It’s been five years since the X-ecutioners released Revolutions, and six years since the DJ collective last toured North America on the Scratch tour. In other words, this old-school turntablist crew is long overdue for another town-to-town live showcase of talents. Formerly known as the X-Men (the members changed their…
This is the beginning of what could be called “Rex Ray Days” in Denver. Tonight he’s the guest of honor at the opening of his eponymous solo at Gallery T; tomorrow evening, there’s a reception at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, where he’s taking over the Promenade Space. Rex…
Assuming the weather holds — and since we live in Colorado, you never can tell — this could be just the day to play hooky from work and loll about at the Denver Botanic Gardens, 1005 York Street, where delicate winter hellebores will be blooming, and cheerful daffodils and other…
The morning after playing a party for his high-school graduation, Josh “Reverend” Peyton woke up with severe pain in his hands. Doctors thought that Peyton, who had been playing guitar for five years, would never play again. “For almost two years, I didn’t play,” Peyton notes. “I ended up having…
My personal history of Colorado skiing stretches back almost fifty years, to the days when my parents would leave their children at home with a babysitter in suburban Chicago, in order to hop first on the Denver Zephyr, then the Yampa Valley Mail, changing their clothes in a railcar filled…
There might be something familiar about the all-local cast and recognizable backdrops in Ink, a new independent feature by Denver filmmaker Jamin Winans of Double Edge Films, which premieres today at the Starz FilmCenter. But from that point on, the film diverges into a fantastical world: The key characters –…
The story is well known in art circles and taught to students in art schools. Fifty to sixty years ago, a group of painters in New York began to develop the first truly American style of art: abstract expressionism. As a result of their efforts, for the first time ever,…
Girls Only. The trouble with Girls Only, a two-woman evening of conversation, skits, singing, improvisation and audience participation, is that it’s so relentlessly nice. Creator-performers Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein have worked together for many years; at some point, they read their early diaries to each other and were transfixed…
Throughout his career, director Akira Kurosawa regularly brought his distinctively Eastern vision to Western cinematic elements, with fascinating results. But whereas Kurosawa’s best-known films, including 1950’s Rashomon and 1961’s Yojimbo, tend to be set in a medieval Japan strode by samurai, 1963’s High and Low is a contemporary crime tale,…
The most eagerly anticipated (as well as the most beleaguered) movie of the year, Watchmen is neither desecratory disaster nor total triumph. In filming David Hayter and Alex Tse’s adaptation of the most ambitious superhero comic book ever written, director Zack Snyder has managed to address the cult while pandering…
Ary Stillman. Singer gallery director Simon Zalkind is a brilliant curator who has made the humble Mizel Arts & Culture Center an important destination for art lovers. Being a Jewish institution, the Singer often features shows devoted to the efforts of Jewish artists, and that’s the case with Ary Stillman:…
Good bowlers, bad bowlers and just plain ugly bowlers will gather tonight for the fifth annual Concerts for Kids Bowl-A-Thon, where anyone can win. In fact, in this tournament, even the team with the absolute worst gutter-ballers can take home the Gold Trophy of the Pink Pin if team members…
Matthew Dear is one of the most exciting things to happen to dance music in a long, long time. Under his own name, he’s released a series of pop-inflected electronic albums full of excellent songs and clever beats and is gaining a reputation as a top-notch live performer. Under aliases…
Vampires versus zombies ranks highly in the spectrum of inherently awesome ideas, and local author Mario Acevedo does a fine job with this can’t-miss premise in Jailbait Zombie, the latest Felix Gomez novel. It’s the fourth outing for Gomez, Acevedo’s vampire private-eye protagonist. Like Acevedo himself, Gomez is a combat…
Throughout his career, director Akira Kurosawa regularly brought his distinctively Eastern vision to Western cinematic elements, with fascinating results. But whereas Kurosawa’s best-known films, including 1950’s Rashomon and 1961’s Yojimbo, tend to be set in a medieval Japan strode by samurai, 1963’s High and Low is a contemporary crime tale,…
Danyl Cook was first inspired to paint trees on a trip to Italy, but it’s the trees in the parks of Denver that move him emotionally and creatively. “I can’t stop looking at them,” says Cook, who volunteers with the Parks and People Partnership, part of Denver’s Parks and Recreation…
The stars of the National Lacrosse League will convene in Denver this weekend for the NLL All-Star Game. This is the second time that the league, which has been around for more than twenty years, has hosted the game in Denver, home of the Colorado Mammoth. Last time, in 2004,…
Some folks just have to go retro. That’s the MO for one local filmmaker, John Hartman of Reel Groovy Films, who, after two years of shooting, is ready to release his latest, Reel-Illusionary Zone. Only it’s not the HD-slick, digitally perfect darling you might expect from an emerging director. Instead,…
I am a hopeless artist. Sure, I can draw a stick figure — but that about covers the extent of my artistic ability. And when it comes to drawing something that no one in living memory has ever set eyes on, I’m completely at a loss. Clearly, I’m no James…
You probably best know Dave Flomberg — our colleague and competitor at the late Rocky Mountain News, where he followed the nightlife beat — from his public face. But, to use his own term (and one borrowed from newspaper lingo), the “below the fold” Flomberg is a little more remote,…
Scott Walker is one of the great unsung heroes of modern music. His career spans forty years, from his quasi-boy-band origins to his eventual emergence as an avant-garde icon. His long and storied career is thoroughly and entertainingly documented in Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, a biopic from director Stephen…
The line between controlling and participating in the process of creating art is a fine one that artist Homare Ikeda has quietly mastered: His ability to go with the flow and let his abstracted images take him to new places daily is both extraordinary and inspirational to his students, whom…
