I was so impressed by Next Stage’s Assassins that in Westword’s 2007 Best of Denver issue, it was named Best Production of a Musical. The current revival features most of the same cast members, and Sondheim’s score — which takes on such American idioms as ballads, hymns, rock music and…
Before I saw Central City Opera’s The Saint of Bleecker Street, my knowledge of Gian Carlo Menotti was confined to the Christmas classic Amahl and the Night Visitors and his short ballet The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore, about a poet and the three mythical animals that represent different…
No less than Spider-Man 3, Oren Rudavsky’s The Treatment is an urban fairy tale. It’s an Upper-West-Side story, adapted from publishing powerhouse Daniel Menaker’s well-reviewed 1998 novel, first published in the New Yorker, in which a smart-mouthed, if diffident, hero (Chris Eigeman) wins a wise, beautiful princess (the versatile, sometime…
It’s impossible to write about David Wain’s The Ten without first making passing reference to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. The former, originally made for Polish TV twenty years ago and first shown in the United States in 2000, offered a modern-day take on the…
The latest comic meteorite to hurtle forth from the galaxy of producer Judd Apatow, Superbad is about a couple of chronically unpopular best friends who, after four years stuck on the lowest rung of the high-school social ladder, find themselves invited to a legitimately cool party. Goodbye, Friday nights chugging…
When I reviewed Arada last summer (“Stranger in a Strange Land,” June 29, 2006), Ethiopian food was still new to me. Somehow, I’d managed to miss this incredible, uncorrupted African mother cuisine for years — even here in Denver, where African cuisines in general have established a foothold far more…
I hate working out, and I hate people who say how much they love working out. To me, working out is a necessary evil — like taxes, dating and menstrual cycles. So when I heard there was a gym called the Anti-Gym, I got excited: I thought working out there…
With the exception of especially festive nights, when I do shots, or sushi outings, when sake is just what’s happening, I pretty much drink beer. There are a number of reasons for this, a major one being that I’m lousy at pacing myself. What I mean is, if there’s an…
Although Denver has several Peruvian restaurants, it has only one Limon — the recently expanded spot at 1618 East 17th Avenue where chef/owner Alex Gurevich’s menu runs more toward the hyper-modern than the traditional, with cuisine rooted in modern Andean- and urban Lima-style cooking. Still, it retains the soul of…
Lomo saltado. Hot empanadas and a sweating bottle of Cristal or Quilmes beer. Chupes de this and chupes de that, a small plate of ceviche classico or ceviche mixto and then, of course, the ubiquitous papas a la huancaina that I love even more than the backyard, church picnic-style potato…
Israel’s Infected Mushroom specializes in completely over-the-top psychedelic trance. A breakout act in their homeland’s substantial psy-trance scene, the duo takes an unusually eclectic approach to the genre, which has led to some odd crossover attention — being tracked on JamBase.com, for example, a website dedicated to the jam scene…
The Constuct (formerly known as Orwellian Math Project) nimbly pushes the boundaries of what punk and indie rock can be as it mates aggressive, fiery songs with lonely, contemplative material. Instead of opting for a traditional band, the Boulder-based two-piece has forced itself to be more creative through the use…
About a decade ago I lived downtown, just down the street from the Red Garter strip club, which today is La Boheme Gentlemen’s Cabaret (1443 Stout Street). Unlike its replacement, the Red Garter was a sketchy joint and all-nude, which meant no alcohol could be served there under Denver ordinances…
Every era needs an impossibly perfect vocal goddess, and Beyoncé Knowles ably fills the role. On the surface, the various elements that make up her image — Texas homegirl, classy song stylist, steamy temptress, hip-hop honey — don’t seem compatible in the slightest. Somehow, though, they fit together to create…
It’s probably just as well that emo, and not indie pop, has become the soundtrack to so many suburban teenage lives. It could’ve gone either way, really. Thankfully, it didn’t. Otherwise, acts like Red Pony Clock might be less inclined to perform at more intimate, non-traditional venues such as Rhino…
History is full of characters who were too beautiful, too intelligent or too delicate for this world. Ireland’s Guggenheim Grotto appears ready to join those ranks. Kevin May, Mick Lynch and Shane Power — all versatile multi-instrumentalists — create soul-shuddering tunes that grip the heart with cold comfort and worldly…
Mickey Avalon’s been through some shit, man. His mom had him selling weed for her when he was just a teenager. She fired him a little while later, though, when she discovered he was shooting up smack at the age of sixteen. And things only got stickier and trickier from…
Two decades ago, the Beastie Boys were the scourge of morality arbiters everywhere. Just one example: Following a March 1987 Beasties concert in Columbus, Georgia, that featured a twenty-foot mock-penis and repeated suggestions that women attendees flash their jugs, the town’s police chief publicly criticized his officers for not charging…
Joe Henry, Civilians (Anti). Jazzy, but not quite jazz, old world, but completely now and rock, Joe Henry showcases his varied talents with an album of laid-back summer picnic melodies from an impressionistic painting. Emotive lyrics and colorful chord progressions move his music like a lazy river with an urgent…
Nathaniel Motte and Sean Foreman, the twosome behind 3OH!3, are to subtle musicianship what hot dog-scarfer Takeru Kobayashi is to table manners. The sounds on their debut CD are blessedly loud, proud and goofy. Applying the term “production values” to the disc seems pointless, since the electro-instrumentation featured here probably…
On Friends and Lovers, Married in Berdichev’s last release, Brittany Gould crafted delicate, hauntingly beautiful pop songs that featured girlish yet poignant and affecting vocals, qualities that have carried over to the new record. Listening to Cold Feet, Warm Hearts! is like waking up from a restful night’s sleep after…
Against Me!’s latest goes beyond the simple polemics of post-American Idiot punk and suggests that ordinary citizens may be as much to blame for America’s current predicament as the present administration — well, almost, anyway. On “Americans Abroad,” Tom Gabel likens his band’s European tour to the encroachment of corporations…
