Dave Gardner’s latest documentary, Growthbusters, could be described as the whole-hog opposite to the messages of either of our 2012 presidential candidates: slow down the economy, encourage population reduction, and stop buying shit you don’t need. So it’s a good thing Gardner isn’t running for office. As we saw in…
Fancy Tiger’s Matthew Brown loves Denver’s small businesses. “We want to promote businesses that we think have a very positive influence on Denver,” Brown says of his Civilized Living series, a First Friday event curated by Fancy Tiger to feature all the stylishly underground operations our city has to offer…
Mariposa returns with another release of miniature world songs, this time joining forces with Albuquerque’s Javelina for a split release. Mariposa’s (Madeline Johnston) spooky/sweet vocals — like a teenage elf with three-pack-a-day habit — and intimate fantasy hymns fit well next to the songs of Javelina, which are a little…
Andrea Steele, founder and director of the International Freethought Film Festival describes herself as “an agnostic atheist with secular humanist tendencies.” Like sexuality, comics and Occupy Wall Street, there are endless subgroups within the cultures that don’t believe in god(s). And whether you’re devout or full of doubt, there will…
Welcome to the Name Game, the latest Backbeat feature, in which we periodically check in with a local act and ask members to share the story behind their nom de tune (if there is one), to find out how and why they chose their handle, and to spell out any…
Katie and Tom, Katy and Russell — everybody’s breaking up these days, it seems. Hell, even Adam Levine traded in one Victoria’s Secret model for another. Break ups aren’t just relegated to the super couples or the superstars, obviously. Everybody’s been on the receiving end of being dumped — or…
We all know him as the witty hybrid of Johnny Carson and George Carlin; the anti-religion, anti-South, pro-drug, pro-leather suit godfather of televised political satire. But did you know that there was once a whole decade where Bill Maher was as cool and relevant as Tim Allen at a Sleigh…
See Also: – The ballet changed everything for Paper Bird – With its bewitching old-timey-roots sound, Paper Bird is a species to behold – Harpoontang combines Paper Bird, Laura Goldhamer and Kitty Crimes for raunchy fun After the Beatles broke up, George Harrison explained to Dick Cavett that there just…
We all have it — that one song that stopped us in our tracks the first time we ever heard it, that continues to give us pause each and every time it’s played. We each have a song — and a story that goes along with it. Deep Cuts is…
FIONA APPLE @ the PARAMOUNT THEATRE | 7.20.12 Any Fiona Apple concert is a study in contradiction. The audience last night at the Paramount Theatre show was privy to a vast frontier of human emotion, Apple braiding herself in and out of binary worlds, slipping from robust woman in command…
See Also: Damned, Damned, Damned turns 35 Lester Bangs died 30 years ago today It was 45 years ago today . . . The Beatles Sgt. Pepper nears the half century mark The Smiths Louder than Bombs turns 25 today In the early 1970s, a bespectacled English waif named Declan…
See Also: – Remembering Randy Rhodes thirty years after his tragic death -The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper turns 45 -The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street turns 40 -Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced turns 45 In the early 1980s, a red-haired, Midwestern boy named William Bailey stepped off a bus in…
It’s a shame the HBO series Carnivàle was canceled in ’05, because Bonnie and the Beard’s new album, Cascavel, would have made an excellent soundtrack for the gothic dust bowl of romanticized madness. Thick with a whiskey-and-humidity aesthetic, Cascavel is an appropriate release for the relentless triple-digit afternoons we’ve been…
While many idealistic, underground community organizations will taper off after their first or second year of operation — due to poor organization, lack of funding, or internal drama — the Denver Handmade Homemade Market has proven the cynics wrong, staying not only alive and vital after two years of operation,…
“Hunter [Thompson] was always asking me and other people to read his work aloud,” remembers Matt Moseley, friend and fellow freedom fighter with Thompson in the controversial Lisl Auman case. “He wrote his work to be read aloud. When he was working on a new piece he’d say, ‘Read a…
Editor’s note: Cruiser bikes have become a fixture in Denver, especially on Wednesday nights when weekly Cruiser Rides take over the streets. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t one on every corner. But the culture that comes with cruisers can be polarizing, and Westword contributors…
It’s a shame the HBO series Carnivàle was canceled in ’05, because Bonnie and the Beard’s new album, Cascavel, would have made an excellent soundtrack for the gothic dust bowl of romanticized madness. Thick with a whiskey-and-humidity aesthetic, Cascavel is an appropriate release for the relentless triple-digit afternoons we’ve been…
“An artist is an artist, no matter what form the canvas takes,” a pretentious man once said. It’s one of those statements that may sound pompous (and is), but is no less true. Over the past fifty years there are endless examples of musicians establishing successful careers on the stage,…
Generally, when you speak with someone with strong ties to rock history, you either get an earful of tedious name-dropping or you’re forced to endure an exhaustive lecture about how kids today just don’t get it. This is not the case with Dan Fong, the famed Denver rock photographer who…
Fingers of the Sun’s new release, Sleepy EP, is a collection of songs designed specifically to soundtrack an activity that — unless you’re Keith Richards — we all do. Confining the songwriting to such an ultra-specific subject limits the scope of the songs; gone are the hook-drenched rockers heard on…
Only a few hours after the Supreme Court declared Obama’s health-insurance mandate constitutional, we spoke with Washington Post columnist and NPR commentator E.J. Dionne, who was at the Aspen Ideas Festival promoting his book, Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent. “I…
In author Sapphire’s new novel, The Kid (a semi-sequel to Precious — the Hollywood adaptation of her ’96 novel, Push), we are treated to another relentless marathon of abuse, rape, failed dreams and unsettling conclusions. “Commercial media looks at things in terms of heroes and villains,” Sapphire told us in…
