Best Of Denver® 2001 Winners
Arts & Entertainment
They're four small steps for Boulder, but four giant steps for poem-kind: The first four of fifty proposed engraved sandstone slabs were laid in a walkway at the Boulder Public Library's south entrance last fall, featuring quotes by poets Wawatay Eninew, Rabindrath Tagore, Thomas Hornsby Ferril and Anna Akhmatova. According to project coordinator Michael Evans-Smith, a few new poets will be added to the walk each year for the next ten years; Evans-Smith hopes that upon completion, Poets Way will be "an interface between our world and the quieter, darker, more peaceful world beyond." A refreshing idea in a noisy, media-driven new millennium.
Yes, it's a school night, but that doesn't bother the lively and loyal crowd on the dance floor at Rock Island. So What, a weekly dance night at this LoDo institution, finds DJs K-Nee, Style 'N Fashion and Aztec playing just about anything they and the crowd feel like. The Tuesday-night gig grew out of K-Nee's So What radio show on KUVO eight years ago and has been spinning an eclectic mix of funky, soulful grooves combining acid jazz, Afrobeat, nu jazz, hip-hop and other sounds in various locations ever since. So watcha, watcha, watcha want?
Best Wednesday-Night Entertainment
Country Gone Wrong
Streets of London Pub
A pub named Streets of London might seem an unlikely place for a night of country-flavored entertainment, but don't tell that to DJs Stagger Lee and Chester Fields. These good ol' boys are the hosts of Country Gone Wrong, an inside-out C&W show that pairs heartbreak with hilarity. Country classics and obscure hillbilly odes segue into X-rated Johnny Paycheck tunes and rip-snorting stuff from new alt-country acts. And when these DJs start riffin' on a theme, there's no stopping them. Who knew there were so many tunes about chickens, truckin', cheatin' and alcohol? Hank definitely didn't do it this way, but he'd love it all the same.
Best Autobiography by a Furniture Magnate
An American Tiger
Jake Jabs came out fighting when the News and Post announced their proposed JOA. But then, he's taken on wilder beasts than rampaging publishers, as becomes clear in the first few pages of his self-published autobiography, An American Tiger ($19.95 at an American Furniture Warehouse store near you, or online). The rags-to-recliners story starts with Jabs's childhood on a hardscrabble farm in Montana and ends with his triumphant crowning as the National Home Furnishing Association's 2000 Retailer of the Year; along the way, Jabs also manages to include dozens of pages from his American Furniture Warehouse customer-service and employee policies. But then, Jabs knows all about how to overstuff a package.
Best Musical Advertisements for a Local Venue
Road Rock V.1 and Red Rocks Live
Neil Young
Recorded and/or filmed at Red Rocks, Road Rock V.1, an in-concert CD, and Red Rocks Live, a DVD, aren't just fine documents of Neil Young's undimmed musical energy. They're also reminders that the natural amphitheater located in the foothills west of Denver remains the most primordial place to see a concert in these United States.
Mark Bliesener's decision to expand his musician consulting business to the Web is a gift to bands and artists anywhere, not just those who share his Denver area code. Bliesener is what those in the music industry refer to as an "insider": a former critic, performer, publicist and manager who now helps artists at all levels improve their chances of making a living at this thing called music. Bandguru.com's primary function is to introduce potential clients to Bliesener's background and services for hire, but it also contains a wealth of information that's free for the clicking, including an exhaustive listing of American and international record labels and Web links galore. Guru, we have so much to learn from you.
Best Web Site for Agoraphobic Music Fans
www.jammingconcerts.com
While there ain't nothing like the real thing, jammingconcerts.com provides a pleasant alternative to the live-concert experience. The Denver-based site hosts a dizzying archive of live audio and digital video footage of local and touring artists, all culled from performances in Englewood's palatial Gothic Theatre. A hell of a lot more fun than e-trading, it's an online pleasure that's free, easy to access -- and legal.
KVCU-AM/1190, the student-run station at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is staffed by musical enthusiasts who break down barriers as a matter of course. They're eager to inform young listeners about great music of the past through the use of artist features focusing on acts that rose to prominence long before most of them were out of their Pampers. But they're just as enthusiastic to clue in older listeners about the finest underground sounds being made today via playlists that spotlight the most interesting acts in virtually every genre. The result is a benefit for music lovers of all ages.
Best Specialty Show on a Commercial Radio Station
Doo-Wop Sunday Morning
KXKL-FM/105.1
Jay Mack is no spring chicken. He's been in the radio biz for decades and made news last year after having an on-air respiratory attack; a concerned listener who called 911 on his behalf may very well have saved his life. But the years have made him terrifically knowledgeable about rock and roll, and on Doo-Wop Sunday Morning, he puts his smarts to use, breaking free of the tight KOOL 105 playlist to spotlight forgotten obscurities from the music's golden era. Fans have responded so favorably that Mack's time has been expanded: He can also be heard Sunday nights and weekdays from noon until 1 p.m. Rock on.
For three years running, KUVO's Destination Freedom has been broadcasting its own brilliant re-creations of historical black radio dramas every third Tuesday at 9 p.m. The scripts were written in the late 1940s by Richard Durham, who wrote 104 plays about significant African-Americans. His subjects included everyone from artists like W.C. Handy and Marian Anderson to historical figures such as Ida B. Wells and Harriet Tubman. So far, the station has aired 28 shows, with some sixty actors participating. In addition, the half-hour time frame has expanded to an hour in order to include commentary and musical guests. Don't touch that dial.
KBCO is easy to take for granted. But despite being part of the enormous Clear Channel conglomerate, which critics charge with contributing to the homogenization of radio everywhere, the station is still in touch with the singularly Bouldery vibe that it's emitted from the beginning. And for that, locals should be extremely grateful.
In a day and age when too many public-radio stations are generic and canned, Boulder's modest-sized KGNU remains intensely local, proudly idealistic and wonderfully idiosyncratic. Sometimes smaller is better.
The morning personality on the CU-Boulder station, Alisha is perky without being cloying, and she goes out of her way to give listeners new information about the tunes she spins. Special features include regular interviews with the station's music director, Denise von Minden, that highlight the latest additions to the outlet's playlist, and "Artist of the Week" segments assembled in part by listeners. Through these efforts, Alisha keeps the focus right where it belongs, which is on Radio 1190's great music.
Let's be Frank: She got da stank! You can take it to the bank.
When Newsweek correspondent Daniel Glick set out to chronicle the October 1998 fires that did $12 million in damage to Vail, he wound up writing what could be Colorado's ultimate whodunit -- albeit one still without a conclusion (the list of suspects is long, however). But in shining a light on the alleged acts of eco-terrorism, Glick illuminates a much bigger puzzle: How a sleepy nook in the Eagle Valley turned into the world's biggest ski area, a company town that answers to Wall Street rather than the romantic muse of the ski bum. Powder Burn adds up to a stunning indictment of how Colorado sold itself down the Eagle River. And where there's smoke, there's ire.
From navy blazers to red vests to bold Hawaiian luau-wear, Denver's frat-rock revivalists, the Orangu-Tones, are always in complete harmony -- from a fashion standpoint, that is. "Authentic" is the key adjective here: These guys wouldn't look out of place at a 1962 sock hop. The Tones' reliable uniformity is particularly refreshing in a time when many outfits seem to have forgotten that clothes sometimes make the band.
Denver's long-lived country establishment has had its share of troubles over the past year. But despite a little scandal, some ownership troubles and battles with state liquor law-enforcement agencies, there's a bloom on the Rose again. Thanks to new management -- the place is now helmed by longtime Grizzly Rose dance instructors Kathy and Bill Ripolla -- this expansive roadhouse has returned to hosting national and regional country bands and serving longnecks to thirsty cowboys and girls. Area country fans, thrilled with the recovery, are boot-scootin' back to the Rose.
From swing to salsa, dance crazes come and go with an almost Swiss precision. (We're still awaiting the return of the Freddy.) At the advance of each new wave, the Mercury Cafe is ready, opening its funky doors to dancers of all persuasions. While swing and lindy hop are still going strong, tango currently reigns supreme in Marilyn Megenity's luscious eatery/bar/cabaret on California Street, with weekly milongas, classes for dancers of all levels (from beginners to very advanced) and the occasional opportunity to learn from a visiting Argentine master. The Merc still shines brightly in the firmament of local nightlife.
You needn't know how to dance when you enter Sevilla, but it helps: Five nights a week, the gorgeous, Euro-style nightclub inside the Icehouse ushers in hordes of well-dressed dance-floor denizens, who move to the cardio beat of live Latin sounds, from merengue to mambo and salsa. Even if you prefer to just relax and watch other people shake their shimmery thangs, Sevilla is still a desirable nightspot: The drinks are reasonable, the atmosphere festive but not overpowering, and the clientele always entertaining. Sevilla has more Spanish flavor than a fire-roasted chile pepper.
For a theater stuck in the middle of a college town that's about as white as the inside of a hospital toilet bowl, the Fox Theatre sure knows how to kick some flava: More than any other venue in the state, it consistently hosts fine performances by up-and-coming hip-hop talent along with its indie-rock and pop artists. The Fox's rap-centric calendar is made all the more appealing by a crystal-clear sound system and well-designed floor plan: You can actually see -- and understand -- the performers on stage. We hope the Fox maintains its good rap for a long time to come.
It's hard to keep it real these days in chic, overpriced LoDo, but no place keeps it real better than Jerry Krantz's El Chapultepec jazz club, an undeniably divey institution. It's smoky, true. And crowded, yes! But it costs only one beer to get in, and you can count on the local musicians to play like it's their last night on earth.
The neon sign beckons you downstairs, and the soothing, softly lit room, the comfortable chairs and the consistently great jazz will keep you inside Vartan Jazz Club. This venue has welcomed the likes of trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard, hard-bop pioneer Horace Silver and the amazing Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, among many others. There's dancing and dining, too, but for an always-reliable roster of first-rate talent, no spot is better.
Amsterdam's owners cast an even larger net over the local club scene with the opening of Pure last year, a sort of pulsating oasis on Welton Street. But it's Amsterdam that stands out as their most brilliant achievement. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, the club opens its door to dancers eighteen and over and leaves them open until the wee hours of the morning. Local and international DJs spin in the space that, true to its name, achieves the Euro-chic vibe that complements electronic beats so well. Amsterdam is a welcome late-night option for those who know that watching the sun come up after a long night of shaking your booty is one of life's pure pleasures.
Earlier this year, the folks at Vinyl, the club that rose from the ashes after a fire gutted its interior in 2000, got smart: They invited Hardy Kalisher, the brains behind the internationally recognized Boulder club Soma, to help them brainstorm a new direction for their space. The result is Club Next, which takes over Vinyl's multi-leveled dance floors three nights a week, with Kalisher at the production helm. Judging by the offerings so far -- the venue officially launched with a performance from Ben Watt of Everything but the Girl fame -- Club Next is poised to usher in a progressive club scene in D-Town by hosting national and internationally known DJs, as well as provide the opportunity for locals to regularly spin for the dance-happy crowds. This is one club that's definitely worth belonging to.
Every Wednesday night, The Snake Pit puts aside the dance and Gothic music that normally dominates its sound system to make way for Shag, during which Anglophiles dance to new and old music from the canon of British pop. Introduced in the spirit of the Pit's original Brit-pop night, Quid, Shag has grown into one of the most happening club-theme nights in town, where the sounds of Oasis, the Stone Roses and David Bowie inspire club kids to unite under a common musical flag. There's no bollocks about it.
Every year, the Capitol Hill United Neighborhood-sponsored People's Fair showcases some of the finest local artists in mediums ranging from aura photography to basket weaving. It's the music, though, that's of particular interest to many People -- and before the nearly 100 bands converge on the fair's myriad stages, they have to audition. Last March, more than fifty hopefuls took their turns on two stages at the Soiled Dove, playing fifteen-minute sets to the delight of fans and judges alike. Though the quality of the fare ranged, the brevity of the auditions guaranteed a little something for everyone with even a passing interest in local sounds.
Last November, cable-TV giant Starz Encore and company chairman John J. Sie pledged $5 million cash and launched a $7 million fund drive to finance a three-screen, state-of-the-art movie theater facility in the Tivoli. The Starz Encore Film Center, scheduled to open in summer 2002, will become the permanent home of the peripatetic Denver International Film Festival, as well as the site of year-round screenings and film education programs overseen by the University of Colorado at Denver. At last, Denver will have a suitable home for the cinematic arts equal to its art museum and concert halls.
When the impossibly fanciful costumery creations of Howard Crabtree had to be re-created for a local production of Crabtree's campy revue When Pigs Fly at Theatre on Broadway, costumer Lamecia Landrum was completely up to the task. While other career costumers might have been slammed by the demands of fabricating Crabtree's outrageously outlandish drag wear, Landrum stepped to the plate with a swagger, creating believable mermaid and pig suits, a centaur, giant playing cards, and wearable vanity tables that transformed themselves into seventeenth-century gowns with remarkable savoir faire. Crabtree's vision was in good hands.
Best Festival Dedicated to Flower Power
Wildflower Festival
Take a walk on the wild side at Crested Butte's annual Wildflower Festival. Now about fifteen years old (in good Crested Butte fashion, the origins of the event are a little vague), this festival remains as fresh and invigorating as an alpine meadow after a summer shower. Crested Butte is known as the Wildflower Capitol of Colorado -- it's the micro-climate, stupid -- and you'll be convinced that the title's well-deserved after just a few minutes at this weeklong summer festival. Official activities include wildflower walks that are easy, moderate and downright challenging, along with tours, photography workshops, sketching instruction, cooking classes and musical entertainment; unofficial activities include lying in fields filled with bright flowers and drinking yourself silly in Crested Butte's classic bars. This year's festival is set for July 9-15.
Past seasons have seen Lori Hansen play a lewd nun (Nine), and a failed poet, chorus member and disturbed nun (Suddenly Last Summer). Last fall Hansen eschewed her twisted-sister ways and turned in a nicely controlled performance as a wronged Cherokee bride in part one of The Kentucky Cycle. As another performer knelt by the side of a rustic bed and simulated the sounds of childbirth, Hansen told the moving story of her son's arrival through suggestive movement and lyrical speech. Later, she demonstrated that she was capable of more than saintly forbearance, seeking revenge in a way that wound up casting a pall over her character's entire family. Hansen always creates distinctive characters without letting them detract from the play's bigger picture.
Before Christopher Simmons died of an aneurysm last year, he had begun working on improving the singing skills and overall professionalism of the group he'd performed with for several seasons. According to one of his colleagues at PHAMALy (The Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actor's League), Simmons "admonished us to prepare better for auditions, take classes and to raise things up a notch. During the last few months, one of PHAMALy's volunteers has taken over his project," the friend continues, "and I'm hoping that his challenge will make people rise to the occasion. If PHAMALy wants to be taken seriously, we've got to work harder at it." Giving a posthumous award is one way to honor his memory; but picking up where Simmons left off would be even better.
While some young Jews have drifted away, organizers of the regular Friday-night Shabbat Unplugged at Temple Emanuel have figured out a way to make the Song of David ring out. Featuring modern instruments and a rabbi who can riff, the monthly event has been catching on. Where once there were little more than a hundred people in the synagogue, there now comes a crowd of some 800 or more singing, swaying and praying. This is truly a musical mitzvah.
Backed by a band that included sister Astrid and wife Pegi, Neil Young ably demonstrated that he still has the chops, the power and the appeal to keep fans coming back again and again. And again. In three consecutive sold-out appearances at Red Rocks -- one of which included a freakish downpour that didn't manage to turn the music, or the audience's enthusiasm, soggy -- Young's performance was nearly flawless. In a setting that matched his almost prehistoric essence, he tore through acoustic renderings of gentler material and blazed through more visceral favorites, at times appearing to be transfixed in some netherspace reserved for genuine guitar demigods. We can only hope he keeps on rockin'.
Best Way to Appreciate Local Art
Documents of Colorado Art
Over the years, Ocean View Books (the press relocated from the West Coast in the mid 1990s, thus the name) has published a series of volumes on the history of Colorado art. The two-person operation -- Lee Ballentine is the designer; his wife, Jennifer MacGregor, is the editor -- has just put out its tenth issue, The Erotic Art of Edgar Britton, by poet Jane Hilberry. The volume takes a look at Britton, the state's most significant modern sculptor of the mid-twentieth century. Previous monographs have been devoted to Edward Marecak and Roland Detre; there have also been surveys on modern sculpture and painting. Luckily for us, Ocean View isn't finished yet, with more books in the Documents of Colorado Art collection being added to the list all the time.
Best Annual Transformation
Lannie Garrett into Pasty DeCline
You know the cows are coming home when normally sleek and sultry local entertainer Lannie Garrett pulls on her cowgirl outfit and emerges as Patsy DeCline, a country singer who's never going to make it to the Grand Ole Opry. On Friday and Saturday nights through May 5, the popular sendup of country music transforms the Denver Buffalo Company into the ReCliner Lounge. You'd be crazy to miss it.
In an unprecedented collaboration between the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Performing Arts Complex, the outdoor exhibit Joel Shapiro was presented on DPAC's lawn on Speer Boulevard; an additional piece has been placed in front of the DAM. The traveling show, which was put together by New York curator Martin Friedman, includes classic Shapiros in welded steel and aluminum dating from the 1980s to the present. Many are signature pieces that reconcile figural abstraction with minimalism by using clusters of steel beams to suggest the human figure. The exhibit will remain in place through May.
Rather than let a shrinking market for live music and shriveling pay end his career, Trace Christensen rolled with the changes. He's now replaced bandmates with his own pre-recorded tracks, taking his one-man karaoke company into area clubs. As one musician playing the parts of four or five headbangers, Christensen's oddball act is a gas to witness, one that rocks like no other solo effort in town.
Vertical Garden was the best of three solo exhibits mounted this past winter that showcased the most recent work of Lakewood sculptor Chuck Parson. An apparent workaholic, Parson created two complete environments for this show along with a group of related sculptures, all of which attempted to put a human face on our technological society. The tour de force was "Vertical Moment," a ceremonial space surrounded by a metaphorical fence and equipped with an acoustic baffle and amplifier, allowing viewers to hear their own footfalls on the walkway that leads into the piece. Parson is one of the state's most sophisticated artists, and this exhibit was one of the best last season.
Clark ov Saturn was a multifaceted contributor to Denver's scene before his 1999 move to New York City. His local-access cable show -- one teaching German, no less -- never seemed to get in the way of his ambient DJ gigs or the touring schedule of his techno/industrial unit, ph-10. Now ensconced as a DJ in Brooklyn coffee shop/vintage store Halcyon (its global prestige goes far beyond the dark roast), Clark has found time to expand his portfolio. Which explains why the Clarkster was found strolling through Manhattan, coffee in hand, in the guise of a dot-com superstar in one of Visa's Christmas commercials. Go, Clark.
The Robischon Gallery usually offers museum-quality shows, but few have matched Robert Motherwell: Early Drawings, which came down in early March. The late modern master was represented by some of his signature action paintings on paper as well as several examples of his later, and equally fine, color-field pieces. Many of the drawings, though quite small, had all the power and majesty of his larger and better-known works, such as those that are occasionally exhibited at the Denver Art Museum.
It's been a rocky start for the still-fledgling Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver: During the last few years, the museum has had two permanent directors and an interim one. Now a third permanent director has been hired: Cydney Payton, who rescued Boulder's Museum of Contemporary Art from obscurity during her glorious eight-year reign as its director. There's no doubt that Payton will have MoCAD -- which she plans to redub "MCA Denver" soon -- up and running again in no time.
Denver-based songwriter Mark Ledwig first penned Permanent Teeth as a classroom tool: An elementary-school teacher in Los Angeles, he knew his catchy numbers might help bilingual students comprehend such things as punctuation, the alphabet, multiplication and environmentalism. But after hauling some of his professional musician friends into the studio and recording under the name Natural Selection, Ledwig wound up with a recording that should appeal to fans of the Fab Four almost as much as the second-grade set. The CD is currently available exclusively through the Masterworks Music Services Web site, at mwms.net, but it's definitely worth checking out from a music standpoint. As for the lyrics, who couldn't use a little refresher in the basics?
Best Theater Production (since June 2000)
The Kentucky Cycle
The time commitment required to see all of The Kentucky Cycle didn't deter area theatergoers from sampling Robert Schenkkan's nine-play, six-hour epic. Even though the evening could have easily degenerated into a Roots-length version of the old Daniel Boone television series, director Jeremy Cole staged the saga with economy, passion and clarity. And the splendid ensemble of actors triumphed where it mattered most, uncovering each play's unique flavor, each character's particular humanity and each time period's overriding sweep. Mostly, though, the effort amounted to a monumental achievement for the Hunger Artists ensemble.
Best Tribute to a Bluegrass Performer
Charles Sawtelle: Music From Rancho deVille
A longtime member of Hot Rize and a well-liked member of the local music scene, Charles Sawtelle died in 1999 at age 52. But he touched a great many people while he was here, as Charles Sawtelle: Music From Rancho deVille (Acoustic Disc) amply demonstrates. Guest appearances by acoustic artisans such as Vassar Clements, Norman Blake, Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush, as well as by accordionist supreme Flaco Jimenez, ably supplement Sawtelle's own sublime picking.
Best Horrifying Success by a Local Writers' Group
The World Horror Convention 2000
The World Horror Convention 2000, held last May in Denver, wasn't for people with propellers whirling on their beanies; it was a feast for professional writers of horror. According to organizer Ed Bryant, generally accepted as the Colorado godfather of the genre, about 300 of the 500 people attending the convention were professionals: a group of editors, agents and writers that included such luminaries as Peter Straub, Steve Rasnic Tem, Dan Simmons, J. Michael Straczynski, Omni editor Ellen Datlow and the ever-argumentative Harlan Ellison. The conference provided panels and presentations as well as a wealth of networking opportunities. "There was a lot of talk about horror -- why we write it, is it a serious art form," says writer Melanie Tem. She herself reconnected with an editor she'd lost touch with and sold him two novels. Hmmm...a horror story with a happy ending.
Tucked away on a side street just a block from the 16th Street Mall, the Bovine Metropolis Theatre is a gem of a performance space, where comedy troupes like the Acme Comedy Players and the SansScript Players regularly bring out the laughs. Audiences can expect everything from improvisation to cleverly designed skits to nutty musical numbers; the theater, which also offers comedy workshops and classes, is the place to be for udder hilarity.
United Artists' vast, fifteen-house multiplex on the teeming 16th Street Mall may not be the most pleasing edifice, architecturally speaking, but when the lights go down and the credits come up, moviegoers can revel in every postmodern comfort: sculpted, well-cushioned seats arranged in the steeply canted, viewer-friendly "stadium" style, convenient cup-holders, and top-of-the-line projection and sound. Certainly, many suburban theaters boast similar high-tech facilities, but the Denver Pavilions 15 is downtown, and that's the greatest comfort of all for filmgoers who love city life.
Technically, the Cherry Bomb Club never really went away. But the release of last year's self-titled album on DivineShaker Records cast the collective -- which counts prestigious Denver music alumni, including members of the Warlock Pinchers and Foreskin 500, among its members -- in an exciting new light. Full of soundtrack soundbites, funky rhythmic loops and the undeniable diva stylings of vocalist Erica Brown, Cherry Bomb Club, the album, is one of the most soulful, fun and infectious offerings to come down the local line in a good long while -- and one that landed the group a slot at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City last October. For now, the band's future looks a little shaky because of Brown's departure early this year; hopefully, the Club can keep it together for the good of local music and the groove in us all.
Best Blasts From the Past
Flyin' West and Hughie
Shadow Theatre Company
A lesser director might have turned Flyin' West into a hiss-filled potboiler. But in director Jeffrey Nickelson's capable hands, Pearl Cleage's play became an expansive ode to courage, self-determination and the price of freedom. Despite the dramatist's frank treatment of the subject of domestic
abuse, the play was hardly a sermon; instead, Nickelson and company paid tribute to the generations of trailblazing women who selflessly cleared the way for those who came after them. And Shadow's early-season production of Hughie resurrected one of Eugene O'Neill's more colorful characters with sublime grace: With all of Ralph Kramden's expansive largesse and Archie Bunker's blunt-witted pluck, actor Kurt Soderstrom brought a wealth of understanding to the character of Erie, covering a lifetime's worth of defeat, loneliness and fear in the space of 45 minutes.
Best Promoter of Musically Uncategorizable Weirdness
Tom Steenland
The man behind Boulder's Starkland Records continues to put out some of the county's most intriguing avant-garde CDs, and now Tom Steenland has branched out into a new medium: immersion. Starkland's first DVD turns the spotlight on worthy performers such as Paul Dresher, Pamela Z, Meredith Monk and Denver veteran Bruce Odland. May Steenland continue to wander far from the beaten path.
Although most people equate LoDo more with baseball than bands, Frank Schultz and his team at the Soiled Dove have been presenting living, breathing music almost every night of the week in a high-end setting. The venue's music calendar has received a considerable boost from former Herman's Hideaway booking manager Sharon Rawles, whose knack for scouting fun and promising local and national talent has given the Dove wings. Over the past year, the club has also deepened its commitment to the local music community: Lesser-known acts are invited to take the stage during the Locals Launch series, and the Dove hosts monthly Colorado Music Association meetings. With a professional staff, impeccable sound system and music-supporting spirit, the Soiled Dove is on its way to becoming one of the best music rooms in the state.
Best Approximation of a Concert at the Apollo Theatre
D'Angelo
Despite the hefty ticket prices, D'Angelo and his band, the Soultronics, put on a blazing show that quickly had the many pretty thangs in attendance rushing the stage and dancing in the aisles. With the lights dimmed low, the Virginia-bred funkster unleashed his smooth, soulful grooves on a stage that resembled the hotspots of a different era. D'Angelo's New Soul Revue felt like one long, extended -- and blissful -- jam. Oh, yeah.
Best New Film Festival
Reel/Real Black: Pan African Film Festival
Now in its second year, the Pan African Film Festival is coming into its own as a significant cultural resource. More than fifty movies from black filmmakers all over the world will be screened this year, ranging from shorts to features to documentaries to works in progress. The festival, which kicks off with a gala opening at the Mayan Theatre, takes place April 26-30 at the Tivoli and will also include various workshops and panels. Bring a date, some popcorn and an open mind.
It isn't often that local audiences get the chance to spend extended periods of time in the company of actors capable of commanding any stage in the English-speaking world. This past fall, though, Royal Shakespearean Greg Hicks treated Denver to a nine-hour-long display of consummate skill. Hicks led the Tantalus company with superb portrayals, captivating the audience's attention from his first entrance, tightening his grip during moments of dry humor, descending into agony and rising magisterial with the slightest inflection or shift in posture. Perched on stilts and balancing canes and done up in a headdress that seemed inspired by the Dr. Who television series, Hicks gave a rendering of the lecherous Priam that nearly stole the show. And as Agamemnon, Hicks revealed a man marooned between the twin towers of pride and necessity. It was a virtuoso, standard-setting performance that, one hopes, we'll soon see the likes of again.
Best Festival Dedicated to Electrical Power
Telluride Tech Festival
Where's Lucius Nunn when you need him? Back in 1891, the Telluride resident electrified the world when he and some colleagues built the first industrial hydropower plant (the Ames Plant) to produce alternating current. Two years later, the country's energy industry was revolutionized when Nunn and Nicolas Tesla exhibited their affordable-energy project at the Chicago World's Fair. But not all of Nunn's works were on such a global scale: He got his start in Telluride by building a bathtub that he rented out to miners, an enterprise that eventually funded his law practice and the subsequent purchase of the San Miguel Bank -- which was later robbed by Butch Cassidy. Nunn's Telluride Power Co. Building is now the Nugget Theater, home to the Telluride's Tech Festival, which last August honored the town's most energetic citizens.
This crowd-pleasing revival of The Fantasticks was full of entertaining performances -- the most promising of which was Betsy Taylor's rendering of the vocally demanding role of Luisa. Only the most stoic individual could have maintained a stony countenance when Taylor attested to her undying affection for her romantic partner, or when the pair of young lovers reunited during an eloquent duet near the end of the play. With a little time, it's certain that the Evergreen High School senior will develop into as mature a vocalist as she already is a naturally gifted actress.
Best Reason to Get Hammered on Friday Night
Hangover Brunch
KVCU-AM/1190
Ask not for whom the seltzer fizzes, kiddies: It fizzes for thee -- especially when the cheerful hosts of Radio 1190's Hangover Brunch take to the late-morning airwaves on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Milkman Dan, Steph and a rotating crew of bleary-eyed guests count down their favorite thirty musical tracks of the week while dispensing a little culinary dope: Crepe Suzzettes, Cibo Matto, Quiche Lorraine, DJ Food, and recipes for award-winning chicken and waffles. So forget the shakes, flip a few 'cakes and let the tunes shine in.
Best Performance by a Denverite at the Grammys
Dianne Reeves
Jazz chanteuse Dianne Reeves finally had a well-deserved moment in the spotlight -- and at the podium -- at this year's Grammy Awards. Reeves snagged the award for Best Jazz Vocal Album with In the Moment -- Live in Concert, her stunning album released for Blue Note in the summer of 2000. The former University of Colorado student has always had an astonishing ability -- her vocal range bounces elastically around three octaves -- and now she's gotten the recognition (and nifty statue) that's long been her due.
Best Way to Get in Touch With Your Inner Hemingway
Lighthouse Writers
Is the Great American Novel lurking inside your overworked brain? How about just a good American novel? A short story? Maybe you simply want a new way to express yourself. Whatever you're looking for, Lighthouse Writers can help. This ever-growing outfit, started by the husband-and-wife team of Michael Henry and Andrea Dupree, offers moderately priced eight-week classes, daylong workshops, online lessons and a variety of other writerly activities for those who want graduate-level instruction but don't have the time or money for a degree. Choose from fiction, poetry, non-fiction, humor, screenwriting and a host of other subjects. Then grab a black beret and a glass of Scotch and lose yourself in the writer's life -- without living up to the starving part.
Best Blockbuster Museum Exhibit
Painters and the American West
Exhibition designers at the Denver Art Museum have been getting cutesy recently with kid-friendly gimmicks and other tricks that make it easy to ignore the art. But there was no ignoring the high quality of the paintings in last winter's Painters and the American West, which highlighted the collection of Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz. The paintings, which represent the broad sweep of American art history, have never been shown in Denver, and they're not likely to be shown again.
This loosely related trio of one-acts (Anton Chekhov's On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, Maria Irene Fornes's Dr. Kheal and Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson) explored knowledge's capacity to empower or paralyze. Propelled by Ed Baierlein's tour-de-force performance in each play, the evening was by turns hilarious, intriguing and frightening -- especially when Baierlein, who also directed and designed the production, turned the tables during a politically charged ending. Backed by a fine supporting cast, Baierlein's excursions into the swamps of academe re-established contextual fornicating as a favored -- and dangerous -- intellectual exercise.
Best Painting Solo -- Old Master Division
Vance Kirkland, Asian Paintings
To organize Vance Kirkland, Asian Paintings, a breathtaking show displayed late last summer, Hugh Grant, the director of the Vance Kirkland Foundation, which is the keeper of the late Denver artist's legacy, selected a combination of Kirkland's 1940s surrealist landscapes, and his abstract-expressionist paintings from the 1950s and '60s. Grant calls them Asian paintings not because they recall spots in Asia, but because Kirkland's travels in Asia led him to certain colors and concepts that he used for these pieces.
An evil barber's wet dream, Sancho's Broken Arrow provides a safe place for Denver's hairier denizens to converge, drink microbrews and compare notes on Dead bootlegs. A sister establishment to Quixote's True Blue (also on East Colfax), Sancho's tie-dyed, trippy interior is an atmospheric improvement over the Golden Nugget Country Disco, the previous business concern in the Capitol Hill space across from the Fillmore Auditorium. It's comfy and quaint in its own way. And most important, it's kind.
The Powerpuff Girls: Heroes & Villains (Kid Rhino) is ostensibly a CD tie-in to the Cartoon Network series in which a trio of tots named Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup regularly triumphs over animated evil. But it's also an exceedingly enjoyable indie-pop primer in which two first-rate local acts, the Apples in Stereo and Dressy Bessy, demonstrate why Denver has become a breeding ground for ultra-melodic college rock.
Over the years, Bud Shark's Lyons print studio, Shark's Inc., has attracted famous artists from across the country who wanted to make prints at the mountain compound. Oddly, these prints have ended up more often in New York and London than in Denver. But that changed when the William Havu Gallery put together last fall's Select Prints. Printmaking is a specialty of the gallery, so the fit with Shark's was a near-perfect one. The show included stellar pieces, some of them three-dimensional, the best by the likes of Red Grooms, John Buck and Betty Woodman.
Secret South proves that 16 Horsepower has survived the hurdles of record label fallout (the band has signed with Razor & Tie) and shifting membership with its creative faculties not only intact, but heightened: This swirling mass of music, informed by the skewed American traditionalism of David Eugene Edwards, his bandmates and local production ace Bob Ferbrache, is an emotional, often ominous trek that beckons the careful listener to find the calm within the storm. Banjo pluckings crouch behind walls of distortion; plaintive readings of American railway standards morph into discordance. It's a brilliant work, one that music lovers should be proud to regard as a hometown export.
Best Place to See Minimalism
Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery
Paintings done with stripes, bars, lines and planes is what you'll find at Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery on most days. Director Robin Rule fills the rooms with a mix of minimalist old masters from New York, like Carl Andre and Mary Obering, and local talents, such as Clark Richert, the dean of geometric painting. From time to time, she also shows quirky abstracts, representational works and photos. But there's no denying that less is best at Rule.
Best Local-Music Reissue
Early Plague Years
Thinking Plague
Arguably the best art-rock band ever to hail from Denver, Thinking Plague first introduced itself to the public with ...A Thinking Plague and Moonsongs, a pair of platters recorded in the early and mid-'80s, respectively, that have been out of print for ages. Early Plague Years (Cuneiform) corrects this error, giving admirers another chance to hear a fine band in its nascent stages.
Smartly directed, honestly acted and imaginatively written, HorseChart's production of O.T. took on prickly issues with the kind of spunky tenacity that one expects from a group of theatrical renegades. Clay Nichols's drama, which was mounted as part of the National New Play Network, mixed flashback-style scenes with current happenings to raise questions about the embedded attitudes that give rise to prejudice and racism. The play worked because Nichols took pains to reveal each issue's complexities and ambiguities; combined with director Brett Aune's straightforward approach, O.T. proved that it deserved to be further developed and mounted again.
The self-titled debut from Open Road is a bone-chilling masterpiece of Kentucky-grown sound. Leader Bradford Lee Folk sports a harrowing voice, and he and his mates possess a commanding, retro-respectful grasp of their adopted music. From giddy stompers to tear-jerking laments, this record delivers all of the rustic goods.
The revolution will not televised; instead, it will be in multimedia, and it's already getting started at Cafe Nuba in Five Points. Located at the Gemini Tea Emporium and run by Denver's Pan-African Arts Society, the cafe hosts monthly sets of hip-hop poetry, performance art and political prose, monthly screenings of black independent films and shorts, free HIV testing, voter-registration drives and book giveaways.
The oldest community-theater group in the state, the Evergreen Players celebrated their fiftieth anniversary last year by winning the regional American Association of Community Theatres competition in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The group's production of All in the Timing qualified the actors for the national AACT competition, which takes place this June in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Back on their home turf, the players are presenting La Cage Aux Folles at Evergreen's Centre Stage Theater through April 8. Give them a hand.
Best Performance by an East High Graduate
Don Cheadle
Traffic
Teachers at Denver's East High School remember Don Cheadle (class of 1982) as an able student and a dedicated student actor; his turn as the Artful Dodger in Oliver is still cherished there. Since then, this talented character actor has stolen a show from Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress, broken hearts in Boogie Nights and, last year, turned a police stakeout (with fellow cop Luis Guzmán) in Traffic into a miniature comic masterpiece. Fortunately, fame hasn't caused Cheadle to forget his humble beginnings: Teachers and staff at East say the actor returns to say hello whenever he's in Denver.
Best Alternative to the Screaming Guitar Wank
Neil Haverstick
Following his own muse and intuition, local six-stringer Neil Haverstick coined the term "micro-noodling" a few years ago in reference to his disciplined knack for coaxing more than twelve notes from a musical scale. Using custom-built instruments (including an electrified ax capable of producing 34 tones per octave), Haverstick brought his sixth and best annual Microstock Festival to St. Paul's Church last fall with koto player Yoko Hiraoka, waterphonist John Starrett and customized keyboard tickler Chris Mohr. Darkly exotic "space music" might best describe the evening's display of electronic meditation -- an aesthetic that Haverstick continually expands upon with his obvious love for exotic Indian and Arabic sounds. (See virtualchautauqua.org/haverstick for samples.) Sometimes fretless, always seamless, his soft-spoken tribute to outer space makes infinity seem damned near containable.
Before it was disbanded, the Denver Center Theatre Company's Playwrights Unit gave local playwrights a chance not only to see their works receive a major production, but also to collect some actual cash. The group rewarded us with an embarrassment of artistic riches, including such plays as Molly Newman's Quilters (which is still performed across the country), Terry Dodd's Goodnight, Texas, and Frank X. Hogan's Ringers. A lack of funding dropped the curtain on the program over a decade ago, but thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, it's now been re-established. Action!
Alex Lemski, the driving force behind Denver's Creative Music Works, is on a mission to keep the spirit of jazz alive, and his fanatical promotion of concerts featuring acts that share his goal is doing just that. His efforts to bring underground music into the light help make Denver a more interesting place.
When the proprietors of perennial punk establishment the Raven got tired of their old digs on Welton street, they simply packed up and moved down the road to a space they christened The Cat. The new club is not an entirely different animal, however: The adornment is still minimal, the crowds are still a little unruly, and the calendar still regularly includes an impressive number of all-ages shows -- which could go by the wayside, if the City of Denver has its way. If not, young and old alike can continue to enjoy the best -- and loudest -- in local and touring punk and indie-rock acts. Hello, kitty.
Matt Need and his friendly staff do what few proprietors of Denver music rooms do: They treat local bands with respect. Beneath the Gothic Theatre's large stage lies a greenroom with furniture you're not afraid to sit on, a shower you're not afraid to step into, and bathrooms with toilet paper. Better still, the staff equips bands with free beer (even the good stuff), hot tea and snacks -- perks that should delight the average hometown player.
Peace, Love, Unity and Respect. The raver's clever acronym seemed almost like an actual religion during the second annual Colorado Dance Music Awards, where club kids, candy ravers, promoters, performers and DJs put down their pacifiers to give each other big fat pats on the back. The event, organized by local rave advocate Jessica Hydle, was a glamorous, giddy affair at which winners in numerous categories took the stage to accept awards bestowed on them by peers in the dance-music community. After the ceremony? To the dance floor!
Best Performance by a Coloradan on National TV
Steven Cowles
The Mole
Undercover cops develop a sixth sense about people who may not be what they seem. That skill is probably what helped Steven Cowles win $510,000 on ABC's reality show The Mole. For 28 days, Cowles, who works for the University of Colorado Police Department when he's not in the limelight, ran around Europe with the rest of the show's contestants trying to determine who among them was the saboteur. Now that he's back on the force, Cowles won't be working undercover anymore: Starring on the show kind of blew his cover.
Best Annual Festival Dedicated to Food
Olathe Corn Festival
Save the first Saturday in August for all the Olathe sweet corn you can eat. Last year the Western Slope Vegetable Growers Association donated more than 70,000 ears of the Colorado specialty, which were consumed by an estimated 20,000 attendees, all to benefit nonprofit organizations in the Uncompahgre Valley. It sounds corny, we know, but when they aren't chowing down, festivalgoers can take in continuous live entertainment, contests and games, and more than 150 food, arts and crafts, educational and carnival booths. A downtown parade and pancake breakfast kick off the festivities, and a fireworks show ends them. Come on down and lend an ear.
Her scathing portrayal of an unhappy daughter in last season's The Beauty Queen of Leenane was as hard-edged as they come, but her more recent turn as Beatrice in the Denver Center's Much Ado About Nothing showed that Robin Moseley is an accomplished light-comedy actress as well. She captured perfectly a side of Beatrice that most actresses either ignore or can't locate: the "merry heart" ascribed to her by another character. And when Beatrice remarked that her sense of humor came from being born under a dancing star, Moseley opened a window to the character's soul that is rarely seen in other productions. Though seemingly inconsequential at first, Moseley's astute choices ultimately proved revelatory.
Best Collection Dedicated to a Best-Selling Author
James A. Michener Special Collection
Shortly before he died in late 1997, best-selling author James Michener revealed that he wanted the University of Northern Colorado -- where he'd gotten his master's degree and first started writing -- to become the official repository of his works, a gift he wrapped up with a half-million-dollar donation to establish the archive. Today, the James A. Michener Special Collection fills 400 feet of the library also named after him, a vast expanse consumed not just by notes for his many novels, but also by his false teeth, his typewriter, and a list of all the payments he received for Centennial, his epic novel about Colorado. And the collection is still growing.
Driven by Nils Kiehn's riveting turn as a raconteurish Satan, Don Becker's Lucifer Tonite stimulated playgoing nerves that, for too long locally, have been deadened by the dumbed-down din of floor-show-style musicals and hapless revue sketches. Despite its in-your-face tone, this play felt refreshing and provocative rather than angry or pompous. Never out of control but always poised to explode with rage or humor, Kiehn took us through several fractured versions of familiar Bible stories. His performance didn't quite qualify as a miracle, but it was an encouraging breath.
Located in the old Evergreen Hotel next to the famous Little Bear on the main street that runs through town, the Ice House hosts an open-mike night every Thursday evening from 6 to 10. The "unplugged" musical fare is much better than the usual two guys playing old Eagles covers, with a variety of local talent performing original and customized popular selections and a growing reputation that's attracting top-notch musicians from "down the hill" in Denver. The hors d'oeuvres are free, and the bar specializes in martinis. Come ready to play, sing or just listen till closing, then step next door for the last set of whoever's playing at the Bear.
Francis Scott Key could not have envisioned a time when his "Star-Spangled Banner" might be fused with the state song of, say, Namibia; in those days, it would have been impossible to foresee John Guillot's World Anthem Project. The local producer used a computer system called Experiments in Music Intelligence to sample 192 national anthems and create a compositional whole. The anthem debuted this past New Year's Eve in Denver, providing a sonic backdrop for the rockets-red revelry.
Best Literary Service Threatened by the JOA
Rocky Mountain News Books
Rocky Mountain News Books editor Patti Thorn likes mysteries and light fiction. She also respects serious literature. And she harbors a profound curiosity about the current publishing scene, from self-published e-books to monolithic houses, the travails of local writers and the struggles -- and victories -- of independent bookstores. For the past several years, she's dished up a Sunday book section that's a delicious blend of humor, insight, gossip, analysis and wisdom, a section that focuses on Colorado while placing the state's literary doings in a national context. But come April 2001, the News will never again publish on Sunday -- and given the current economic climate, we're not willing to make book on what will happen to Thorn's section.
Best Gallery Show -- Group
Time and Place: 100 Years of Women Artists in Colorado 1900-2000
In an effort to come up with a millennium show last fall, Sally Perisho, director of the Metro Center for the Visual Arts, had the idea for a historic exhibit that would survey women artists working in Colorado during the twentieth century. To carry out her plan, she collaborated with freelance curator Katherine Smith-Warren, who also wrote the accompanying catalogue. The result was Time and Place, a riveting look at women's work beginning at the turn of the nineteenth century and ending at the close of the twentieth. Highlights included pots by Anne Van Briggle Ritter from the 1910s, photographs by Laura Gilpin from the 1920s, and an installation by Virginia Folkestad from 2000.
As the Denver Center Theatre Company's principal designer, Bill Curley has fashioned an impressive string of stage settings over the years. There was the Venice Beach storefront set, complete with a flying plane inviting patrons to renew their subscriptions, that served as the backdrop for The Comedy of Errors; the romantic cyclorama and cobblestone walks that enveloped The Beauty Queen of Leenane; and the magical Parisian watering hole that housed Picasso at the Lapin Agile. But Curley's greatest accomplishment occurred last season, when he served as Tantalus designer Dionysis Fotopoulos's assistant while also mounting the incredible exhibit that accompanied the twelve-hour epic (the traveling show's curator publicly acknowledged Curley's contribution on the exhibit's opening night). Clearly, Curley is that rare creative individual -- the kind who quietly gets it done.
Best Painting Solo -- Young Master Division
Jeff Wenzel: Painting
Expectations were high for Jeff Wenzel: Painting, but even the highest of those were exceeded by this magnificent show held at Ron Judish Fine Arts in February. Educated as a ceramics artist, Wenzel works his paper surfaces as though they were made of pliable clay. He twists and tears, paints and repaints, guided by his instinctual and on-the-mark aesthetic judgment. Wenzel's always been good, but he's never been better than he was here.
DJ Chonz is the consummate hip-hop DJ. From his successful mix-tape series to his own online radio show to the packed houses he regularly rocks, Chonz has helped Denver heads appreciate one of hip-hop's often overlooked elements: the artist behind the turntables. Respected by artists from both coasts, Chonz has opened for Raekwon, the Baka Boys, Maseo from De La Soul and Common. Not limited by hop-hop conventions, however, Chonz recently started a new series at the Roxy that aims to bridge the gap between rap and other forms of electronic music. But whether he's educating or stimulating his crowds, Chonz never loses sight of the fact that a jock's primary objective is to keep them moving.
A group of five of Colorado's most interesting experimental photographers were brought together for Fresh Eyes, a cutting-edge exhibit organized by Kathy Andrews, head curator and exhibition director at the Arvada Center. Strong pieces included the uncharacteristic bottle shots by Mark Sink and the multiple-image travel pictures by Michael Butts. David Sharpe's enlargements of pinhole prints depicting the Western landscape were especially choice, photomurals that managed to be retro-pictorial and up-to-the-minute at the same time.
Otis Taylor is one of Colorado's many undiscovered treasures -- but if White African, an early release by NorthernBlues Music, a new Canadian blues imprint, receives the attention it deserves, he won't be undiscovered for long. The album isn't just the top blues recording by a local since...well...Taylor's last release; it's as good as any blues disc put out in the past year by anyone, anywhere.
Best Evidence of Life on the Alternative Scene
ILK @ Pirate
It's sad but true: Denver's alternative galleries have seen better days. Nevertheless, that little hole-in-the-wall ILK @ Pirate keeps chugging along. The small room is typically the site of wonderful shows, and the exhibiting artists, almost always the members of the two-venue ILK co-op that runs the place, usually give the space a complete facelift for each one. It's an ilk of a different kind, but it's a good one.
Best Country Recording
Always Say Please and Thank You
Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Thanks to the beneficence of former Boulderite Jello Biafra -- the onetime leader of the Dead Kennedys who created the Alternative Tentacles label -- Slim Cessna finally got the opportunity to display his eccentric take on country to a sizable audience beyond these parts. And he's made the most of it. Always Say Please and Thank You is frequently hilarious -- check out the timeless stomp "Last Song About Satan" -- but never at the expense of C&W verities.
Best Avant-Garde Recording
Scream of Consciousness
Mike O'Neill
Intimate solo-guitar improvisation filtered through casually chaotic sleight of hand (you know -- the induced vertigo from digital delays, ebos and assorted effects-laden gewgaws) is too easy a description for Mike O'Neill's impressive Scream of Consciousness. Scratch deeper and you'll discover methodically disarranged classical pieces, spiffy one-liners, and explorations into looped-based environments with all the distortion of a funhouse mirror. Amusingly titled cuts such as "Cupid's Gymnasium," "Shit-canned" and "Effing the Ineffable" hint toward prog-minded excursions -- something not entirely surprising given O'Neill's alumni status in Boulder's confounding quartet. Instrument Panel. Available through saxophonist Jack Wright's home page, www.springgardenmusic.com, Scream covers all of the basic food groups and then some. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll scream.
Before she moved to Colorado, Donna Gershten ran a health club in Mexico -- and she put that experience to good use in Kissing the Virgin's Mouth. Her haunting, lyrical novel won not only raves from critics, but also the first $10,000 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, established by Barbara Kingsolver when the best-selling author was feeling flush and decided to do her bit to help out other authors. "This is the kind of book you inhale in one breath and can't forget afterward," Kingsolver says of Gershten's work. Mexico's loss is our gain.
Jim Hughes and Will Graveman's musical, ...And Now Miguel, examined an adolescent boy's agony in wondering whether anyone else understands what it's like to feel like an adult and be treated like a child. Thanks to Tony Garcia's astute direction, the joint production of Denver's El Centro Su Teatro and the Arvada Center successfully delivered that message to audiences of teens and preteens. Hushed silence greeted the leading character when he crooned, "Grownups can do whatever they want, but for me, life is different." And not a soul looked bored when Miguel offered the refrain "I can't express the feelings in my heart that come easily/ Being Miguel is not easy to be." It was a valuable reminder that plays can illustrate what parents and politicians sometimes can't.
Three words: atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. Sure, you might be able to get a bigger selection of fancy java drinks at Starbucks, but can you drink your skinny caramel macchiato with sprinkles in a locale imbued with such genuine art-deco flair? Arrive early at the Mayan Theatre, buy some tickets for the 4:30 show, and head up to the second floor, where you can drink your cuppa joe at a cozy, tucked-away table. The jolt of pre-movie caffeine is sure to keep your eyelids from drooping during even the most slow-moving French art flick.
Best Uncategorizable Recording
Carnival Detournement
Hamster Theatre
What began as a creative outlet for multi-instrumentalist Dave Willey has turned into a real band -- and a unique one, at that. Carnival Detournement (Cuneiform) is a cornucopia of jazz, art rock and Eastern European folk music that's at once endlessly intriguing and unexpectedly accessible.
Randal Myler and Brockman Seawell's adaptation of onetime Boulder resident John Fanté's novella 1933 Was a Bad Year entranced from start to finish. That's mostly because Myler, who also directed 1933, staged the play with near-cinematic fluidity. He was aided by an ever-shifting backdrop of photographic montages: Vintage Boulder neighborhoods were suggested by contemporary snapshots that had been digitally sanitized to make each locale look as it did seventy years ago. The overall effect was largely one of an unbroken, almost symphonic backward glance -- peppered with bursts of hijinks -- at the forces that shaped a young man's destiny.
Bradford Lee Folk's voice is the musical equivalent of Rogaine, a hormone-rich wonder that raises the hair on the head, neck and everywhere else. One of many highlights in his stellar acoustic group, Open Road, Folk sings pre-country music with ache, anger and appreciation for his forebears. His ghostly, coal-dusted voice is high lonesome in the flesh.
Best Perfect Change
The cast of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
An outstanding quartet of local actors drove beyond the shortcomings of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change to offer up an insightful, sometimes hilarious look at America's love-hate relationship with dating games. Whether they were dovetailing in four-part harmony, pairing off in warring/cooing duets or going it alone during a few gratifying solos, Mark Devine, Jordan Leigh Gurner, Elizabeth Rose and Gina Schuh-Turner exuded a winning combination of artistry, timing and humanity. Best of all, they ushered in a welcome change in area casting trends, proving that local talent can bring as much -- if not more -- to the Denver Center's stages than most any assemblage of ringers.
3Deep Presents, which started in 1992 as a mobile DJ unit on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, consistently brings some of the best hip-hop music to town. In the past year, the crew promoted the DMC Technics Regional DJ championships at the Fox Theatre. And in conjunction with House of Blues Concerts -- where founders Francois Baptiste and Alvin LaCabe now work -- the company co-produced and laid down the street promotion for such rap luminaries as Method Man and Redman, Common, and the Cash Money Millionaires. 3Deep has also given props to local artists such as DJ Chonz, Don Blas and Kingdom, who have all opened up for a number of the Deep's shows. Area hip-hop heads know that 3Deep events are bound to be banging.
The sound can be murky, the toilets are often dubious, and the neighboring establishments range from simply divey to dangerous. But, hey -- no one ever said rock and roll was pretty. The 15th Street Tavern is still the best place to get rocked, both for the quality of its musical fare and for the, er, uniqueness of its environs. The Tavern's concert calendar is consistently jammed with the most buzzed-about indie rock, pop and punk bands going, and the atmosphere -- equal parts Barfly and CBGB in the '80s -- is its own sensory experience. Just don't be offended by the brusque doorman, and remember to bring along your earplugs -- and maybe a small bottle of Febreze.
Okay, so the pinball machine is poorly maintained. And the music is generally targeted at only the most grizzled eardrums in Denver. But the walls in the men's bathroom at Seven South offer enough philosophical lunacy (okay, idiocy) to amuse those with even the most television-addled attention span. Some key phrases: "The next millennium is ours!" "Philip K. Dick is dead..." "Sometimes I think about cats and bunnys [sic]. Is that wrong?"
In what might have been the group's final outing, Negativland -- the wildly experimental music-and-art collective from San Francisco -- brought its True/False 2000 Tour to a packed house at the Bluebird Theater last spring. At nearly three hours in length, the mind-altering spectacle featured more appropriated sound collage and multiple visual feeds than you could shake a restraining order at -- plus religious motivational speaker Marsha Turnblatt (founding member Richard Lyons in drag) and a hilarious puppet show appropriate for all ages. Culminating with an audience-participation rant-along (attendees recited Casey Kasem's famous profanity-laced tantrum in unison), the evening proved unforgettable, with America's "information highwaymen" in tip-top shape, sampling not only from the commercialized wasteland of 21st-century info-glut, but from their subversive little selves as well. And now a word from our sponsors....
Say what you will about the experimental, sometimes difficult work of longtime Colorado filmmaker Stan Brakhage, but his films have stood the test of time. For four decades, Brakhage has been regarded as one of the most forward-looking of all American filmmakers, for his individuality and refusal to compromise. The free Film Forum programs, held every Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. in Fine Arts N-141 on the CU-Boulder campus, shed plenty of light on his work and that of his contemporaries.
The Upstart Crow Theatre Company's version of The Rivals was a gorgeously costumed affair. In addition to providing the comedy with adequate staging, director Joan Kuder Bell took on the assignment of designing the play's eighteenth-century garb. With the help of four seamstresses, she crafted a splendid wardrobe that would have been the envy of any professional theater: Every costume was newly constructed rather than, as is often the case with a small group working on a tight budget, rented or pulled from stock -- a laudable accomplishment that also served as a pleasant reminder of community theater's unique appeal.
February 23, 2001, will live in Colorado history as the day Chex Mix was declared the official snack food of Sterling. The event, the result of an on-air survey of snack preferences conducted by KPMX DJ Jason Murphy, was marked by a parade complete with marching band and float and crowning of Mr. and Ms. Chex Mix. Officials from General Mills were so tickled that they attended the festivities and donated 700 bags of the town's favorite food, as well as a $1,000 scholarship to a Sterling High School senior. Cooperating Ministries of Logan County received the bags of snacks. No word yet on whether Chex Mix Day will become an annual event.
Since arriving from Dallas a few years ago, Randy Moore has played a wide array of memorable parts, including a slimy jewelry salesman (The Comedy of Errors), a slithering witch (Macbeth), a blustering patriarch (Life With Father), a bumbling bumpkin (The Winter's Tale) and, most recently, a paranoid penny-pincher (The Miser). A fluid performer who's equally versed in period and modern plays and whose talent for verbal byplay is made all the more enjoyable by his gift for physical shenanigans, Moore consistently renders portraits that are both artful and warmly human. And his duties as an extra in Tantalus demonstrated that this thirty-year-plus stage veteran is also capable of being a first-rate team player. Dallas's loss has truly been Denver's gain.
Best Collection Dedicated to a Fashion Curmudgeon
Historic Costume and Textile Collection
Richard Blackwell is best known for the acerbic eye he turns on the fashion faux pas of the rich and famous, a public service that culminates in Mr. Blackwell's ten-best-dressed and ten-worst-dressed lists released every January. (This year's worst of the worst: Britney Spears.) But CSU knows a different Blackwell -- the man who came out to teach design students for a week, the man who has donated a vast collection of sketchbooks, master patterns and original designs to CSU's 10,000-item Historic Costume and Textile Collection. The first Blackwell items were donated to the school by the Jenkins family, which owned a fashionable store in Cherry Creek; later, Blackwell himself started supporting the school. "It's the most frustrating thing in the world that people only know him by his lists," says collection curator Linda Carlson, who knows the designer well enough to call him Mr. B. "They don't recognize the fact that he was an extremely prominent designer, probably the most pre-eminent designer out of California from the '60s to the '80s." The collection is open to the public for research, and parts are sometimes included in gallery shows put on by the department. You're looking good in Fort Collins, Mr. B.
That unfunny dramatic theorist, Aristotle, probably would have loathed the idea that the high point of the Central City Opera's production of Dialogues of the Carmelites occurred in Act One, long before a proper "rising action" developed. Even so, audiences appreciated the fact that mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle marvelously commanded the stage as a venerable abbess. The regal singer conferred an authority on Francis Poulenc's opera and left one admiring a beauty too terrible to embrace yet too compelling to disregard. Even Aristotle would probably approve of that.
Best Thursday-Night Entertainment
All-Star Karaoke
Cafe Cero
Cafe Cero is hip: It's cool and casual, it serves gourmet bar food, it attracts big-name local acts to perform acoustic sets and comedy acts, and it hosts All-Star Karaoke every Thursday night at 9. With more than 5,000 songs available, there's no excuse for you not to make a total fool of yourself in front of people who should know better.
Best Thanksgiving Performance by a Man Hearing Too Many Goddamn Voices in His Head
Wesley Willis
Wesley Willis, a schizophrenic Chicago street artist and Casio accompanist, played fiasco-free last Thanksgiving to a receptive Tavern crowd, rendering timeless (and preprogrammed) such holiday classics as "Eat That Mule Shit," "Shoot Me in the Ass" and "I'm Sorry That I Got Fat." The evening's earth-shattering, Mayflower hell ride -- as engagingly odd as it was devoid of cranberries -- made for a repetitively fun time with plenty of headbutts for all who were willing to "rock over London, rock over Chicago." For the wee pilgrims of Denver, Wesley can still whip the turkey's booty-hole.
Denver's major cultural institutions offered free admission all day on December 31, but that was just a taste of the big, big fun still to come. By 11:58 p.m. on New Year's Eve, the 16th Street Mall was one mass of happy, freeloading humanity, eagerly awaiting the fireworks that were set to light up the D&F Tower. And for once, a show lived up to its advance billing: Within seconds, the mall exploded in a blaze of lights and sights and sounds, wrapping 200,000 spectators in smoke and an incredible feeling of well-being. Everyone got such a bang out of the Mayor's Millennium Celebration that it more than made up for the bust of the previous New Year's Eve -- and Mayor Wellington Webb was so moved that he promised a repeat performance next year (if sponsors step up to the plate, that is). We say: Party on, Denver!
South of Fairplay, west of Colorado Springs and east of Gunnison, one of America's "100 Best Small Art Towns" devotes a weekend each year to the visual and performing arts. In 2001, Salida is set to go artsy June 22-24 for the ninth annual Salida Art Walk, with nationally known painters, sculptors, jewelers, ceramic and glass artists, photographers, storytellers, musicians, comedians, dancers and poets taking to the streets, galleries and restaurants that line Colorado's largest historic district. But in Salida, which is also one of Colorado's last relatively unspoiled towns, the arts aren't simply a once-a-year afterthought. A smattering of interesting galleries are open year-round, and the coffeehouse bulletin boards are always loaded with announcements of entertaining, artful events. All this and fabulous fourteeners, too.
Colorado sculptor John DeAndrea is one of only a handful of local artists to have achieved international renown. But there's no mystery to his success, as the incredible sculptures in last fall's John DeAndrea make clear. The spectacular show was a knockout even from the sidewalk on Wazee Street: Through the windows, passersby could catch a glimpse of what looked like a naked woman. It was actually a hyper-real figural sculpture, the first of many in this exhibit. D'Andrea also revealed his debt to Italian art in this show, something that was unexpected but hardly unlikely given the artist's Italian-American roots.
You'd have to look pretty hard to find a less pretentious entertainer than Paul Lopez, pianist at Charlie Brown's Bar & Grill. The perpetually congenial Lopez, a fixture behind the bar's ivories since the late '80s, always has a good word for patrons, whether they're participatory-show-tune types or not. He's no slouch on the piano, either.
Denver ceramics genius Martha Daniels threw everything into Grotto, her outlandish installation in which most elements were made of clay. She painted the walls, created architectural elements and even put in an operable fountain. The resulting atmosphere was dark and heavy, exactly her intention, since the show was meant to evoke the spirit of the ancient grottos of Italy. But despite her historical sources -- like those requisite Venus sculptures -- Daniels also threw in some of her futuristic robot figures.
Best Lunar Landing by an Experimental Caucasian
Whitey on the Moon
Besides spinning tunes for KUVO's Sleepless Nights once a week, Jamie Osborne hosts open-stage gatherings of vast proportions every other Wednesday at the Mercury Cafe -- an impromptu offering that launches listeners into twisting orbits of found sound, electronica, spoken word, jazz noodling and beyond. His own ongoing project, dubbed Whitey on the Moon, mixes indie rock, dance beats and Gil Scott Heron-inspired soulfulness, and it's produced one of the year's most intriguing studio efforts. Add the contributions of some talented local luminaries (including Tarantella violist Kelly O' Dea and reed master Mark Harris from Random Axe and Hamster Theatre), and you've got all the ingredients for a stratospheric sound party. Houston, we haven't a problem in the world.
Best Craft Show
3rd American Tapestry Alliance Biennial Exhibition
For an upstart small business, the Bayeux Gallery scored a major coup by presenting the 3rd American Tapestry Alliance Biennial Exhibition last summer. The two previous biennials had been held in public spaces; this was the first time the show was presented in a commercial gallery. But Bayeux, owned and operated by Carla St. Romain, is no ordinary gallery -- it's specifically geared to feature textiles as fine art, and, as such, is one of only a handful of like operations in the country. The show included an international array of textile artists working in an even larger array of techniques. Though it was expensive to present, St. Romain obviously made the right move, since a major exhibit is always the best way to get new visitors in the doors.
Best Jazz Recording
Faith
Fred Hess/Boulder Creative Music Ensemble
Instrumentalist/bandleader Fred Hess has been among Colorado jazz's saving graces for a generation. Better yet, the years have dimmed neither his talent nor his musical curiosity. Faith (Cadence Jazz) finds Hess and a collection of impressive collaborators working at yet another creative peak.
Artistic director Nicholas Sugar has returned the Theatre Group to a high level of quality -- something the organization, best known for producing plays at Theatre on Broadway, has lacked since it expanded some seasons back. This past year, Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing was a competently acted tale that took an inviting look at first love's discoveries, exultations and tumults; Diana Son's Stop Kiss explored a budding relationship between two young women and overflowed with episodes that defied stereotype and transcended curiosity; David Rabe's A Question of Mercy was an unflinching examination of AIDS and assisted suicide; and Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly was a lighthearted musical revue that enjoyed multiple extensions of its original run. Thanks to Sugar's leadership, this all bodes well for the future of provocative but tasteful entertainment.
Best Ozzy Cover by a Country Act
"Crazy Train"
The Railbenders
This up-and-coming honky-tonk band plays the stuff that made Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and their peers famous. Like those artists, the 'Benders know a sense of humor is a key ingredient in successful classic country. The group's re-creation of Ozzy Osbourne's classic "Crazy Train" on its solid debut, Southbound, is a mind-bending thrill; it's funny, devoutly twangy and downright wistful. This is one train worth riding.
After his mother and father died, 21-year-old Dave Eggers was left to raise his younger brother -- a situation that he turned into a best-selling memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The cutting-edge tome inspired Amy Slothower, a fundraiser for the Webb-Waring Institute for Cancer, Aging and Antioxidant Research, to invite Eggers to come read at a fall fundraising event for the Denver-based institution. But Eggers did more than just read: At the end of the evening, he pledged a $100,000 donation to Webb-Waring. And his contributions didn't end there. The Vintage paperback version of his book includes an appendix that offers an update on Eggers's life -- including his visit to Webb-Waring last fall. "I felt I'd wasted decades," he writes. "I wanted to drop everything to move to Denver and become their Igor, sleeping on a basement cot."
Director Hugo Jon Sayles's choice to present Ain't Misbehavin' as a New York City "rent party" lent the collection of Depression-era tunes a laid-back informality that made audiences feel at home from the first note. The Broadway musical revue paid homage to the works of legendary blues man Fats Waller, the son of a high-profile minister who denounced jazz as a product of "the Devil's workshop." Thankfully, the top-notch cast, backed by a sparkling three-piece band, expertly blended the sublime with the risqué. And while their individual abilities impressed, the singers displayed even greater virtuosity during group numbers that ranged from riotous to soul-stirring.
Tired of cold hot dogs and overpriced nachos that wind up in your lap every time Sylvester Stallone blows something to smithereens? Aurora's Cinema Grill offers an alternative: a selection of salads, burgers, subs, pizzas and grilled-chicken dishes served to you, at table, while you take in a feature film. The fare may be second-run, mind you, but here's the chance to catch a flick you missed earlier, projected on a big screen while you chow down. The food is by no means spectacular, but it's honest enough, and if you'd like to wash it down with beer or wine, they have that, too. The swivel chairs are comfortable, and the price is right: $2 for matinees, $4 at night.
Best Colorado Symphony Orchestra Kudos
ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming
It's not the first time Marin Alsop and ensemble have received ASCAP accolades for being different, but in a time when the magnificent Maestra's days in Denver seem numbered as a result of her fire and enthusiasm, it's especially worthy of note, concrete evidence of what everyone's been saying all along: Marin Alsop doesn't settle for sap, though she's willing to allow more popular programming within the confines of a CSO season. But you can also count on her to sprinkle the concert lineup with more difficult and challenging works, meaning you're likely to hear Mahler along with your Rachmaninoff, or a world premiere of Bresnick's Double Percussion Concerto along with the crowd-charmer Pictures at an Exhibition.
The actors in ...becoming non grata performed each episode in this production as though they had personally lived it -- which, in a way, they did. The collaboratively written piece, which focused on events at the Japanese internment camp at Amache, Colorado, was developed over a six-month period by an ensemble of UCD theater students and guest artists working with professor and director Laura Cuetara. Together they devoted countless hours to research, study and improvisation, editing the material to a length that could be digested in a single sitting. The result was a series of historical scenes and present-day arguments that posed the question of whether some of World War II's most crucial battles weren't really waged at home.
Over the past year, Kingdom has gone head-to-head with some of the best rappers in the business, including Wyclef Jean, with whom the Royal One faced off during the recent Campus Invasion Tour. Kingdom's skills at the mike also earned him a slot on The Source magazine's battle competition; he didn't claim the winning title, but he won over most of the members of the audience, including the event's producers. No doubt the experience will serve as inspiration for his rhymes. We can hardly wait.
In addition to fronting the explosively guitar-centric Abdomen, Mike Jourgensen records and distributes music through www.noisetent.com, an indie hub of punk-friendly Denver-based bands including Jet Black Joy, Dumbass Brothers, Stuttering Bishops, Blast-Off Heads, Negative Man, Fast Action Revolver, Tanger and Bio-Bitch. Jourgensen's affordable studio space -- a stone's throw from neighboring Children's Hospital in Denver -- can boast the production of full-length offerings from both the Perry Weissman 3 and the Pin Downs (both of whom appear on Noise Tent 2000 Spring Sampler), as well as fits of experimental passion by the likes of In Ether, Mike Serviolo and Mark Stookesbury. Mastered by the magnificent Bob Ferbrache, this limited-quantity release pays homage to some of the area's hardest-working and most underrepresented bands. Most important, all proceeds help fund a sanctuary for smiling lambs.
Herman's Hideaway is not exactly known for hosting the best local music. But it does deserve kudos for hosting the most. With live music every night of the week, Herman's offers bands ranging from the well-established to the unknown; the New Music Showcase series on Thursday nights is often dominated by bands who've never performed in front of live (non-family) audiences. No matter the act, though, the wide-open room and excellent sound system make it an attractive space in which to survey it all. As with any sampler, not everything will be to your liking, but there are usually a couple of tasty morsels in the mix.
For more than a year, pundits the world over wondered whether John Barton's Tantalus would be a millennium-defining hit or flop. Much like the nature of Greek myths themselves, the grand, lavishly staged show was less absolute, and the joint effort of the Denver Center Theatre Company and England's Royal Shakespeare Company leaned more toward triumph than failure. The virtuoso performances, masterful directorial touches (the piece was co-directed by British theater legend Peter Hall and his son Edward) and astonishing design elements made for an event that brimmed with brilliance, wit and beauty. Despite its marathon length and exorbitant admission price, the epic showed itself to be a bold experiment about the dangers of aspiring to be godlike before understanding our own mortality.
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