Kevin Abstract raps about his problems, big and small. On his first album, American Boyfriend, Abstract sings: “I hate my yearbook photo/I hate my passport/I hate my last name/I hate everything it stands for.” While his songs are filled with self-loathing and on-and-off disgust with pretty much everyone and everything…
Millions of people carry portable filmmaking devices in their pockets; with a smart phone, they can shoot, edit, color-correct and distribute a film with a few finger taps. Thinking about the old days — when people shot on film, sent their footage by mail to be developed, and cut-and-spliced their…
We’re excited to announce the bands and musicians who made the ballot for this year’s Westword Music Showcase. More than 200 musicians, fans, journalists and industry players weighed in on their favorite acts in the Front Range. Based on those recommendations, we have have compiled this ballot showcasing some of the…
Painter Don Coen spent roughly twenty years working on a series of fifteen paintings of migrant workers, on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center through May 14. The artist, who entered his career as a non-objective painter, shifted toward depicting landscapes and ultimately portraits based on photographs. While…
Last year it was widely reported that Insane Clown Posse’s Gathering of the Juggalos would take place in Denver. Not so. “We couldn’t find a location in Colorado that would work for the Gathering,” Jason Webber of Psychopathic Records e-mailed Westword on March 13. “We should be announcing a final location…
Colorado bands performing at South by Southwest did not sign onto a petition that convinced the festival’s leadership to strike anti-immigrant language from its contract with artists. But many Mile High acts performing at SXSW find the contractual language objectionable and celebrate their fellow musicians for convincing the festival to…
When Kate T. Parker started shooting photos of her two daughters, both tomboys, she noticed that her favorite pictures were those in which her children were totally themselves — not posing and primping as girls are too often taught to do. She started shooting other girls, and soon her images…
Last year, Bruce Springsteen stopped by the Tattered Cover; this year, it’s John Oates of Hall and Oates, who will be reading from his memoir, Change of Seasons. The book takes a look at the duo’s struggle to snag an Atlantic Records recording contract and Oates’s life in the tumultuous…
Ed Sheeran announced a North American tour today, March 8, and will stop by the Pepsi Center on August 15. Pre-sale starts Monday, March 13, at 10 a.m. and will go through Thursday, March 16. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 17, at 10 a.m. To register for pre-sale and…
Denver Center for the Performing Arts has seen a lot of turnover in recent years, but one guiding force has been board chairman Daniel Ritchie. Today, March 7, the organization announced he will be replaced in that role by Martin Semple, an attorney who has specialized in employment law —…
Punk legends Rancid and Dropkick Murphys are hitting the road on the From Boston to Berkeley Tour and will be playing Sculpture Park, in Denver, on Friday, August 11, at 7 p.m. “This is a dream come true for Dropkick Murphys,” said the band’s bassist Ken Casey, in a statement…
Wheelchair Sports Camp’s Kalyn Heffernan is panicked. The underground rapper whose first album came out in 2016 speedily booked the 2017 Wall to Wall Tour, which starts with a two-show Midwestern jaunt before a hometown show in Denver and then a giant West Coast loop that includes stops in Tijuana and…
The Denver Art Museum’s Star Wars and the Power of Costume has brought thousands into the venerable institution who might otherwise never have walked through its doors. Because of public demand, the nationally recognized exhibit that has been compared to Donald Trump —”Both are mega-entertaining, show-biz fluffs that have puffed…
A few weeks ago, we noted that Jon Bon Jovi was seeking a Denver act to open for his band’s concert at Pepsi Center. Today, March 2, Live Nation announced the group has been picked: The Patti Fiasco — from Fort Collins. In a 2013 album review, Westword’s Jon Solomon…
Sickness has been going around lately, and famous musicians, well, they’re no exception. Anthony Kiedis, the front man of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, has come down with bronchitis, and the group has been forced to reschedule its Thursday, March 2, Denver gig. The new show will take place October 16,…
Aurora is one of several Colorado cities talking with Artspace, a nationally renowned nonprofit developer, about creating live-work space for artists. On March 1, the discussion came to the Vintage Theatre, where Artspace discussed the possibility of putting a live-work space for artists in the Aurora Cultural Arts District. At…
Jesu Berkeley, aka Deej Karbon, worried his daughter’s Denver elementary school had no music program, so he asked the principal if he could start teaching deejaying classes. The response: Sure, if you can find a way to fund it. Now, he’s running a Kickstarter campaign and hosting a March 4…
Wilco and Death Cab for Cutie will headline Velorama, a three day music, shopping and food festival held in the River North Art District, August 11-13. Also on the bill: Saint Motel, La Santa Cecila and the New Pornographers. The event will take place as part of the Colorado Classic bicycle race, the…
Is that a cloud of weed headed toward Colorado? Nope. It’s Snoop Dogg and his caravan of hip-hop greats bringing the annual Wellness Retreat back to the state, this time to Red Rocks. He will be sharing the stage with burning-hot rapper Wiz Khalifa, the hip-hop legends in Cypress…
Perhaps you’ve been waiting until the crowds die down to see the award-winning film La La Land. Maybe you never planned to watch it but were inspired to after the cringe-inducing Academy Award SNAFU. Or possibly you’ve already watched it a dozen times and know every song by heart. Whatever the…
Fort Collins photographer Tim Van Schmidt started going to concerts in Los Angeles in the 1970s. He wrote about rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and about the early years of punk. By 1980, he’d moved to Fort Collins, where he started writing a fanzine and a weekly…
Video Station held its an annual Oscar contest on Sunday, February 26…and the next day, the 35-year-old Boulder store announced that it would be shuttering its doors for good early in March. The news was sad but not surprising; what’s remarkable is that the brick-and-mortar video store stayed open year after…
