Arts & Entertainment

Denver art takes off Devil horse inspires us to write Mile Haiku Who would imagine that a piece of public art could provide endless hours of entertainment? Back in 1993, New Mexican sculptor Luis Jimnez won a $300,000 commission to create a giant sculpture of a horse for the still-unopened Denver International Airport. From the start, art insiders were betting on what the final price would be and when Jimnez would actually deliver. But all bets were off when the horse killed Jimnez before he could complete it; his estate finally finished the piece in late 2007. It was installed at the entrance to DIA in February 2008 twelve years late, and with a price tag of $650,000 and thats when the fun really began. Armchair critics complained that the horse looked evil; children cowered on car floors as their parents drove by the Devil Horse. And the discussion really took off after realtor Rachel Hultin set up a Facebook page encouraging people to write poems inspired by the horse. She wound up delivering close to 300 poems to the citys arts office and many of those will be read at a special Mile Haiku City poetry slam at the Denver Public Library on April 27. A horse is a horse, and the events free, of course.

Back in 1908, the Democrats trucked in piles of snow to amuse delegates to the Democratic National Convention. A century later, the best entertainment inspired by the 2008 Democratic National Convention may leave a more permanent legacy. Celebrate 1908 was a two-day, multimedia festival of political and historical flashbacks that brought the issues and arguments of 1908 back to the Tivoli Turnhalle on the Auraria campus in late July. Technically a benefit for Auraria Casa Mayan Heritage, an organization that commemorates the Latino community that centered on the Casa Mayan restaurant, Celebrate 1908 was a true celebration of the people who’ve contributed to the melting pot of Denver over the past century.

The Donnybrook Writing Academy combines insightful, amusing writing and an ironic embrace of elitism for an unfailingly snarky look at the Denver music and arts scene. Music is the core concern of the Donnybrook crew, but the topics don’t stop there. You can find everything from the invaluable sex advice of Ivyy Goldberg and opinions on Denver’s most fuckable rock stars to the Snobcast podcast. This is also one of the most beautifully designed blogs not only in Denver, but in all of the worldwide blogosphere. In fact, it’s your one-stop shop for proof that elitism in the defense of elitism is no vice. This blog should be required reading for hipsters everywhere.

When Ground Fuse first appeared in the summer of 2008, it was pretty much just a stapled-together affair that you could only find at Wax Trax and Blast-O-Mat. Sure, it could have been better edited, but what made it important was the fact that someone was taking the time to write about bands that got little or no other coverage. Specifically, the grind/crust/hardcore scene was finally being documented by an informed and caring observer. But Olivia Ruiz, the zine’s creator and primary writer, also took that rare step of crossing over into other sub-scenes and writing about them with the same love and dedication.

Sometimes, all you need to know about a band is its name to know that it is some kind of awesome. For our money, Sega Genocide is just such a name. Combining nostalgia for our 16-bit, Blast-Processing youth with the bad taste inherent in any reference to genocide, Sega Genocide is a name that captures the imagination in that special, blackly humorous, WTF sort of way that pretty much compels you to check the act out to see what they’re all about. And isn’t that exactly what a band name is supposed to do?

You may not know Lance Stack by name, but if you’ve been going to certain shows, you’ve probably seen his impressively portable, live recording setup. For over two years, Stack has been making high-quality recordings of live shows and posting them online. After getting a band’s permission, he posts the tracks at his website, the Flat Response. A casual perusal of that site reveals a breathtaking treasure trove of live audio, including the kind of technical information any audio geek would want to know. By any standard, Stack’s website is an important document of what’s been going on in Denver music.

Some labels have a sound, others have a mission. Bocumast falls into the latter category, and what a mission it is! The defining characteristics of Bocumast’s diverse roster, which ranges from the oddball post-punk guitar funk of Natural Selection to the oceanic electronic bliss pop of Iuengliss, are simple: They’re all excellent, and none of them are afraid to take chances. The results are always surprising and consistently strong. At a time when record labels seem to be heading for obsolescence, Bocumast is ensuring its continued relevance by showing us the best stuff we might have otherwise overlooked.

Video may have killed the radio star, but it only serves to set Laura Goldhamer in a class of her own. Her distinctive voice and vocal style, serious skills on guitar and banjo and evocative and beautiful songwriting are special enough to mark her as an artist to watch. Goldhamer takes it a step further by actually being an artist to watch: She accompanies her music with surreal and entrancing stop-motion animated videos that add another dimension to her already wonderful work. The total effect is something enchanting and uniquely special.

The games Guitar Hero and Rock Band have made far too many people of all ages think that playing guitar well is easy. Good thing someone as diversely talented at the instrument as Cole Rudy lives in Denver to show us how to do it right. Educated in jazz guitar, Cole is probably best known for his stints as the guitar wizard of Wetlands and Mike Marchant’s solo material, but he’s also contributed to the indie pop of Chuck Potashner and performs regularly with a jazz ensemble at hotels. The guy can play any style of guitar better than most people can play, period, and our scene is richer for it.

Other Denver musical collectives have smartly put together bills and showcases of like-minded acts at various venues. And while Hot Congress has a similar agenda, its roster is impressively diverse, including bands as decidedly different as Action Friend, Widowers and the Jim Jims. This more inclusive approach seems likely to succeed where past efforts have not, especially since the collective intends to release a series of compilations featuring its artists. By supporting bands both obscure and well known, Hot Congress appears poised to make Denver known for more than a small handful of musicians.

When Denver singer-songwriter John Common started putting out feelers for an all-kazoo ensemble, many folks assumed he was joking. However, as Common proved with the project’s debut at the Oriental Theater in February, he was absolutely serious about the admittedly silly idea. The People’s Kazoo Orchestra doesn’t exist to bring more attention to Common, who hopes it will be a self-sustaining ensemble without his involvement. Nor does it exist to produce groundbreaking music. The concept is simple: Everyone, regardless of musical talent, should get to experience the rush of playing music on stage in front of an audience. This effectively puts the means of production into the hands of everyone in town. You could almost write a manifesto about it.

Aside from the worldwide fame of Vajra and Cysko Rokwel, DJ Chonz is probably the most famous of his brethren in Denver. He’s on KS-107.5 every day, offering live mixes to listeners as they drive home from work; he’s rocked a party at almost every club in town; and the ladies absolutely love the guy. But he barely gets to share his love of music through those avenues. So in February, Chonz set up his own channel on Ustream.TV and began spinning live Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to noon. The playlist includes everything from NWA and Black Moon to MC Shy D and Nemesis — basically, all the songs that radio doesn’t play nowadays. And in case you miss a show, they’re all archived on Chonz’s channel.

As a member of the Triad Dragons crew, DJ Dragon is part of a dance-music juggernaut that’s quickly established itself as the top promotions company in the region. That’s given him the chance to play on the same stages as some of the world’s top talent, and he’s made the most of his opportunities, showing time and again that he can hold his own, regardless of who’s spinning. When he’s not rocking the stage at one of the big parties in the area, he’s honing his blend of progressive, techno and trance at Beta, making him a near-ubiquitous figure in the scene. If you haven’t caught a set of his yet, you don’t get out enough.

If you’ve listened to any hip-hop radio station in any major city recently, chances are you’ve heard some of Frank E’s music — that’s how big he’s getting. He was the man behind the hit records “Please Excuse My Hands,” from Plies featuring Jamie Foxx and the Dream; “Me & U,” from Flo Rida; and a DJ Khaled/T-Pain mixtape joint called “Superman.” He also co-produced one of the most played records so far this year, “Right Round,” from Flo Rida; that cut was even used to promote the new season of Dancing With the Stars. And Frank E isn’t done yet. He just finished creating joints for T.I., Gym Class Heroes, Sean Kingston and some other major urban artists that he can’t discuss quite yet. Be proud, Denver!

Even though the Food Chain doesn’t have a MySpace page, website or even a logo, it’s made a big enough impression through a collection of leaked tracks for us to take notice. The Chain consists of producers Mass Prod, MoHeat and Mic Coats, with contributions from Frank E. and rappers Champ (aka Oren Lomena from Raw Sports/Fox Sports Rocky Mountain and 104.3 FM/The Fan), Jae One (Urban Nerd/Turfscholar.com), Midas (Gang Green INT), C-One and F.L. Given all that talent in one place, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this crew end up at the top of Colorado’s hip-hop food chain (pun definitely intended).

The curious case of Whygee: He’s an unaffiliated Colorado hip-hop nomad who wanders all around the city but is mostly found near the center. His unique gruff voice is instantly recognizable and, with his thought-provoking and brash lyrical prowess, he’s one of the best MCs in Colorado. He’s proven this not only during his live show, but also on the excellent Suicide Watch EP, a collaboration with rapper Sunken State and producer Kid Hum. He’s currently working with Naeem Oba as N.O. Why, on a project titled You’re Not One of Us, which is due out in April, followed by a new mixtape with DJ Sounds Supreme featuring DJ Low Key that will drop sometime this summer. After that, there’s a hip-hop/soul collaboration on tap with singer charleyBRAND slated for sometime next year. And he promises it will all be free. Word, gee!

While Jewell Tyme Music may be the best hip-hop label in Colorado, the star of the label has to be F.O.E. (Father of Enemies). Last year he dropped the excellent King of the Mountain mixtape, shined on the Music, Money, and Roundtables comp and kills every venue he’s booked at. He’s also been tapped by ManeLine, Diamond Boiz, Joe Thunder and other notables to appear on their projects, and he rips it every time. If that’s not enough, his plate is full with a new album (A New Welcome), a mixtape with B Blacc (Return of the Drama Kings) and a mixtape with DJ A-What! (The Format), plus his hands are on everything Jewell Tyme puts out.

The L.I.F.E. Crew is a small collective of Colorado hip-hop artists who blew the doors off the scene in the past year. First up, Ichiban won Best Hip-Hop Solo Artist at the 2008 Westword Music Showcase, then dropped a slammin’ debut album, Psycle Analysis, a few months later. That album was followed by ManeLine’s sophomore effort, …And Sew It Seams, a rock-solid project that cemented the trio’s relevance in Colorado hip-hop. Then the Pirate Signal dropped a first-class mixtape, Of Gods and Gangsters, Vol. 1, rocked the Warped Tour and opened for 3OH!3’s national tour. Is there a crew that has put in more work in the last year? We think not.

He’s produced tracks for the likes of KRS-One, Dilated Peoples, Braille and Killah Priest, but that’s not why people are talking about Es-Nine. His group, 3 the Hardway, recently released its debut album, Set in Stone, which was entirely produced by Es-Nine and features some of the hardest head-nodding beats to come out of Colorado in some time. But it doesn’t stop there: Es is also working on his own solo album as well as projects with Mane Rok and a new solo album from A.I.V.U.S.

The Hollyfelds five — Eryn and Keith Hoerig, Kate Grigsby, Tim Mallot and “Magic” Sam Spitzer — are blessed with talent to spare. The music on Saratoga, their most recent full-length, and the forthcoming EP Black Heart Blue, offer up crystalline harmonies, irresistible melodies, sturdy playing, and lyrics that feel lived rather than invented. But arguably their most important quality is sincerity. Instead of smirking at country music’s verities, the players unabashedly celebrate them — and that makes all the difference.

Once upon a time, an Achille Lauro show was a rare and remarkable event. With multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Brian Joseph on the road working sound for hotshots like the Fray and Bon Iver, the group just couldn’t pull together very often. A few months ago, however, Achille Lauro and Joseph decided it made sense to head in different directions. This decision has made for more frequent public appearances and has also completely transformed the band’s sound. More electronics have been added, giving the outfit a Steely Dan-meets-Radiohead vibe, and dueling frontmen Luke Mossman and Matt Close make an even stronger impression with their voices and musicianship. Even the songwriting seems to have taken a turn that is simultaneously more experimental and poppier. A recent gig at the hi-dive proved that Achille Lauro is a Denver act to watch — now more than ever.

It’s hard to say if this is really a band or a performance-art group or both — or if it even matters to make such distinctions. It seems laughable to say that the act has developed since its debut early last year, but it has, adding various members along the way. “Spellcaster” is the group’s vocalist, and throughout live performances, he seems to verbally abuse the “band” as well as the audience, which is also treated to out-and-out sonic chaos from the musicians, one of whom sometimes plays guitar while wearing boxing gloves. You never quite know what’s in store at a Spellcaster show, but it’s all imbued with a much-needed sense of danger.

Being dubbed a “supergroup” can be a bit of a curse, but when your band includes members of local luminaries such as Bright Channel, Space Team Electra, Moccasin and Monofog, that term seems somewhat justified. But it would be meaningless if the resulting music was one iota less powerful, uplifting or sonically inventive than the music of Moonspeed. With eleven members, this band could easily have been an unholy mess ready to go off the rails. Instead, the group is a well-orchestrated affair, with all members contributing significantly to the beautifully textured, soothingly hypnotic yet exhilarating tapestries this outfit weaves at every performance.

In the spirit of such acts as Dashboard Confessional, City and Colour and Bon Iver, Danielle Anderson opted to go with the clumsy Danielle Ate the Sandwich rather than her given name. Fact is, with a bewitching voice that sends shivers down any listener’s spine and a lyrical sensibility and sense of humor that recalls Kimya Dawson, the Fort Collins-based chanteuse could call herself Bob the Freaking Builder if she so chose and she’d still have folks eating out of the palm of her hand. Her primarily ukulele-driven odes are as awkward, clumsy and personal as they are charming, poignant and affecting — as the number of views of her homemade YouTube videos can attest.

Young Coyotes has been around for less than a year. In that short time, however, the act has released two EPs, embarked on several cross-country tours, recorded a Daytrotter session, been hailed on numerous blogs and attracted a high-powered manager in Blee Music’s Brian Swartz (Rose Hill Drive). Seemingly milliseconds after forming, the band went from playing Saturday matinee sets at places like Lifespot last summer to garnering choice gigs at Monolith’s VIP party and Hot IQs’ annual holiday party — which led to discriminating music fans across the city howling for Young Coyotes. Why all the fuss? That’s easy: The music, which is sparse but fiery and melodic, like Akron/Family channeling the best moments of the Shins with the vitality and conviction of Arcade Fire.

The re-release of the VSS’s final album, Nervous Circuits, hardly needs recommendation. But Hydra Head, the label that put out the reissue, included a bonus DVD of live footage of the band from periods seemingly across its career, including shows at actual venues in Chicago, D.C., Brooklyn, Berkeley and Boulder, as well as at a church in Philadelphia. None of the footage is really professional-quality, but what makes it most interesting and significant is that it captures the essence of what it must have been like to experience those performances, flaws in sound and all. The footage also shows what a vital, powerful and important band the VSS really was.

Many of today’s most extreme Denver bands were influenced by Bum Kon without even knowing it — and thanks to Drunken Sex Sucks, they can now fill in the gaps of their musical education. Only five of the 25 cuts here received a proper release, with the remainder appearing on an album for the first time. Tracks like “Giving In” capture the spirit of ’80s thrash that Bum Kon exemplified even as “Slow Death” and others point toward a future that other groups would eventually experience.

These days, CDs are seen as outmoded technology — a point made in a witty way by EP01, whose sleeve duplicates the design of an ’80s-era floppy disc. Unlike a floppy, however, the CD inside will work in a modern computer drive. That way, Able Archer fans can go old-school in a new-school way.

For the fans who’ve played out the Pirate Signal’s EP from 2006 like it was the only CD they owned, the duo’s mixtape Of Gods and Gangsters, Vol. 1 was a breath of fresh air. The tape, entirely mixed by DJ A-What!, features Yonnas spittin’ over original beats as well as beats used by M.I.A., 50 Cent and Kanye West, but rocked with a pure Pirate Signal energy. Yonnas and A-What! had been performing selections from the mixtape at their shows, so for the fans to finally get their hands on a copy to listen to in their cars and iPods was a good thing.

Colorado rapper A.V.I.U.S., producer Es-Nine and DJ Cysko Rokwel each had their own thing going on before they came together as 3 the Hardway: Cysko Rokwel was taking out DJs nationwide in the DMC Championships; Es-Nine was producing for local and national artists; and A.V.I.U.S. had just dropped his solid debut album, Patience. But with all three talents combined in one package, you couldn’t ask for a more thorough project, from Es-Nine’s hard-hitting beats and A.V.I.U.S.’s heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics to Cysko making the DJ essential in hip-hop albums again. If you cop one Colorado hip-hop disc all year, this is the one to get.

Everything Absent or Distorted’s strong debut, The Soft Civil War, should have been difficult to improve upon — a sophomore slump would have been acceptable, even expected, from Denver’s resident bombastic pop big band. But somehow the group pulled out all the stops and delivered a second album that not only fulfilled the promise of its stellar debut, but flat-out obliterated it. Sanding off some of the first album’s charming rough edges and streamlining the eclectic songwriting and sound, The Great Collapse is an accomplished, symphonic masterpiece that delivers its heartbreaking barbs and beams of hope in the form of a dozen perfect pop songs destined to become classics.

A Fluid reunion show seemed unlikely fifteen years after the band broke up, but fortunately for us, it happened. Even more unlikely was the reunion of one of the true punk-rock legends of the Colorado scene: the Frantix. Before Matt Bischoff and Ricky Kulwicki helped to form the Fluid, both were in the Frantix, an act whose infamous song “My Dad’s a Fuckin’ Alcoholic” earned lasting notoriety, even though the outfit broke up in 1983. In the fall of 2008, the band got back together for one show at Wax Trax to remind us that real, raw, ferocious punk rock happened in our town long before most of us ever got to hear it.

It’s hard to imagine a more perfect setting for the return of Rage Against the Machine than Denver during the Democratic National Convention. Likewise, there couldn’t have been a better supporting cast of kindred artists than State Radio, the Coup and the Flobots, who owe a debt to Rage ideologically and, to some extent, musically. With incendiary anti-war politics informing the proceedings, stoked by the presence of members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, and a planned post-show march to the Pepsi Center, the tension was palpable. By the time Rage took the stage, the Coliseum felt like a powderkeg ready to explode, and as the band ripped through fevered versions of its most urgent material, Zack de la Rocha barked at the crowd like a rabid pit bull. If ever there was a once-in-a-lifetime show, this was it.

Band reunions that take place more than a decade down the line are generally sad affairs that tend to accentuate the passage of time rather than causing it to stand still. But even though the original members of the Fluid — John Robinson, Garrett Shavlik, James Clower, Rick Kulwicki and Matt Bischoff — hadn’t played together since the early ’90s, they marked Sub Pop Records’ twentieth anniversary by making a racket every bit as thrilling as the stuff they churned out in their heyday, to the delight of a crowd populated by many of Denver’s biggest music lovers. What a wonderful exception to the rule.

The premiere of the Mile High Music Festival last summer yielded a unique opportunity for local music fans, offering them the chance to take in sets by homegrown musical heroes like Rose Hill Drive, the Photo Atlas, Born in the Flood and the Flobots in the afternoon, then spend the evening lolling on the grass to the strains of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or the Dave Matthews Band. It was an ideal fusion, a marriage of the local and the national, the commercial and the indie in an expansive, open-air setting. It was a festival where rock legends like Steve Winwood followed hometown artists like Meese, a gathering where giants from the history of pop music rubbed elbows with artists who’ve helped forge the local scene.

Prior to its makeover sometime last spring, the back lot of the Meadowlark looked like a much-neglected community garden, sunflowers and all. But somehow, someone at the ‘Lark turned the area into the outside equivalent of the bar’s interior — intimate, even classy, but with more room and a calming ambience that you rarely find outside of certain jazz clubs in Denver. More often than not, live music performed outdoors suffers from the sound bleeding off into open space, but that doesn’t seem to happen as much here. A refreshingly unique setting for live music, the Meadowlark’s outdoor stage is a sure bet to catch some remarkable performances.

The Gypsy House, situated on the southeast corner of 13th Avenue and Marion Street, isn’t just the place to get some of the best chai in town and relax in a calming bohemian setting. On the second Sunday of every month, it also hosts Textures, a showcase for underground ambient music and sound art from around the country and beyond. Performances take place in the basement, where the furniture and layout make you feel like part of a secret society. Since its debut in May of 2008, Textures has featured performances from the likes of Denver’s own Temples as well as better-known artists such as Shelf Life, CloudLanD and Haunted Sound Laboratory. Always hauntingly fascinating.

Dan Schwindt definitely knows a few things about jazz guitar and improvisation, and he’s performed with a ton of the region’s heavier players. He’s also carved out Tuesdays from his schedule for the past few years to head up the jazz jams in Dazzle’s Dizzy room. One of the best ways to learn is through playing with other cats, and these jams give younger students a chance to hone their chops in a live setting and to learn the language of jazz. Schwindt offers a low-pressure, casual atmosphere, and instrumentalists and vocalists alike find the sessions quite comfortable.

Ziggie’s has always been known as Denver’s oldest blues bar, but Cherrie DuFour and Carla Jordan, who took over the place and remodeled it just over a year ago, have expanded the music selection by also bringing in R&B, funk, rock and jazz acts on Fridays and Saturdays. The other five nights are allotted to open mikes, alternately hosted by Doc Brown’s Blues Band, Jasco from Mojambus, the Mike Maurer Band or Papa Juke. Whether you want to hone your chops with some stellar blues talent or just listen, Ziggie’s is the place. And there’s never a cover.

After Brendan’s closed up shop on Market Street and then unsuccessfully gave it a go at the spot where the Marquis Theater is now, a large hole was left in downtown’s blues scene. Thankfully, Blues on Blake, which combined the former Laughing Dog Deli and Dugout spaces, stepped up to bring blues back into downtown. Modeled after the ’40s and ’50s supper clubs of New York and Chicago, with candles on the tables and steaks, fish and wine on the menu, the dark, cozy Blues provides the perfect backdrop for the fine local blues acts it showcases three nights a week. Just down the street from Coors Field, Blues on Blake has scored a home run.

A few years ago, the Old Curtis St. Bar had terrible sound and a nearly sub-dive vibe. But it’s steadily become a better place to play. There is now a small stage — outfitted with gear from the 15th St. Tavern  — and a rudimentary sound system that provides for decent vocals and kick-drum sound. With Joe Ramirez, Andy Wild and Steve Lawson doing their best with the sound levels, Old Curtis St. has gone from a bottom-of-the-barrel venue to a viable one.

The Continental Club had a lot of potential, but it only lasted a year. In January, former 15th Street Tavern owner Myke Martinez teamed up with musicians Desi Gonzalez and Maia Fortis to buy the spot, and they immediately began fixing it up. They made the stage bigger and painted it with black and white zigzags, dubbing it the David Lynch stage. Indeed, the red velvet behind the stage gives it a Lynchian feel. Hell, they even show Twin Peaks on Sundays. With all three owners being musicians, they’ve beefed up the music, bringing in a steady stream of punk, metal and rock. And when there’s no live music, they’ve got DJs spinning metal, honky-tonk and a whole lot more. Martinez still hopes to resurrect the 15th Street Tavern someday in another spot; in the meantime, One Eyed Jacks will easily do the trick.

When some of us would see the old Muddy’s sign on the back of this building, we’d instantly remember the days when downtown Denver was both a scary place and one where interesting coffee shops and clubs could be found. When the building was renovated, a piece of Denver history was erased, and in its place was what looked like a slick extension of LoDo. Turns out the owners had more in mind, as the Loft has been hosting live music of all stripes in a room with surprisingly good acoustics and a spacious, well-appointed environment in which to enjoy them.

Formerly the Trilogy Lounge, the b.side is carrying on some of the musical legacy left of the former music venue and restaurant while carving out a niche of its own. Although DJs still frequently spin there, b.side has also brought in an eclectic mix of nationally renowned talent such as the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Dirty Sweet and the Mighty Underdogs. The club has also recruited some fine local jazz talent on Sundays, as well as singer-songwriters, reggae and hip-hop artists. The b.side is especially kind to the electronic folks and electronic-centric groups and organizations like MFA and Communikey, which has helped make the venue a hot spot for electronic music as well.

After twelve years, Dazzle has definitively proved that it has what it takes to make a successful jazz club. Whether it’s bringing in a steady stream of outstanding local jazz talent like Ron Miles and Kenny Walker (or the blues of the Shuffletones on Saturdays) and nationally recognized players like organ ace Joey DeFrancesco, Schoolhouse Rock composer Bob Dorough or alto saxophonist Richie Cole, you’re sure to hear stellar music most nights of the week. Sundays are the ideal time to hear big bands like the 9th & Lincoln Orchestra, the Chie Imaizumi Jazz Orchestra and Elevenet. Not only is the music world-class, but the food swings, too: The $5 happy-hour menu alone is reason to check the place out.

Calling 3 Kings Tavern a rock bar just hints at the entertainment to be found here. From hosting an array of dance nights, burlesque revues and art shows in the basement gallery to presenting a full calendar of top-notch local talent (including a rare appearance by Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) and compelling national acts (Red Fang and High on Fire among them), this venue is almost always a sure bet. Couple that entertainment lineup with a staff that’s as welcoming to the customers as it is to the bands (which are all treated like rock stars, whether imports or exports), and it’s easy to see why this joint has so many fans — even if the sound occasionally leaves something to be desired.

It’s not the state-of-the-art sound system, the primo location in LoDo or the crowds of beautiful people that make Beta Denver’s best dance club (though none of that hurts). No, it’s the high-caliber talent the place brings in week after week. In just its first year of operation, Beta has hosted a cavalcade of talent that reads like a who’s who of the world’s top dance-music acts., We can’t wait to see what Beta does for an encore in year two.

Francois Safieddine has been in the LoDo club business for fifteen years. During that time, he’s launched such hot spots as Lotus, Monarck, 5 Degrees, Mynt and, a year ago, his super-posh 24K club. But Suite Two Hundred might just be the feather in Safieddine’s cap. Since it opened last August, the ultra-slick upscale club, located in the former Lucky Star space, has brought in nationally known celebrities such as Aubrey O’Day, Lady Gaga, Rock of Love‘s Daisy de la Hoya and Playboy Playmates to host parties that, in turn, attract many a local sports celebrity. While the club is usually packed on the weekends, its Room Service industry nights have also become the place to be on Tuesdays in LoDo.

As a local rep for PBR, Alissa Anderson visited a quite a few bars in this town. The next logical step was to own a bar of her own. So last October, she and her husband bought the former Club Boca, which had been vacant for close to a year, did a quick renovation that involved moving the bar to the front near the window, and opened in a flash. Just as quickly, the bar was attracting regulars, especially service-industry folks, and Anderson started bringing in bands, DJs, art shows and a whole lot more. While the place still doesn’t have a sign up, it’s pretty easy to find: Just look for the neon beer lights and lots of people in the window.

The Fainting Goat took over a building on Broadway that’s been a half-dozen restaurants and bars over the years, giving it a good cleaning, fixing the elevator and introducing a menu with an Irish accent. But the best innovation so far has been the bar added to the rooftop patio, which saves the servers (or customers) from having to run down three flights of stairs every time they need another round. And not only does this secluded sky-high spot offer a lovely view of the mountains, but it has wi-fi and ashtrays, since this patio is definitely far enough from the front entrance for smoking to be legal. Not only is this the best rooftop patio in Denver, but it could also be the best place to find your employees playing hooky.

Of course we know where the smoke-easies are, but we’ll never tell. Not here. Not ever. Nobody likes a narc. We can reveal, however, that if you’re a smoker and looking to get your country-music jam or line-dance on, you need look no further than the Tobacco Shop at the Grizzly Rose. A well-ventilated, closed-door room off the eastern alleyway, the Shop sells smokes and chew, boasts recliners and frequently emptied ashtrays, and is a helluva lot better than quickly ripping butts in the parking lot, where you’re guaranteed to miss all the action. As long as you tip the employee for putting up with your filth and close the goddamn door behind you, there won’t be any problems.

Two-for-ones on a Saturday night at midnight? Damn straight. While the morning happy hours have been a tradition at the Zephyr since it opened more than six decades ago, the place has two more happy hours that run daily, from 5 to 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. It’s also one of the few places in town where when you order a happy-hour beer, they’ll give you the second bottle in a plastic cup filled with ice to keep it chilled. The bar’s slogan is, “The train that never leaves Aurora.” But with booze specials three times a day and live music with no cover on the weekends, who would want to leave?

The Nob Hill Inn recently celebrated its fiftieth birthday. It’s daunting to think of all the people who have spent hours on the stools there, killing time and waiting for the day to the end. But it’s the kind of joint where it’s easy to lose track of time. The square-shaped bar makes for easy people-watching, and with some of Colfax’s finest camping out there, it’s usually entertaining as hell. If Bukowski were still alive, this might be his idea of nirvana.

At Charlie’s, it’s like the (gay) stock show is in town every night. Since 1981 — before some of the studs who frequent the bar were even born — Charlie’s has been the place to meet up, boot, scoot and boogie. If you’re not into the cowboy way, there’s a separate dance floor with plenty of flashing colored lights and Britney Spears. Charlie’s also features karaoke two nights a week (half-price for guys in their underwear), Tuesday-night trivia and cheap well drinks for shirtless hunks on the weekends. But the joint is also lesbian-friendly, and not at all intimidating for straight friends who secretly want to dance to Britney and ogle the bare-chested guys drinking $2 Miller Lites.

When the blaring disco and bitchy drama of gay bars gets you down, it’s time to take the show on the road to Harry’s. And you don’t even have to get on a plane. This ’60s, space-age lounge is located in the corner of the Magnolia Hotel and can easily be accessed by light rail, should you not score the lucky invitation to spend the night upstairs. Not all of the patrons are lonely, jet-setting businessman with male-model beauty who want to have a local gay man answer their French-accented questions about the mystery of Denver’s appeal while they eat their jalapeño-basil shrimp and sip their pinot grigio. There are also plenty of conventioneers from Ohio and happy-hour holdovers from the ‘hood. If you enjoy people more than posing, Harry’s puts the “style” back into the gay lifestyle.

Finally! A straight-friendly safe haven where hamburgers are the only meat that patrons want to eat. At Hamburger Mary’s, the intimidating bare-chested bar hunks have been replaced with super-friendly, pot-bellied bears who’ve been trained to speak without a lisp. And the clientele is a heterosexual man’s gay dream come true: just a smattering of preening Cherry Creek hairdressers amid a roomful of gay men and lesbians who dress like cable installers. Yes, Virginia, gay men do wear baseball caps indoors while snarfing down half-pound hamburgers — just like you! This place is so good at welcoming heterosexuals, and their allies, that it has become a regular stop on the campaign trail of every straight male Colorado politician. What other gay bar could Ken Salazar walk into wearing that twenty-gallon white cowboy hat and not have a dollar bill slipped into his jockeys? It could only be Mary’s, where everyone’s hands are already filled with charbroiled beef.

Ask Barker Lounge co-owner Patrick Vigil whether dogs are allowed in his canine-themed bar, and he’ll laugh like you’ve posed the most obvious question he’s ever heard. Look around, he’ll say, aiming his arm at every man inside his stray (straight + gay) establishment. Of course they’re welcome! All men are dogs. (Get it?) But the four-legged variety? “We see dogs every day,” Vigil says. “Dogs get bones before their owners get drinks.” As long as hounds stay on their leashes, they’re all invited, day or night. “When people are out walking their dogs,” Vigil adds, “the dogs walk them to the Barker lounge.” And then, at the end of the night they can walk their owners home.

Bars love gimmicks — they get you in the door, they get ya drinking more. And while any ol’ place will sling a free drink or two for correctly calling a coin flip or sinking a quarter in a shot glass, only the true neighborhood joints shill drinks and cash. At the Edgewater Inn, it’s all about back-alley Yahtzee. Pay a buck and get three rolls of five dice: Land a straight, four of a kind or a full house, score a free well drink or signature schooner of draft beer; drop five of a kind and win the progressive pot, which often climbs up over $200. You only get one shot at riches per visit, so make it count.

Infamous on Colfax for both beginning and ending nights, often simultaneously, the Squire Lounge’s Bionic Beaver is just like the suicide slushies of your childhood, only much more incapacitating. For ten bucks, watch in awe as the bartender fills a 52-ounce pitcher with vodka, gin, rum, tequila, triple sec, PBR, grenadine and cranberry/orange/pineapple juices. This recipe is not exact, of course, but that’s the beauty of the Beaver — you never quite know what’s coming. Topped with a handful of neon-colored long straws and served with a mixed look of pity and respect, this colossal concoction is guaranteed to deliver. If all you receive is a headache and regret, well, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Be it fact or folklore, the Stadium Inn claims to sell more Jim Beam per square foot than any other bar in the country. This stat means $2 Beam drinks and shots all day, every day. It also means that each October, the first fifty lushes to sample all seven varieties of Beam that the bar offers receive a Degree of Bourbonology, an honor confirmed the following January in a cap-and-gown ceremony and other shenanigans. With these wallet-friendly (and resumé-building) incentives, how can you afford not to wander into (and later stumble out of) the Stadium Inn for some cheap, cheap Beam?

Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey has its roots in beer, since the Denver micro-distiller was founded by Aspen Renaissance man and gonzo legend George Stranahan, who also started Flying Dog Brewery, which left Colorado last year for Maryland. But the award-winning hooch producer got even deeper into the beer world recently, by deciding to give its used whiskey barrels to local breweries like Oskar Blues, which uses them to age some incredible special beers. And Oskar Blues is returning the favor, giving a hundred barrels of “wash” (unhopped, fermented beer) every week to Stranahan’s, which runs it through the still to begin the whiskey-making process. How can you not drink to that?

Early mornings are for coffee and late nights are for beer, but the rest of the day? That’s for Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout, a powerful seasonal brew from Great Divide Brewing Company that’s been infused with espresso from Pablo’s Coffee. The two Denver stalwarts (Great Divide popped its top in the Ballpark neighborhood in 1994, while Pablo’s steamed to life at 630 East Sixth Avenue a year later) have similar business models and independent streaks, which is why the combo is such a great wake-up call.

Not long ago, it would have been obscene for ritzy restaurant menus to name-drop their brand of coffee. But that’s happening around here all the time now — especially when the coffee being used is Denver-based Novo Coffee. And that makes sense, since the family-owned Novo crafts coffee like other boutique outfits craft great wine or beer, seeking out the best beans around the world, roasting them in their Larimer Street facility and obsessively instructing their customers and clients on the best way to extract nuanced nectars from the grounds. The results have been named some of the best in the country, and Novo’s main coffee bar, across the street from the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building, has become a caffeine-fanatic mecca. Isn’t it time you took a sip of perfection?

Barista Greg Lefcourt has everything we’ve ever wanted in a java jockey. He’s certainly got the skills, since his just-right java earned him the gold at the Mountain Regional Barista Championship in Thornton this past January. But he’s also got the right amount of chutzpah to go along with his lattes. Whether it’s boasting that Boulder cafes beat the beans out of Denver’s or dismissively wagging his porta-filter at any barista who dares challenge his caffeinated concoctions, this guy’s love of the grind and the game comes across as vibrantly as a cup of perfectly roasted beans.

Looking to map your chakras over chai, mix some magick into your mocha or just dabble in a little tea-time tarot? Point your broomstick right at Witches Brew, a charming little cafe overlooking Berkeley Lake that’s become a gathering place for area pagans. Whether you want to join in an equinox celebration, stock up on crystals, candles and other ritual supplies or just enjoy a Fair Trade cup of joe, this is a joint that will surely warm your cauldron.

Bars are great places for hanging out and imbibing with friends, but when alcohol isn’t on the agenda, why not catch up over huge mugs of coffee, bowls of custom-mixed cereal and a couple of gourmet cupcakes? The Shoppe welcomes visitors until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights; Tuesday through Thursday, you can grab a treat until 10 p.m. Not only are the cupcakes super-tasty, but the clean, mod interior is comfy enough for a long chat or a solo night out (there are shelves of zines, books and toys in case your friends don’t show and you need to amuse yourself). Owners Tran Wills and Emma Skala are always welcoming, and the scene they’ve created on this little corner of Colfax couldn’t be sweeter.

The Skylark’s penchant for mid-twentieth-century pop culture is clear in its jukebox collection, a diverse catalogue that spotlights giants from a wealth of genres. But the musical selection doesn’t exist in a vacuum; rather, it adds a degree of authenticity to the ‘Lark’s collection of kitschy posters and nostalgic decor. Cuts from soul giants such as Etta James and Otis Redding, jazz progenitors like Louis Prima and Ella Fitzgerald and country heavyweights like Johnny Cash and Bob Wills complement the 1950s film posters that line the walls. The old-school inventory isn’t limited to greatest-hits anthologies, either. For the distinguishing Louis Armstrong fan, for example, there’s an album devoted solely to his early Hot Five and Hot Seven output, recordings that are as impassioned as they are raw. It’s the perfect soundtrack for a cold Pabst and a game of pool.

Like the place itself, the 3 Kings jukebox has a distinctly personalized feel. From homemade mix CDs to the other handpicked music selections, there’s a little something for everybody: new and old punk (the Clash and X to Against Me!), some classic rock (ZZ Top and AC/DC), a little soul (James Brown and Stevie Wonder), as well as a bastion of local releases including discs from Git Some, Cephalic Carnage, Warlock Pinchers, King Rat, Black Lamb, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, To Be Eaten and Get Three Coffins Ready. You won’t find a stronger, more eclectic or satisfying selection than this one.

Everyone who has been around the scene within the last decade either knows Sarah Slater or has seen her at some of the most interesting shows, local and otherwise. For the past couple of years, she’s organized and hosted her Bring Your Own Records night at various places, now mostly Carioca Cafe (aka Bar Bar). Basically, you bring a handful of vinyl instead of CDs or — perish the thought — iPods, and do your thing. What Sarah’s doing may seem incredibly retro, but really, it’s just a great way to bring people together to share music.

Though the idea of inviting completely inexperienced musicians, journalists, promoters and scenesters to get behind the decks seems like a bad one — especially at the Larimer Lounge, a venue that rarely showcases dance music — DJ Hot to Death (aka Monolith Music Festival’s Matt Fecher) has turned his weekly event into the place to be on Monday nights. Sparkly electro-clubbers rub elbows with gritty rocker dudes and earthy singer-songwriters, while the music runs the gamut from contemporary country to hip-hop to metal. It’s part dance party, part Denver music industry networking event and part DJ training ground. The drinks are cheap, the music selections are unique, the conversation is good, and you’d be hard-pressed to find more fun on a Monday.

You know a DJ’s got mad skills when he’s flown in every week just to host a club night. Such is the life of DJ Klaw, whose main gig is manning the decks at motocross champion Carey Hart’s club in Vegas. Around the same time that Hart and Klaw unveiled Mommy’s Little Monster at Wasted Space in Vegas’s Hard Rock Hotel, Klaw launched a similar night at Bender’s Tavern on Thursdays. Taking its name from Social Distortion’s 1983 debut, Mommy’s Little Monster features Klaw and residents DJs Deftron and El Brian throwing down the best of hip-hop, electro, breakbeat, mash-ups and gutter punk. And if the music doesn’t entice you, the Ghetto Bottle Service might: Bring five friends and eight bucks, and enjoy a bottle of booze and mixers on the house.

As bassist for the now-defunct Machine Gun Blues, Jermaine Smith is no stranger to the spotlight. The guy is no stranger to karaoke, either, having hosted karaoke nights at another spot for years. So it’s only natural for the rock star (he’s still a rock star to us) to set up shop at Rockbar, where he now sprinkles some of his karaoke magic on everyone in the joint. The dude’s presence is bound to rub off on you, and before you know it, you’ll be tapping into your own inner rock star.

Woody Guthrie’s was the voice of the people. And the songs we heard in Peter Glazer’s eloquent musical — songs written by Guthrie in the 1930s — speak to us now: “I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore”; “The Jolly Banker” (who will help you out, then “come and foreclose, take your car and your clothes”); “Pastures of Plenty,” which depicts the plight of migrant workers; and “Deportee,” about Mexicans killed in a plane crash while being deported. Well acted and movingly sung, Woody Guthrie’s American Song reminded us of one of this country’s most important prophets, and of our obligation toward each other.

Since relocating from Denver to its new home in Aurora last April, Shadow Theatre Company has become a forum for much more than just drama. Artistic director Jeffrey Nickelson and the Shadow crew have incorporated a wide range of performing arts into the theater’s programming, including the new “Soul Den” concert series mounted by DaJazz Records CEO Michael Hancock in January. Billed as a fusion of neo-soul, jazz, gospel and R&B, the event offers a meeting of local musical minds in an intimate, theatrical setting. The first round of shows in January boasted compelling and participatory performances from aspiring stars and established veterans of the soul genre, a dynamic that Hancock has promised will figure into future series in April and May.

So you’re producing a blockbuster musical on a limited budget, a show known for productions that feature sparkly costumes, amazing technical effects and big, big musical numbers. What do you do to make audiences forget the Broadway show and those costly touring versions? Here’s Michael J. Duran’s answer: He assembled a cast of talented actors and ingenious tech people, and he let everyone cut loose as only the BDT gang can. He put tall Brian Norber into staggeringly high heels and a glittering dress; he encouraged Wayne Kennedy and Scott Beyette to pull out all the stops as producer Max Bialystock and his bookkeeper sidekick; he deployed so much talent in the chorus that the group numbers were full of delicious surprises. And he put the vulgar, exhilarating whoop missing from many big-budget versions of The Producers back into this insane Hitler-baiting story.

Amid the thunderous chords of “Come Look at the Freaks,” the first number in Side Show, the cast formed a ragged circle at the perimeter of the stage. Although their expressions varied — blank or determined, resigned or defiant — they were all looking at us, the audience. You, they seemed to say, you, sitting comfortably in your plush seat, you whose muscles move smoothly over bone, whose voice emerges from your throat uncracked and whose body responds unhesitatingly to your barely conscious demands. Perhaps it’s you who’s the freak — because of what you don’t know, and the blind, heedless way you move through life, complaining when the bus is late or your coffee’s a little bitter. Defiance, rage, even a hint of exultation — they were all part of this fierce, powerful number.

All three divas in 3 Mo’ Divas sang pieces that ranged from opera to blues to disco with great authority and power. All were sensational. But Nova Y. Payton stood out. When she gave her sexy, playful, yearning rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” you felt as if you’d never heard the song before, and she stripped “My Funny Valentine” of its corniness. Her phrasing was original and her voice a wonder. Note to Denver directors: Bring her back to us.

There couldn’t have been a better setting for this textured, nostalgic play than the cozy, elegantly proportioned lobby of the more-than-century-old Barth Hotel, or a script better suited to the environmental approach chosen by director Terry Dodd. The playing area brought out the intertwined passions and emotions of the script and, because it was no brighter than the rest of the room, eliminated the separation you usually feel from the actors. As the title implies, the play is set in a hotel, and occasionally a genuine Barth resident became part of the action, walking through the scene or jumping up and applauding at a resonant moment. The production shimmered with history. Dodd had staged it here seventeen years earlier, and two of the actors from that version were on stage for this one: Judy Phelan-Hill and Patty Mintz Figel. No other local director possesses Dodd’s understanding of place and its effect, and his Hot L Baltimore enlarged our sense of what theater is and the subtle, intriguing ways in which it speaks to us.

Director Mitch Dickman and actors Karen Slack, William Hahn and GerRee Hinshaw went out with recording equipment during the Democratic Convention in Denver, asking questions and shooting video. The result was the satiric Mediamockracy, which took on politics, corporate interests and media idiocy in the form of two fictive cable-show hosts: a viperous Fox-style anchor and a talk-show comic in the Stephen Colbert vein. The show got in plenty of jibes, Hinshaw led the incorporated audience discussion, and Hahn and Slack made their characters so vivid and interesting that you almost wished someone, somewhere, would give them shows of their own.

This play tells the story of Beane, a sad, lonely, crazy man who finds love when a young woman breaks into his apartment, threatens him and starts babbling about minimalism and arson. Except that this young woman might be imaginary. The script is funny, original and touching, and director Jarrad Holbrook did beautifully by it, utilizing a clever, expressive set by David Lafont and mood-setting lighting by Jen Orf. The four performers — Emily Paton Davies, Scott McLean, Barbra Andrews and Brian Landis Folkins (a newcomer we can hope to see a lot more of in the coming years) — had perfect timing and perfect chemistry together.

Find a terrific script, gather together a first-rate cast and a group of talented technicians, direct with a mix of meticulousness and wonder — and lo and behold, you get Curious’s magical production of playwright Sarah Ruhl’s take on the age-old myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. We’re at a loss to decide what to praise first and most: Chip Walton’s direction; Michael R. Duran’s set; Shannon McKinney’s lighting; Brian Freeland’s sound; Janice Lacek’s costumes; the choreography of Garrett Ammon; or the dedicated work of the actors: Tyee Tilghman as Orpheus, Karen Slack as a lively and expressive Eurydice and Jim Hunt as the father everyone wishes they had. You can still catch this wondrous show (it runs until April 18).

First of all, Modern Muse is an interesting, adventurous company. Artistic directors Gabriella Cavallero and Stephen J. Lavezza work with local playwrights and make their decisions based on artistic rather than commercial considerations. Some of their productions are among the gutsiest and most thoughtful the city has to offer. Secondly, the fundraiser they held last August brought Jamie Horton back to Denver. Yes, that Jamie Horton, the guy we’ve all been missing since he pulled up roots after decades with the Denver Center and took an academic job back east. Horton reprised a number of his best roles, assisted by John Hutton, Kathy Brady and Randy Moore, and gave us one of the finest evenings of theater we’ve had for a long while — all in an atmosphere that pulsed with warmth and camaraderie. The take: $10,000. The experience: priceless.

Tyee Tilghman brings dignity, subtlety and intelligent understatement to almost everything he does on a stage. This year’s triumphs included a hardened street person in Curious’s The Denver Project; a small but telling role in the Denver Center’s Merry Wives of Windsor, where his low-key humor contrasted nicely with all the crazed hijinks going on around him; and a gravely beautiful portrayal of Orpheus in Sarah Ruhl’s conceptually daring version of the Orpheus-Eurydice myth, staged — again — by Curious.

Two knock-it-out-of-the-park performances, and another acting display so good it almost saved a not-very-convincing play — that was Emily Paton Davies’s contribution to the theater scene this year. In Crimes of the Heart, she played ditsy husband-killer Babe. Describing the killing, this girl was so sweetly and transparently reasonable that you really understood why she’d had to make herself a jug of fresh lemonade immediately afterward (she was thirsty) and then offered her husband a glass as he writhed on the carpet (it was the mannerly thing to do). In Love Song, Paton Davies showed us that she could be tough, funny, brittle and deeply tender. This actress has been on the scene for quite a while, and she gets more versatile and talented with every year that passes.

In the Denver Center’s sizzling production of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s play about a shabby, ruthless subculture, Ian Merrill Peakes played conscience-less super-salesman Roma, and he had every gesture, every seedy predictable inflection down exactly right. This was the salesman of your nightmares, callow and impermeable but wielding a perverse and frightening kind of power.

In this odd, enigmatic play by Edward Albee, Terry Burnsed played Julian, a humble priest destroyed by a Lawyer, a Cardinal, a Butler and a seductive benefactress named Alice, who may all have been acting on behalf of a corrupt and unimaginably vicious God. Burnsed’s portrayal was at the heart of Tiny Alice‘s power and success; in fact, he acted with such integrity and passion that you wondered how he could endure repeating the role again and again through the run.

Kim Staunton had only one brief scene in Doubt, as the mother of a boy who may have been abused by a priest at his Catholic school, but it proved pivotal. This mother’s response to the accusation was both surprising and inevitable. She had been so beaten down by life that she had learned to accommodate in ways most of us could never imagine. Kim Staunton gave a subtle, multi-layered and deeply moving performance, communicating both the mother’s love for her son and a slow, sad, inexpressible truth that was all her own.

Doubt is about a priest who may or may not be molesting a young boy at his school, and the nun who, convinced of his guilt, is determined to bring him down. Jeanne Paulsen made Sister Aloysius every bit as stern and judgmental as the script required, but she also showed us there was something admirable about the woman’s strength, single-mindedness and lack of sentimentality — as well as her bracing and ironic sense of humor. Every now and then, there was even a flicker of tenderness. She was, in short, riveting.

Known for her luminous performances with Phamaly (Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League), Lucy Roucis suffers from Parkinson’s disease. In 2008, she underwent the surgery she’d been thinking about for years, in which a battery-operated medical device is implanted in the brain to stimulate targeted areas and block abnormal nerve signals. As the medical staff worked, she found herself weeping for her father, who had died two years earlier. “I felt like he came to me and said, ‘Toughen up. Get through this.’ I felt like he was holding my hand.” Since the surgery, Lucy’s tremors have decreased markedly — and she’s back on stage.

If you remember, As You Like It‘s Celia is one of those forgettable roles, cousin and sidekick to the far more vivid and poetic Rosalind. But Jamie Ann Romero made Celia real, listening with deep sympathy to her cousin’s problems, cavorting about the stage when things went well. This Celia was so funny and charming that she almost romped away with the entire production.

David Ivers is primarily known as an actor, but this production showed off his directing chops. He changed the play’s time and locale, wedding the script’s Elizabethan humor to the bright optimism of the 1920s, the era of flappers. With the help of an excellent cast that included Kathleen M. Brady as a hilarious Mistress Quickly, an inspired set by Hugh Landwehr and David Kay Michelson’s gorgeous costumes, Ivers managed to make this minor Shakespearean work not only funny, but elegant, giving us lightness and wit where we’d expected only incomprehensible speech and corny puns.

Originality, playfulness, a bit of brain food (but not enough to ruin the fun), surprises and lots of laughter. These are the things we expect from Buntport, and the group unfailingly delivers. This season began with a spoof on The Three Musketeers in which Alexandre Dumas was joined in his coffin by an argumentative, small-town librarian, and ended with the fizzy hijinks of Buntport’s first musical, Seal. Stamp. Send. Bang. The company’s tech is always amazing — low-cost, high-effect — and the scripts, developed by the members themselves, are clever and sometimes brilliant. But what makes Buntport (which weathered a financial crisis with its usual effervescent practicality) our hands-down winner was the group’s ensemble work and the way the members’ acting skills have sharpened and deepened over time.

Inside the spacious lobby, dozens of people chatted, smiled and sipped wine as they waited for the opening of Dinah Was — Shadow Theatre’s first production in its brand-new home. Along one wall was a series of sculptures by Ed Dwight, and wandering through the crowd was artistic director Jeffrey Nickelson, beaming. For years, the company had performed at the Ralph Waldo Emerson Center, where audience members sat on folding chairs in a large, bare room and the actors had to prepare on the fire escape, since there were no dressing rooms. But then Shadow caught the attention of a developer who’d been working with the City of Aurora to develop a lively arts district on East Colfax. In 2008, Nickelson moved his company into this beautifully renovated building, complete with a comfortable 191-seat theater, and set the stage for years to come.

With a mix of moxie and money, Plus Galley owners Ivar and Karen Zeile undertook the reconstruction of the Flue structure on the back side of the old Benjamin Moore paint factory on Larimer Street. For the redesign of the existing building and the creation of an addition, the Zeiles tuned to Denver architect Steve Chucovich, a cutting-edge neo-modernist. Chucovich orchestrated a second-story rectilinear volume that seems to float above the old brick structure. The results are intelligent and beautiful.

For years, photographer and philanthropist Laura Merage fantasized about creating an “art incubator,” where galleries hosting serious exhibits would be mixed with studios for working artists. So she snagged a big concrete block commercial building in Curtis Park and then had Bryan Schmidt of Semple Brown Design spiff it up and turn it into an art center, which opened in late 2008. The results are a stunning success, in particular the unbelievably large exhibition rooms. With visitors able to see both art and artists under the same roof, RedLine could soon rival the top art venues in town.

The brainchild of artist John Nava and printmaker Donald Farnsworth, California’s Magnolia Editions has been creating tapestries using digitized looms for the last ten years. During that time, Magnolia has produced works by significant artists such as Chuck Close, Deborah Oropallo, Lewis deSoto and Leon Golub. The results of translating paintings or prints into tapestries are stunning, and the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art wowed us by putting more than a dozen of them on view last summer.

Paul Soldner first became interested in ceramics while he was a student at the University of Colorado back in the 1960s. Over the next four decades, the California-based artist maintained a studio near Aspen that he used during the summer. Paul Soldner Ceramics, organized by Dan Jacobs for the University of Denver’s Myhren Gallery, included pieces from a wide range of dates, but it was mostly filled with the artist’s wild sculptures of smashed shapes done over the last ten years. The results were eye-popping.

Over the past few years, collecting couple Jill Wiltse and Kirk Brown have assembled a definitive group of fabrics documenting the significant role women played in post-war Britain. Designing Women, organized by Wiltse and Brown’s personal curator, Shanna Shelby, and Tariana Navas-Nieves of the CSFAC, showed off this collection in spectacular fashion and lured textile curators from Europe and across the United States to Colorado Springs.

One of the Kirkland Museum’s specialties is modern design, which made it the perfect venue for the traveling exhibit Florence Knoll: Defining Modern. The show comprised pieces of Knoll’s furniture that truly expressed her less-is-more philosophy. Knoll favored straight lines and minimal detailing, but she was a perfectionist when it came to scale and proportion. Kirkland curator Hugh Grant supplemented the show with the museum’s own pieces by Knoll and other designers of her generation, effectively highlighting Knoll’s understated elegance.

Colorado native and Colorado College art instructor Scott Johnson is an installation whiz, and for this impressive if enigmatic show, he completely took over the East Gallery at BMoCA. The Look of Nowhere, which included separate installations, a video and hemispherical mirrors, all of it sparely lit, was purportedly about Johnson’s ruminations on Venice, but that was hard to tell. Easier to see was that Johnson really knows how to command a space and turn it into his own unique world.

Conceptual artist Christo and his collaborating wife, Jeanne-Claude, want to put fabric panels over the Arkansas River in southern Colorado, a $50 million project called “Over the River” that they’ve been working on for more than a decade. It’s the second time the two have chosen Colorado as a site for their outrageous creations; the first was 1972’s “Valley Curtain,” in which they stretched an orange nylon curtain across Rifle Gap. Despite the fact that the curtain ripped almost immediately, the piece became internationally famous. This year, Jennifer Garner and Cecily Cullen, of Metro State’s Center for Visual Art, worked with the artists to present Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Prints and Objects, one of the most significant exhibits in Denver last year. It was made up of more than a hundred items, including sketches and designs for “Over the River” demonstrating why the couple deserves to complete it.

Northern Colorado artist Jack Balas has made a habit of approaching handsome young men over the years. His intentions are noble, however: He simply wants to take their pictures and use the photos as preliminary works for his eye-catching drawings, watercolors and paintings. Tattoo Detour, mounted in the dog days of July, was made up of images based on the guys that he met on a working vacation in Hawaii. It was the first time Balas had worked out of a suitcase instead of his well-appointed studio, and he loved the experience. The expertly drawn and painted figures — surfers, in particular — mostly hit the mark, and the show was therefore unforgettable.

New York-based conceptual photographer Carla Gannis took up the topic of the femme fatale for her BMoCA solo last summer. In doctored-up digital photos with appropriated imagery from Hollywood movies, Gannis placed a sexy young woman in the midst of the action. The large, elegant color photos typically simmered with erotic content or with violence — or the threat of it. Although many contemporary artists work along the same lines, Gannis stood out by giving her series a compelling narrative.

Bud Shark opened Shark’s Lithography in Boulder back in 1976. Twenty-some years later, he moved to Lyons, changed the name to Shark’s Ink and has been there ever since. Shark is a master printer who has worked with many internationally known artists, some of them over and over again. In putting together this stunning show, outgoing curator Cydney Payton chose works that expressed those long-term relationships. On view are pieces by Betty Woodman, Enrique Chagoya, Don Ed Hardy and Bernard Cohen. Of particular interest are the three-dimensional works by Red Grooms, in which the prints are cut up to make sculptures.

Back in the 1980s, the late Fred Mayer and his wife, Jan, began putting together a collection of prints dating to the first half of the twentieth century, a golden age for the medium. Then, as now, the prints were relatively inexpensive, and that fact, combined with the Mayer family’s great wealth and good taste, allowed them to assemble a world-class collection ranging from Ashcan School examples, works of social realism, and pieces that were part of the then-nascent modern movement. The couple acquired many big names, including Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Rockwell Kent, Paul Cadmus and Denver’s own Vance Kirkland. Singer Gallery curator Simon Zalkind selected some of the best for Good Impressions, and his choices left a good impression on us.

To explore the subject of the American West, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center curator Blake Milteer put together a pair of conjoined solos that turned out brilliantly. In the back was Walt Kuhn: An Imaginary History of the West, and in the front, Place and Time: Reenactment Pageant Photographs by Edie Winograde. Kuhn, who worked in the early twentieth century, created blurry abstract paintings of cowboys and Indians, while Winograde, who is active now, takes photos of people playing cowboys and Indians. And because she used slow shutter speeds, her pieces were blurry and abstract, too. The combining of the modernist and the postmodernist was a terrific match.

It’s hard to believe that the formal Western art galleries on the seventh floor of the Denver Art Museum’s Ponti tower were shuttered for five years. Sure, some Western pieces have been displayed on the second floor of the Hamilton building, but most of the collection had been in deep storage until recently, when curators Peter Hassrick and Thomas Smith teamed up to reinstall it. Among the treasures now on display is “Cowboy Singing,” by Thomas Eakins, which the DAM recently acquired. The institution signed over half ownership of “Long Jakes,” by Charles Deas, to the Anschutz Collection in exchange for half ownership in the Eakins. Times being what they are, this kind of creative financing is likely to become more common, something art fans certainly can’t complain about.

Colorado artist Lorey Hobbs has come into her own in the past few years. Her efforts in painting and works on paper, as seen last winter in New Works by Lorey Hobbs at the Carson/van Straaten Gallery, have a distinct look highlighted by remarkable color combinations ranging from moody and dark shades to toned-up, dazzling ones. Her subject matter is hard to discern in these pure abstractions, but there’s more than a little hint that views of nature are partly behind them. No longer just an emerging artist, Hobbs is on the cusp of being an established one, and strong exhibits like this are sure to move her reputation in the right direction.

Last fall was a terrific time to visit the Arvada Center, because one of the region’s acknowledged masters was the subject of an enormous show there. The exhibition, which sported a four-volume title — David Yust: Looking Back/Looking Forward: 1970s — 2008: Explorations in Symmetry and Inclusion Series: Circles and Ellipses — sprawled over the capacious spaces of the Lower Galleries and was expertly installed by designer Collin Parson. It showcased thirty years’ worth of Yust paintings and prints, all of them abstractions, and every one created to the highest aesthetic and technical standard. It was a great show and, hopefully, a model for future exhibits at the Arvada Center.

Although he was frail and seriously ill at the time, Dale Chisman was still able to hold court over what would turn out to be the final solo show of his lifetime, Recent Paintings by Dale Chisman. From a comfortable seat in the office, he greeted a throng of well-wishers at the opening reception who had formed a line so that they could talk with him. Even in bad health, Chisman’s powers as a painter were still as keen as ever, as evidenced by the work all around him. When Chisman died just a few months after the show closed, Denver lost one of the most accomplished artists it has ever had.

Artists have been using recycled materials ever since Marcel Duchamp took a urinal, turned it upside down and dubbed it “Fountain” nearly a hundred years ago. But lately the cause has gained a new urgency. Highlighting this trend was Alchemy, at the William Havu Gallery, in which three artists used non-art materials to create their work. Coloradan Stan Meyer wove roofing tar paper into wall hung constructions. Ann Weber, a California artist who is also into weaving, used old pieces of cardboard cut into strips to make freestanding sculptures, some of them quite large. Finally, Marta Thoma, also from California, strung up old bottles to turn them into suspension sculptures. There’s no LEED certification for artwork, as there is for buildings, but if there were, Meyer, Weber and Thoma would obviously qualify.

Because it has a wide audience, the Denver Art Museum has to come up with a range of attractions, but certain kinds of shows are hard to come by, and expensive, to boot. That’s what made Houdon From the Louvre, an in-depth look at the master of classical French sculpture Jean-Antoine Houdon, so memorable. Active before, during and after the French Revolution, Houdon was a super-realist who specialized in sculpting portrait busts of notable figures in Paris, including the visiting American ambassador, Benjamin Franklin. He also sculpted George Washington while on a trip to the United States. In celebrating rare works by an old master, shows like this remind us that museums are about more than just counting heads.

In the fall of 2007, investor Andrew Kalmar opened the elegant Gallery T at the corner of West Ninth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive and hired Ron Judish to run it. An art-world veteran, Judish was an early member of the Spark Gallery co-op and later ran two of his own galleries. When the second of those galleries closed some years ago, Judish thought his days in the art world had ended — at least until he met the young and brash Kalmar. Under Judish’s guidance, T has shown a mix of local and international art stars. And thanks to Kalmar, we’ve got Judish’s accomplished eye back on the local exhibition scene.

Last fall, MCA Denver celebrated its first year in its spiffy David Adjaye-designed building at the edge of the Platte Valley. During that time, over 50,000 people made their way through. This response — not to mention the building itself — was orchestrated almost single-handedly by Cydney Payton, who served as executive director and head curator from 2001 through 2008. Payton not only oversaw the design process, but she ran the business end, as well, and programmed all the shows, which will continue to pull thousands of visitors into the place.

There were many art events scheduled during or in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention last summer, but some of the most relevant were mounted and paid for by local artists. Two of the best were Hijacked, a Susan Goldstein installation about the need for abortion rights, and Gayla Lemke’s Enough, which took on the topic of the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich during the Bush years. Although it’s unlikely that many of the delegates made their way to Edge, we wish they had.

The original “Electric Fountain” was designed by Frederic Darlington for Denver’s first Democratic National Convention, in 1908. Located in City Park’s Ferril Lake, it combined acrobatic water displays with theatrical lighting shows, back when electricity was still fairly new. Sadly, the fountain was allowed to deteriorate over the ensuing decades and had become a ruined fragment by the time engineer Larry Kerecman found it in the 1980s. A few years ago, Kerecman mounted a campaign to bring it back, an effort that culminated just in time for Denver’s second DNC, when the city unveiled a replica of the work, complete with state-of-the-art computerized technology. Clearly, the rebirth of “Electric Fountain” makes for a picture-postcard addition to the Mile High City.

In 2008, Aurora Public Art Program manager Deana Miller got a call from development company Trammell Crow asking whether the city wanted an old sculpture for free or whether it should simply go to the scrap yard. Miller researched the piece and discovered that the monumental red and yellow steel spike, installed in an office park, was the work of Lyman Kipp, a prominent Chicago minimalist. The sculpture, called “Alto,” dates to 1984 and is one of only two pieces by the artist in Colorado. The Kipp was removed from its original site and will be erected later this year outside the Hoffman Heights Library, at 1298 Peoria Street in Aurora.

Like “Mustang” at DIA, John McEnroe’s “National Velvet” has elicited a lot of public comment. But here the jokes have been accompanied by sniggers and smirks rather than shock and awe. Some have suggested that the piece, a contemporary take on an obelisk cast from piled-up sandbags — in the Platte River floodplain, no less — suggests either a penis or a stack of breasts. What really makes this sculpture fun, though, is the way McEnroe parodies traditional monumental sculpture by placing a glow-in-the-dark red plastic spire in the middle of an old-fashioned-looking town square.

Wouldn’t it be nice to step inside the thoughts and inspirations of your favorite artists? You can do just that at MCA Denver’s Open Shelf Library. Composed of books, digital works, found objects, games, journals, models, movies, music and sculpture contributed by MCA artists, the shelves are a physical catalogue of the artifacts used to shape their realities. Computerized information allows museum-goers to dive even deeper into the minds of the artists. The museum also hosts an Open Shelf Book Club for members and weekly Open Shelf Films from late fall to early spring. Maybe you can’t be John Malkovich, but the Open Shelf is the next best thing.

It seems unlikely: an art museum in a Denver Tech Center office building. Granted, the Palazzo Verdi isn’t an ordinary office building. It’s a slick and handsomely appointed but understated structure blessed with a 55-foot atrium sporting an inset replica of the cathedral labyrinth at Chartres, an ethereal chandelier by Lonnie Hanzon and Todd Siler’s monumental wall mural. It’s also home to a cafe, Larry DiPasquale’s Mangia Bevi. And, yes, it’s got a museum, too, one dedicated primarily to showcasing works from the vaults of major art collector and Palazzo Verdi developer John Madden, which means its exhibits can be over-the-top eclectic and, just a little, a means to an end. But the Madden Museum is still more than a rich man’s toy, since it offers us the opportunity to share a smorgasbord of works by the likes of Thomas Hart Benton, Robert Rauschenberg, Thomas Moran, Jackson Pollack and other strange but wonderful bedfellows — and to do it in the midst of the south suburban wasteland. And that fills a pretty tall order.

The Center for Empowered Living and Learning, aka the CELL, is the world’s first terrorism museum. Funded by local real-estate mogul Larry Mizel, the place is a Disneyland of death and dismemberment: realistic replicas of suicide bombs, clips of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on permanent repeat, a multimedia experience in which visitors enjoy a make-believe terrorist attack on the Civic Center. Whoopee! The point of the museum is to educate the public about the roots of terrorism, but you’ll be so shell-shocked by all the violence that you might miss that part.

The DCM is dead. Long live the DCM! In actuality, the Denver Community Museum is on its last legs, but that’s part of its beauty. The brainchild of design-community mover and shaker Jaime Kopke, this pop-up museum was never meant to last, at least not in its present form. Yet in its short lifetime, the DCM, which debuted in a Platte Valley storefront just last fall, has given a creative voice to people who wouldn’t normally think of making art (and, conversely, to some who do), through monthly themed “challenges” and their resulting exhibits, as well as participatory community events. The last exhibit, Wonder Room, a subjective celebration of Denver the city, will open and close in April, with a gala silent auction of donated artifacts topping the whole thing off. And Kopke hints at plans to stage a collaborative show with folks from San Francisco sometime this summer, if the funds and space become available. The DCM is dead. Long live the DCM!

DAM’s slate of lunch-hour events shifts with the seasons, but you can count on at least one Lunch Box Series a month and a Nooner Tour or three to energize your midday break. The Lunch Box features a curator, artist or visiting scholar focusing on one work from the museum’s collection; recent talks have centered on conceptual artist Fred Wilson and recontextualist Rachel Lachowicz. The noon tours (generally offered Wednesdays and Fridays) are a brisk thirty-minute run through a particular topic, from the roots of impressionism to the Asian influence found in some Western artists, and permit the mind to wrap around one or two strands of the museum’s tangled collection. Best of all, the nooners get you out of the box for a little while, physically and mentally, so that the rest of the day doesn’t look quite so artless.

Does any theater in Denver even come close to matching the eclecticism of Starz? Sure, the FilmCenter programs plenty of well-known independent flicks. But it also spotlights obscure features, shorts and documentaries that earn screen time thanks to the archeological instincts of the dedicated staff. Also on tap are special series and events, including April’s XicanIndie FilmFest and this summer’s Young Filmmakers Workshop. No wonder anyone who truly cares about art and culture in this fair city is regularly seeing Starz.

The Mayan’s atmosphere can’t be topped, but it can be topped off by the beverage of your choice. The bar’s menu has no shortage of colorful mixed drinks, ranging from Ruby Red Cosmopolitans to Blood Orange Martinis, not to mention weekend specials such as $5 Bloody Marys and mimosas. And teetotalers also receive deluxe treatment, by way of rich Dazbog coffee and the finest flavors of Mighty Leaf tea. Oh, yeah: They show pretty good movies there, too.

Who says making movies is a long process? Participants in the Shoot Out in Boulder have a single day to assemble a masterpiece (or a facsimile thereof), and most of them manage to do so. Not all, though: Last year, 53 teams began the competition, but seven of them vanished along the way. Even so, the contest is a great way to get young people interested in making movies, as opposed to simply watching them — and in 2008, members of nineteen teams were under eighteen. The future of film is in good hands.

The last time a big Hollywood production descended on Denver was in late 2007, when Eddie Murphy’s Nowhereland spent two weeks showcasing downtown and LoDo. The film was originally slated to hit screens in the fall of 2008, but it was delayed — seldom a good sign. It’s currently expected to reach theaters in June, complete with a new title: Imagine That. We’d like to imagine that Denver will still get its due…but we have our doubts.

Directed by Colorado’s Monty Miranda and produced by Donna Dewey, the state’s latest Academy Award winner, Skills Like This, has been a darling on the festival circuit since 2007, when it won its first Best of Denver award. Unfortunately, only a handful of viewers have gotten a chance to see the flick, which features scenes shot at Union Station and Arvada’s 12 Volt Tavern, among other area locales. But beginning in April, the movie will get a wide national release, including a return engagement in its home town. The aptly named Skills Like This is finally earning some long-deserved recognition for its very skillful filmmakers.

The independent flick Ink, which concerns so-called dream people fighting for souls, turned out to be a dream come true for the local film community. The movie was shot entirely within the state, at locations ranging from the plains of Brighton and the peaks of Crested Butte to the Evergreen foothills and downtown Denver — and as a bonus, the crew was entirely local as well. Clearly, Colorado was ready for its close-up.

It’s been a rapid rise for Amy Adams, who spent many of her formative years in Castle Rock. Since her breakthrough performance in the 2005 indie Junebug, she’s co-starred in goofy comedies (Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby), headlined a musical-fantasy blockbuster (Enchanted) and appeared with Academy Award winner Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson’s War). In 2008’s Doubt, she held her own alongside Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the person for whose soul these two are fighting. And for this, she garnered her second Oscar nomination. It’s a good time to be part of the Adams family.

Slumdog Millionaire was a great film. But did you wonder what was up with all the spontaneous choreographed dancing? Welcome to the wonderful world of Bollywood, where popular Indian films and Top 40 songs are married into fast-paced, colorful dance productions reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (but with less groaning). And along with providing an excellent workout, the East Indian dance styles are wildly campy and just plain fun. More than a few Denver gals have become addicted ever since Bollywood West’s Renu Kansal came to town from New York. Along with a regular slate of classes for all levels in Denver and Boulder, Kansal also leads the Bollywood West dance troupe, which made a splash last fall at the Denver Film Festival party for Slumdog Millionaire, co-hosts the occasional Passport to Bollywood dance party at Zen Ultra Lounge and helps promote Bollywood Movie Night screenings at the Regency Tamarac Square Cinemas. And, yes, that is our final answer.

Some firefighters like to make movies. And what better topic for a firefighter’s movie than, well, a fire? That was Rob Bieber’s idea, anyway; the Denver firefighter and a cinematographer partner made Ricky’s Rib Shack in order to convey to an audience what it’s really like to be in the middle of a blazing inferno. Because Bieber was on the fire department at the time they were making the film, they had unprecedented access to burning buildings while following 24 recruits through an intense, five-month-long fire academy. They were so close, in fact, that some cameras suffered damage. That’s hot.

Dancers might have grace and good balance, but when it comes to taking a step up in the world, their chances are few and none. So when a local dance troupe gets a national pat on the back, it’s reason to, well, dance for joy. And Ballet Nouveau Colorado really worked hard for this honor by constantly tweaking the range of what ballet is and can be, under the creative watch of choreographer Garrett Ammon, a gifted dancemaker. Featuring everything from the annual 21st Century Choreography Competition (with audience participation) to a season of programs inspired by rock songs or poetry, this ensemble’s offerings constantly raise the barre.

At last count, this quixotic effort to crank out soft-wool caps to serve as helmet liners for our troops overseas had produced close to 10,000 noggin-warmers — almost double the initial goal of 5,280. That’s a lot of wool, a lot of volunteers knitting away at a pattern posted online, and a massive organizational effort on the part of Fresh City Life’s accomplished knitter Chris Loffelmacher and able co-conspirator Francine Lovato, in conjunction with the USO and a host of local sponsors. Regardless of how you feel about the politics of our current foreign entanglements, the soldiers deserve the best in headgear, and the DPL’s heads-up contribution makes for a great yarn.

We love local santero Jerry Vigil, having bestowed a previous Best of Denver award on him for his cocky Colorado Rockies muerto, a traditional bare-bones Day of the Dead calavera dressed up in a Rockies uniform. And now we get to laud him all over again for Day of the Dead Crafts: More Than 24 Projects That Celebrate Día de los Muertos, a book he co-authored (with Kerry Arquette and Andrea Zocchi) and contributed to as an artist. Vigil said last fall that he hoped to help impart a more sophisticated understanding of the cultural traditions behind the whimsical Day of the Dead art. And we say he succeeded, without taking away an ounce of the genre’s personality.

A large part of what makes Lauri Lynnxe Murphy — the local artist, artrepreneur, scene-maker and Westword MasterMind — tick is her utter confidence in all that she does. When she decides to open a store, she opens a store. When she decides to put more energy back into being an artist with connections, she’s an artist with connections. And, it goes without saying, when she decided to make a subjective book of photographs she’s taken over the years of thrift-store junk and strange figurines, she — yep — went out and made a book, American Dream: Portraits of Things, which is available for sale online at www.blurb.com. It’s a delightfully creepy slice of kitschy Americana, and besides, as Murphy herself notes on the front flap, “No tschotchkes were harmed in the making of this book!”

Louis Vuitton Night proclaims itself “too smart for New York, too hot for L.A.” And indeed, Denver ought to be flattered that the $3 anarchist variety show takes place here every so often at the Mercury Cafe instead of one of those two other places. They even do kid-friendly; the most recent incarnation of LVN took place at noon instead of later at night. The important thing to remember is that it’s not at all scary. It’s just a big party, usually with a theme, showcasing musicians, community organizations, zinesters, drag royalty, performance art, poetry, and DIY projects and fashion designers. A companion publication gets handed out with each show; the Louis Vuitton Review includes pieces on everything from community goings-on to celebrity gossip to anarchist theory — basically the party in book form. Anarchy is the answer.

Like chocolate? Then you’ll love the Colorado Chocolate Festival, which turns Mother’s Day weekend into one long, miasmic cacao high, as hopped-up chocoholics snake from booth to booth tasting chocolate of every ilk, from dark and pure to sweet and milky, gooey to waxy smooth, with wine, with nuts, infused with tea, slathered on cakes, baked into brownies and artfully rolled into rich, melty truffles. Last year, there were chocolate contests, baking demonstrations and a Miss Chocolate crowning, and Willy Wonka strolled the room; there was even a Mother’s Day gift market of non-chocolate items.

The best thing about Lannie’s “A Night In…” food, music and wine series, is that, for around $45, you’ll be transported to another country for an evening, immersed in the tastes, smells and sounds of a land far, far away. So far, the series has been to Spain, France and Italy, and this month, Lannie’s will take lucky participants to Ireland. Bonus: No jet-lag or thin hostel mattresses involved. Just a trip to downtown Denver’s favorite clocktower, where you can get away from it all — at least for a few hours.

It ain’t easy being funny these days. “Your mama so fat” jabs died with the banking collapse. Dick jokes in the middle of a recession? Fuggedaboutit. Thankfully, we still have Greg Baumhauer, Ben Kronberg, Ben Roy, Jim Hickox and former Westword scribe Adam Cayton-Holland (who recently released a DVD called Dick Jokes for Artists), the witty fellows behind the standup production company Wrist Deep Productions. From weekly open-mike nights at the Squire Lounge to viral videos like “Barackman Turner Overdrive” to wildly popular monthly extravaganzas at Orange Cat Studios known as “Los Comicos Super Hilariosos,” Wrist Deep’s genre-pushing, gut-busting humor is a full-time vocation – and one whose acclaim is spreading beyond Denver. Thanks to this crew, even in these troubled times, there are enough dick jokes to go around.