On keyboardist Wayne Horvitz’s 2006 Gravitas Quartet album, there’s a song called “One Morton” – the address of the rehearsal studio that Horvitz and his wife, singer Robin Holcomb, rented when they first moved to New York. For several years at the end of the ’70s, some of downtown’s avant-garde…
If you’re happy with your Bud Light, then more power to you. But if you’re interested in the rise of craft breweries across the county over the years and ways that these small businesses battled mega-brewers for shelf space, then check out Beer Wars, a documentary airing simultaneously in 440…
Peter Ustinov once called comedy a “funny way of being serious,” and that certainly holds true for the stylings of D.L. Hughley, a comedian who gained superstar status after the 2000 release of The Original Kings of Comedy. Hughley has written and acted in a variety of productions, hosting D.L…
There’s a lot of great Jewish comedy in this country, which Susannah Perlman discovered while performing comedy/music acts of her own. “I kept on running into really wonderful acts — comedy and music, spoken-word, burlesque — and I kept coming across really wonderful women, who happened to be Jewish, who…
There are few forms of folk music more soulful than Fado (fado means “fate” in Portuguese), in which a vocalist is backed by two guitarists, one traditional and one classical, to create a people’s music full of melancholic symbolism and saudade, or longing. Fado has fallen in and out of…
National Poetry Month is for everyone, and so is El Centro Su Teatro’s tenth annual Neruda Poetry Festival, which begins today, smack dab in the middle of the nation’s bardish celebration of metered, arranged, improvised and performed verbiage. And you’ll enjoy some of each during this three-day event, kicking off…
Metropolitan State College of Denver is not just one of the city’s major institutions of higher learning; it’s also the state’s largest art school. The most obvious evidence of this focus is the college’s Center for Visual Art in LoDo. This multi-gallery venue has distinguished itself as one of the…
Damien Hirst. You’d have to be living under a rock — or have absolutely no interest in contemporary art — not to know that Damien Hirst is a superstar, and that everything he makes is worth millions of dollars apiece. The tight solo at MCA Denver (formerly known as the…
Eurydice. Playwright Sarah Ruhl has created her own magical, eccentric, gutsy and entirely original interpretation of the Orpheus-Eurydice myth, one in which the Lord of the Underworld is a comic-fearful shape-changer, ruling over a place populated by people of stone; Eurydice’s father, already dead, longs for her from the Underworld…
Even the finest documentarians need great material — and filmmaker Kevin Rafferty’s got plenty of it in Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, which begins a week-long run on Friday, April 10, at Starz. Both teams were unbeaten going into this 1968 game, which took place against the backdrop of campus unrest…
Observe and Report writer-director Jody Hill makes mean-spirited tragedies that studios market as inane comedies because otherwise no one would pay a cent to see them. That’s more or less what happened to Hill’s The Foot Fist Way in 2008, two years after its Sundance twirl first caught the attention…
A Prayer for Owen Meany begins with John Wheelwright alone on stage remembering Owen Meany, the friend whose life and actions caused him to become a Christian. As a child, John lived with his charming, flirtatious mother, Tabitha, and his grandmother; all he knew of his father was that Tabitha…
In David Cronenberg’s hallucinatory masterpiece, Videodrome, you are what you watch. Working simultaneously as horror, science fiction and media commentary, the film tells the story of mercenary TV executive Max Renn’s encounter with a brutal television program, the shadowy cabal that’s producing it and the bizarre changes that watching it…
If noshing on some gluten-based seitan buffalo wings or sipping a vegan chocolate shake sounds nutritious, delicious and earth-friendly, then head down to today’s Denver VegFest and Health Expo presented by the Vegetarian Society of Colorado. “The Society’s focus is on three areas: health, sustainability and compassion,” says CJ Eliassen,…
One of Colorado’s greatest charms is its mountain festivals. I don’t care if it’s wine or beer or chili: Give me a tasting cup, live music, a couple of booths and some snowcapped peaks in the background, and I’m a happy girl. Throw in a little sunshine and a few…
There is probably no more recognizable deity in the Hindu pantheon than the elephant-headed Ganesh, also known as Ganesha, Ganesa, Ganapati, Vinayaka and Pillaiyar. He fills many roles for Hindu practitioners: lord and remover of obstacles, god of beginnings, patron of arts and sciences, intellect and wisdom. Ganesh is given…
Get ready for a DJ battle like no other as Denver’s top DJs square off and switch styles. Swap Meet will pair trance and house DJs with drum-and-bass and dubstep DJs who will then exchange record bags and try to spin a freestyle set without rehearsal or preparation. For added…
Two years ago, the Colorado Rockies came close to taking home Major League Baseball’s biggest prize, but they lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox. Bad luck, guys. Last year the Rockies didn’t come nearly as close to eternal glory; instead, the Philadelphia Phillies won the Series for…
Once upon a time, there was a musical about an English man and his wife living in colonial Africa with his mother-in-law, their small boy and an African servant. But this is where it gets weird: A man plays the wife, a girl plays the small boy, and a white…
At its best, April means perfect bike-riding weather: neither too hot nor too cold, with budding trees, singing birds and sprouting bulbs all around. The bikeways green up, and everyone’s wearing a smile under their helmets. This month’s Second Saturday Block Party on the 3100 block of East Colfax will…
Everything is going to the dogs these days, but in some cases, that’s not a bad thing, especially when those dogs are suffering, whether they be homeless, mistreated or stricken with cancer. The Bow Wow Buddies Foundation, a non-profit arm of the Camp Bow Wow doggie daycare chain, is dedicated…
Quick: “Pretty Flamingo.” Manfred Mann. “Over, Under, Sideways, Down?” Yardbirds, dude. “Cucumber Castle.” The Bee Gees, before they were, you know, the Bee Gees. “As Tears Go By.” Marianne Faithfull, before she became strung out and bitter. And, yes, the Stones, who wrote it, did it, too. Which one did…
