eastwood movie, ordinary young men — husbands and fathers, artisans and aristocrats — are drafted into a war whose motives many of them do not fully understand. There, on an island called Iwo Jima, they fight against an enemy who has been demonized by wartime propaganda…
Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, Pan¹s Labyrinth is something alchemical. To an astonishing degree, the 42-year-old Mexican filmmaker best known for his contribution to the Blade and Hellboy franchises has transformed the horror of mid-twentieth-century European history into a boldly fanciful example of what surrealists would call le…
Before it opened, Snooze seemed like one of the greatest ideas in the world — a hip, eclectic downtown breakfast bar with fancy pancakes, a jumped-up menu of comfort classics and incredible late-night hours on the weekends. A place where we could get bacon and eggs at 3 a.m. and…
Generally speaking, members of the Institute of Drinking Studies do not espouse shallow thinking and judgment based on superficial qualities. But like all guys, we give the benefit of the doubt to women with large bosoms and/or risqué wardrobes. We also will side with our home team no matter who…
Even by the admittedly lax rulebook I use in this job, Toast (see review, page 41) was not in line for a review. It’s been open all of six weeks, and standard operating procedure for most critics calls for a restaurant to be open at least two months, usually three,…
There’s almost nothing in the world I love as much as a plate of pancakes. My wife, a good book, that first cigarette in the morning, and driving fast on desert highways with no cops in sight — they all edge out pancakes, but not by much. Pancakes are definitely…
If you’re among those who’ve endured your share of would-be funk and ska bands, you might be inclined to roll your eyes upon first hearing Action Figure 8. The act’s chorusy guitars and moderately withdrawn vocals recall the omnipresent, mid-to-late-’90s sound made famous by Sublime and the Red Hot Chili…
When Jon Crosby’s major-label debut, Visual Audio Sensory Theater, was released in 1998, it received a great deal of airplay. Fortunately for Crosby, that was a year when radio stations were scrambling to find something, anything, that might be a hit. The album’s mix of ambience and hard-edged guitar sketches…
Some indie-folk artists work overtime to prove they can wring as much racket from their acoustic instruments as any electricity-wielding punk. In contrast, Laura Gibson, who shares this bill with the Beebs, Jonathan Byerley and Hollyfelds, prizes delicacy over aggression. On If You Come to Greet Me, her latest album…
Listening to the Album Leaf, Jimmy LaVelle’s pet project, is a lot like taking in the dreariness of another new apartment as it quivers, buzzes and hums like a somnolent beast getting its first lungful of open air. An invigorating, intoxicating energy oozes from the off-white walls, whispering a promise…
During the ill-fated electronic-music boom, superstar DJs had a reasonable chance of crossing over to the mainstream. Today such journeys are rarer than the typical menu at a sushi bar — but that hasn’t stopped spinners like Roger Sanchez from trying to take the trip. Sanchez has been a hero…
Stanton Moore knows his funk. The Galactic drummer and founder has a knack for grabbing on to a groove with both fists, putting it in a headlock and twisting it into submission. The result is a tight and steady deadlocked funk. Last year, Moore invited guitarist Will Bernard and keyboard…
Befitting its namesake, Albuquerque’s of God and Science has a somewhat convoluted musical identity. While some of its songs recall the polished garage pop and psychedelia of the retro-leaning Elephant 6 outfits that emerged during the ’90s, others conjure a detached, spacey ambience that owes a debt to OK Computer-era…
Bob Dorough. You’ve probably heard him, even if you don’t know him by name. If you were a kid growing up in the ’70s and watched Schoolhouse Rock, for instance, you’re familiar with an infectious little ditty called “Three Is a Magic Number.” That’s his. Or if you came of…
Since going live last spring, Daytrotter.com — perhaps the Internet’s most innovative and easily accessible source for free, never-before-heard independent-music downloads — has changed the digital-music landscape forever. The premise of the site is simple: Artists traveling through the Midwest along I-80 stop off for an hour or two at…
