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Best Band Blog

Plain Pictures

Travis Egedy of Pictureplane writes blogs like he makes music: weird and like he's floating in outer space and ridiculously optimistic. It's good for contextualizing his music, sure, but it was also here that we first heard about Die Antwoord and Lil B's "I'm God." Plain Pictures is one-stop shopping for obscure mixtapes, confessions of a crush on Kristin Stewart, and generally remembering that pop culture is supposed to make you feel good.

Best Corpse Paint on a Band That Doesn't Play Black Metal

The Widow's Bane

Painting your face to look like the ghoulish visage of a pasty, rotting cadaver has long been the province of death-obsessed, Scandinavian black-metal bands. The practice, though, dates back to '80s punk legends the Misfits — which is probably where Boulder's the Widow's Bane got the idea. But here's the funny thing: While clearly drawing inspiration from the bleaker side of the human experience, the Widow's Bane plays a folk-based music full of minor-key waltzes and cobwebbed shanties. And, really, what's creepier: a grim reaper slinging an electric guitar, or one squeezing an accordion?

Best Show Completely Enshrouded in Fog

Sunn O)))

Avant-garde metal band Sunn O))) finally came to Denver and played a packed house at the Bluebird. Before the show, the stage crew filled the theater with a nearly impenetrable layer of fog; those lucky enough to make it to the foot of the stage could see the mighty Attila Csihar of Mayhem come on stage dressed alternately as a wizard and as a tree spirit while the band, shrouded in robes like Lovecraftian sorcerers, laid down crushing, cavernously dark riffs from beyond the walls of sleep. But everyone could hear Csihar's utterly unearthly, soul-shaking vocalizations. And long after the music ended, the fog continued to roll down the street.

Best Place to Learn to Be a Rock Star

Mike Marchant's Songwriting Workshop

Evan Semón

Mike Marchant is a ridiculous talent as a songwriter, guitarist and general gangly badass. Fortunately for the rest of us, he's willing to share, both as a member of umpteen Denver bands, including Houses and Widowers, and as the host of a songwriting workshop at the Meadowlark. Every other Monday, Marchant leads an informal conversation about the making of music. Ideas are sussed, music is played, and higher levels of understanding are reached. We're not sure what his plans are for the future — the dude's busy — but it's a novel concept and a humble donation of time from one of the city's best artists, regardless.

Best New Club

Casselman's Bar & Venue

In the year since Adam and Andrew Ranes opened Casselman's Bar & Venue, it's gone from a 9,000-square-foot space with a lot of potential to an outstanding, multi-use venue that's equally inviting whether it's being used for live music or corporate events. While the back room, which was a distribution warehouse for the May Company in the '40s and '50s, used to sound a bit boomy, a new sound system has done wonders for the place. So has the talent-buying team of Caddy Cadwell and Samantha Hanson, who are gradually ramping up the caliber of national acts coming to Casselman's.

Best Restaurant for Seeing Local Musicians

City, O' City

Hunter Stevens

Being in a rock-and-roll band typically doesn't pay the bills, and it seems like half of Denver's musicians earn their keep at either City, O' City or its sister restaurant, WaterCourse. And those who don't work here come here, anyway: Chella Negro has a song called "City O'," in honor of her time at this restaurant. We're not sure if it's the lack of meat, the inspirational quotes on the chalkboard above the bar or the Girl Scout cookies, but something about Denver's greenest hangout attracts some of its best creative types.

Best Performance by Colorado in a Film

Crested Butte, Avatar

We know what you're thinking: Avatar didn't take place in Crested Butte, it was set on some far-off mystery planet that exists only in the computers used to animate it! That's true. But as University of Colorado teacher and Crested Butte resident David Rothman points out, there are enough coincidences between the movie's plot and the town's history to make a conspiracy buff's head swim: In both, a uniquely beautiful natural wonderland is threatened by attempts to extract rare, precious resources and saved by a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Oh, and director James Cameron has a home in the Butte. It's enough for us — and a lot more believable as conspiracies go than alien encampments under Denver International Airport.

Best Language Lovers' Meetings

Word Nerds, Fresh City Life

There are nerds, and then there are all the subsets of nerds: comic-book geeks, music freaks, LARPers and word nerds, of course, which is why the Denver Public Library's Fresh City Life program has devoted the last Wednesday of every month to epic throwdowns of the Scrabble variety. From 5 to 8 p.m. at Novo Coffee, word lovers can try their hands at any number of language-based games provided by Fresh City Life — but if you have your own, bring it along! Prizes — gift certificates from Novo, Mad Greens and Mad Wine Bar — are awarded each month for the top nerds. Start practicing that triple-word-score strategy!

Best Museum Shop

Denver Art Museum

Courtesy Denver Art Museum

Perhaps the most successful space in the controversial Frederic C. Hamilton Building is the new Denver Art Museum shop built into the formerly bleak and cavernous lobby. Roth Sheppard Architects, one of the city's most distinguished firms, did an undeniably brilliant job of using all those dramatic glass and canted walls — and then the museum did an equally commendable job of filling the shop with an incredible inventory. It includes not only a big assortment of arty gift items and jewelry, but also a vast selection of books that makes it the best art-book store in the state. The Hamilton's interior is clearly a work in progress, but with the installation of this new gift shop, it's off to a good start.

Best Historic Art Show -- Group

100+ Years of Colorado Art, Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities

Over the past several years, Hugh Grant, the founder of Denver's Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, has been enthusiastically collecting art by historic Colorado artists; in the process, he's turned his institution into the principal depository of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by the state's impressive roster of artists. Not only that, but he's become Colorado's most important cheerleader for our prominent place in American art. He recently cemented this high ranking with 100+ Years of Colorado Art, a two-floor show of first-rate pieces that he put together for the Arvada Center.

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