Every year at the Westword Music Showcase, we enlist our army of Backbeat wordsmiths to host various stages. In addition to their emcee duties, we ask them to pull double duty by submitting a travelogue of their individual stage. Josiah Hesse hosted at Rooster & Moon this past Saturday. Keep…
The Sklar Brothers stand apart in the current comedy scene with their unique style of two-man storytelling and accessibly nerdy material. Primarily known for their hilariously analytical take on sports with ESPN’s Cheap Seats and the History Channel’s Freakanomics-style look at U.S. data, The United Stats of America, Randy and…
Since the early ’80s, residents of cities around the world have assembled on June 21 in their individual town centers in celebration of World Music Day. The event is known here as Make Music Denver, and tomorrow our music-centric community will come together with over 300 musicians playing their hearts…
Over the last year Denver comedians have shown they’re not the selfish bastards they sometimes claim to be, organizing several charity benefits for people like Mara Wiles and Mike Marchant. And tonight Timmi Lasley will keep that communal comedy spirit alive, hosting a benefit for the Denver Voice at El…
Comedy festivals are the perfect antidote to a nasty breakup. Not only because laughing activates several different sections of the brain, strengthening neurons that lead to insight and emotional balance, but because so many comedians love to bitch about heartbreak. Like Morrissey records or the films of Charlie Kaufman, a…
“Let’s all just acknowledge for a moment that: This. Is. Weird,” John Oliver said last night, opening his first round of hosting The Daily Show for the summer. While Jon Stewart will be away for the next twelve weeks directing his debut film, Rosewater, the most celebrated comic to come…
While he may be world-famous and seven years sober, the streets of Bed-Stuy Brooklyn still ring in the voice of Tracy Morgan. Coming from a childhood of poverty and crack-dealing, Morgan built a respectable career in standup, performing on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam before reaching TV mega-stardom on Saturday Night…
While he’s definitely a throwback to another era of standup comedy, Dave Attell’s debased style of humor still resonated with the crowd at Comedy Works South Saturday night. Deadpanning about vegan strip clubs, Chinese youth assembling sex toys, and what illegal Mexicans can bring to the game of baseball, Attell…
The wheels are always turning in Denver, which just won the REI Cycling Town Showdown as the country’s bike-friendliest city. Denver not only has great places to ride your bike, it also has great places to ride your bike to. Here are ten of our favorites for this summer. See…
For any local comic who has yet to appear on Conan or negotiate a sitcom, the New Faces Competition at Comedy Works is the ideal way to gain recognition and earn some cash with your humor. Winning first place in the four-month tournament not only puts a thousand bucks in…
On last Thursday’s Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, comedian Jim Norton got in a verbal sparring match with Jezebel writer Lindy West. For the most part, their positions were fixed and predictable — but rarely have two people in the reactionary careers of standup comic and feminist author achieved…
Best known for his hit Comedy Central show Insomniac, Dave Attell is an all-around beloved character in standup comedy. While often edgy and at times arrogantly confrontational, his razor-sharp wit gives him an everyman-at-the-bar diplomacy. During nearly three decades in the business, Attell has seen the ebb and flow of…
The disappointing news that the Grawlix pilot got the thumbs down from Amazon didn’t keep Adam Cayton-Holland down for long. Just days later, he announced the August 23-24 High Plains Comedy Festival, which will raise the bar on previous summer comedy jams like Laugh Track and Too Much Funstival by…
June is jam-packed with a lineup of comedy events so eclectic, you’re sure to find something to tickle your funny bone. There are podcasters and Pride festers, twins and Too Much Fun, He-Man and transgenders…so many giggle-worthy performances that your calendar will be bursting with snickers. Keep reading for the…
Typically found at L.A.’s Nerdist Theater, the Erotic Fan Fiction competition made itself at home at the Bug Theatre last night, dirtying the minds of a roomful of comedy fans with its unsettlingly hilarious mix of pop culture and hardcore pornography. Troy Walker earned himself the top ranking in the…
Amazon gave the green light to several video series this morning, but Those Who Can’t, created by Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl and Ben Roy of the Denver-based Grawlix comedy group, wasn’t on the list. Instead, Amazon will go forward with two other comedy pilots, Betas and Alpha House, as well…
The Erotic Fan Fiction competition will bring its twisted competition to Denver this Thursday. Led by Bryan Cook, comedy writer for Joan Rivers’s Fashion Police, the contest tasks professional comics to arrive with their own piece of erotic fan fiction on anything from Facts of Life to Of Mice and…
After ingesting almost nine straight hours of the newly revived Arrested Development series, I’ve come to two conclusions: 1) The cast and creators of AD still got it, and 2) This show was made for hermetic losers like me. The “story of a wealthy family who lost everything” was nothing…
While some TV series like The Office, Lost and The Simpsons carried on long after they lost the magic that originally captivated us, Arrested Development remained a razor sharp comedy right up to its 2006 cancellation. So it was no small Internet miracle when the news broke that Netflix would…
While big-name comedy acts like Aziz Ansari will draw a large crowd in Boulder, getting a local comedy scene going in Colorado’s hippie hamlet has faced some challenges — whether money, politics or apathy. Now James Gold is hoping to put Boulder’s anti-comedy stigma to rest with his Dairy Comedy…
Denver native T.J. Miller can be a polarizing character in his hometown. Many in the comedy community see him as a local hero who’s helped bring national eyes to the scene; others think he’s a bro-down braggart who erroneously claimed civic pride with his “Denver” music video. Either way, though,…
Possibly the most famous and influential keyboardist in the history of rock, Doors co-founder Ray Manzarek, died yesterday at age 74 from complications due to bile-duct cancer. Known as the lanky professor crouched off to the left of Jim Morrison, Manzarek was an erudite multi-instrumentalist who delivered a complex and…
