When he came storming onto the scene, Jimi Hendrix made weepy children out of the world’s best guitar players, bringing a primal sexuality and grace to his playing that only a true master of the craft could muster. Guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Pete Townshend had spent nearly…
Science fiction isn’t for everyone. But those who get it really get it. “Comics and sci-fi are the new archetypes of our culture; we relate to Star Wars and Stan Lee’s characters, and we’ve created new mythologies through them,” says Dan Landes, restaurateur and self-confessed sci-fi geek. And this Friday,…
See Also: • Studio 54 opened 35 years ago today • Randy Rhoads: Thirty years ago, a tragic accident took the life of a legendary guitarist • Sex Pistols sign with A&M outside Buckingham Palace 35 years ago • Today in History archives Lester Bangs mother was a Jehovah’s Witness…
See Also: • Randy Rhoads: Thirty years ago, a tragic accident took the life of a legendary guitarist • Sex Pistols sign with A&M outside Buckingham Palace 35 years ago • Today in History archives Other than the gas shortage and a (relatively) poor economy, the second half of the…
Like vinyl records and postcards, pinball simply will not die. Despite technology providing plenty of digital alternatives to the quarter-hungry beasts of the 1970s, the public’s interest in these anachronisms doesn’t seem to be waning, says Dan Nikolich, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and Gameroom Expo…
See Also: • Prince’s Sign of the Times turns 25 • Velvet Underground & Nico turns 45 • More Today in History posts When the ’80s became the ’90s, everyone stepped up their game. Rap matured lyrically and became more sonically sophisticated, while rock became more intelligent and emotionally rich…
See Also: • A comprehensive guide to Record Store Day 2012 activities • In honor of Record Store Day this Saturday: Ten records we treasure. • Wax Trax celebrating 33 1/3 birthday in April Like Rob Flemmng’s Championship Vinyl in the book High Fidelity, it was “mostly young men.” But…
For some, it was a depressing example of how debased humanitarian causes had become in the age of social media; for others, it was a sincere call to arms against a foreign tyrant. Either way, the Kony 2012 movement will be remembered as the most successful online campaign in the…
Eighties dance nights are a tradition stretching all the way back…well, to the ’80s. Whether you’re a 21-year-old feeling nostalgic for a time you never lived through, or a crimp-haired, stone-washed new-waver who never got over the Talking Heads breaking up, the music of the 1980s spans cultures and generations…
See Also: In honor of Record Store Day this Saturday: Ten records we treasure. See Also: Wax Trax celebrating 33 1/3 birthday in April See Also: Download a track from Wheelchair Sports Camp’s forthcoming EP Whoever says the music industry is dead obviously hasn’t observed Record Store Day. While file…
After three days of panels on everything from feminism and film making to bicycles, banks and Burger King, the Art of Social Justice conference on the Auraria campus came to a close last night with a breathtaking speech by human rights activist, Dr. Cornel West. The Turnhalle Ballroom in the…
The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of those reliable touchstones that can always be used as a time-keeper for historical fiction. Although only the fifth most deadly shipwreck of all time, it is undeniably the most famous. The drama of one of the most expensive, “unsinkable” nautical marvels…
With the new EP Arroyo, Mariposa has delivered an emotionally mature record with rich, expansive instrumentation. Although previous releases contained a great deal of sensitivity and beauty, those elements were locked away inside a fragile song structure. Now performing with a few new musicians, Madeline Johnston has blossomed, and her…
After booking hardcore and ska shows around Denver for the past six years, DJ Maladjusted has taken his massive record collection and almost dogmatic devotion to vinyl and garnered a small but devoted following with his obscure selections. Spinning 2tone, ska and reggae every third Friday for One Step Beyond…
Combining the former guitar player from hardcore band Poison the Well with a former Nickelodeon star, Sleigh Bells is the most aggressive, poptastic, ear-drum-splitting glamour-thrash band around. On its debut, Treats, released on M.I.A.’s N.E.E.T. Records, Sleigh Bells offered up songs like “Rill Rill” and “Tell Em” that managed to…
THE DIRTY FEMMES @ HI-DIVE Like any relationship, a live band needs to first find common ground with its audience, and then and work from there. This is made extremely easy when you’re whole set is duplicating material the audience is already familiar with. The crowd will burst with enthusiasm…
“People really bring their kids to this thing?” my girlfriend asks. The kids, dressed in their Sunday best, hold their parents’ hands as they walk toward the Magness Arena on the University of Denver campus. We follow behind, my girlfriend gripping my own hand tightly. At the foot of the…
For hundreds of years, Christians all over the world have been telling the story of Jesus Christ’s life and death in the form of dramatic theater. From the devout actors in the Philippines using actual nails-through-the-hands, to Mel Gibson grossing $600 million portraying the bloodiest Jesus in Hollywood history, passion…
Of all the occupations listed on Bono’s resume (humanitarian, hotel owner, British Knight, world bank advisor, anathema to any rock fan under thirty), one that has never been considered was historian. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 44 years ago today, an event the U2 singer attempted to document…
Hailing from Detroit — a city where punk rock, hip hop and blues all grow out of the same soil — Maria Kohler is giving Denver a taste of her rhymes and her eclecticism. “I think everybody has a pretty wide variety of music that they like,” explains Kohler, Kitty…
“People are always coming up to us and asking, ‘Is this for real?’ And we tell them it is for real: we are playing Quidditch,” says Sven Ceelen, one of Denver’s biggest enthusiasts of a sport that was, up until a few years ago, confined to the fictional pages of…
There is very little argument to make against the suggestion that Prince ruled the 1980s. The decade was jam packed with memorable pop artists making music to treasure for generations to come, but none came close to the eclecticism, the energy, and the downright strangeness that was Prince Rodgers Nelson…
