Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp unveiled The Future of Journalism this morning in an elaborate, hour long event at the Guggenheim in New York. The product: The first tablet-native newspaper, a 14 cents per day, iPad-only publication called The Daily. There was some amount of fervor surrounding its debut; this has…
Meg and Jack White officially called it quits today via announcement on their web site. On balance, we’d describe this as not a huge development, considering they haven’t released any new material in three and a half years and they’re nearly ten years on the downhill side of their creative…
This Valentine’s Day, Denver funk band Bop Skizzum wants to end relationships. Well, crappy ones, anyway. They’re offering to create personalized video messages to fans that will include their song “I’m So Much Cooler,” which is about knowing your girl/guy crush is dating the wrong guy/girl. “The song is kind…
The construction of this EP is probably the best way to enter it. Clay and Barry are brothers; Clay writes the lyrics, and Barry writes the songs and sings. There are folk songs hung on varying degrees of static, and they sound like they were recorded inside a giant barrel…
A master class in power chords and heavy needling, Heighliner’s debut trudges through metal, skips through pop punk and ambles through prog in ten tracks. Because the band is instrumental-only, it’s easy to focus on the guitars. Going without a vocalist typically demands that bandmembers find a way to make…
Portland indie rockers the Decemberists, long known for their encyclopedic lyrics and mournful delivery, met the rising indie zeitgeist halfway with this year’s The King Is Dead. The album, the band’s most pop-friendly to date, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart. That marks the culmination of…
There’s a storm in the midwest that’s causing everyone to roll out their stupid snow puns again (Snowpocalypse Now!) and here in Denver we’re getting into the negative double digits — a big day for Netflix Instant, the movie rental option that doesn’t require pants, much less a jacket and…
Fun fact you probably didn’t know already: It’s really fucking cold outside. How cold? Well, eleven degrees below zero at last check. This is hunker down with hot chocolate and delivery Chinese food weather. Work can wait until you don’t need an ice pick and a Sherpa to navigate your…
It’s hard to understand the magnitude of Geek Bowl unless you go. The numbers are readily available: 129 teams, 64 questions, $7,000 in prize money. But none of that gets you to what this thing is like. There’s a temptation to imagine a boozier Knowledge Bowl, an almost standardized-testing type…
Nicki Minaj was the musical guest on this week’s SNL. Her performances were good — she’s an undeniable presence — but her star turn was in a digital short called “The Creep.” In the last half-decade, that’s where some of SNL’s most memorable non-Sarah Palin moments have been. Where did…
Tracy Morgan called Sarah Palin “good masturbation material” last night on national television during a TNT broadcast of an NBA game. Maybe not what the network would have preferred that he say, but a). he was sort of baited and b). this is Tracy Morgan, who is more-or-less completely indistinguishable…
Patrick Stump’s long-delayed solo debut, Soul Punk, will allegedly, finally be out sometime in February. Up front: We think it’s going to be incredible. Stump has taken an unconventional tack in promoting his solo career, best exemplified by last week’s elaborate a cappella medley of all the songs nominated for…
News Corp. and Disney (who own Fox and ABC, respectively) are considering pulling their ad-based free streaming shows from Hulu — remember that they are two of the three companies who founded Hulu back in 2008. Hulu has done incredibly well in terms of viewership, but its subscription-based Hulu Plus…
Fort Collins’ Sour Boy, Bitter Girl started 2011 with a weeklong tour of our neighboring states, playing shows in Kansas, Missouri, Texas and New Mexico. They released a record last year, but this was mostly a “because we can” situation. These sorts of tours, however brief, can be pivotal moments…
You’ve probably seen Hal Sparks: He hosted Talk Soup a little over ten years ago, starred in Queer As Folk for five seasons and is a regular commentator on VH1’s I Love the 70s, 80s and 90s. But he got his start in standup, and comedy continues to be central…
Comedian Hal Sparks will perform the first of five Denver shows tomorrow at Comedy Works South. Sparks, who has hosted Talk Soup and starred in Queer As Folk, has been focusing more lately on his stand-up career. His comedy special is available now through Showtime, he has a CD coming…
Live Nation, an entertainment company with a net worth north of $4 billion, held a contract with Steve Schalk, who owns the Gothic Theatre and Moe’s Original BBQ in Englewood. That contract expired last year on March 1, and Schalk elected not to renew. The venue has been independently booking…
The Academy Award nominations are out and they’re pretty much what you expected: The King’s Speech, Black Swan, The Social Network, etc. This is the second year of the expanded ten movie Best Picture category. And as these things go, the ten nominees are not a bad indication of what…
The increasingly taste-free will.i.am has put his brand behind a new company: will.i.apps. They, um, create apps. The first one, called BEP360, is basically a really high-budget ad for the band’s shitty new album, The Beginning. The centerpiece of the app is a music video for “The Time (Dirty Bit)”…
The NHL has commissioned Spiderman creator and general comic book legend Stan Lee to create a superhero squad based on every team in the league. They’ve been rolling them out for a while now, and the Avs got their hero over the weekend. He’s there on the right. His powers…
Drake said recently that he’s drawing inspiration from Winnie the Pooh for his next album. But Drake would never be Pooh Bear — that has to be Lil Wayne. Which Hundred Acre Wood inhabitant would Drake actually be? What about the rest of the gang? Below, a character-by-character breakdown. Except…
The first edition of Hip-Hop Covers, an all-female Wu-Tang tribute, was way beyond sold out. By the time the nine local MCs, poets and singers took the stage, the Walnut Room was at capacity, and there was a crowd of people waiting outside the door. It didn’t matter if you…
