Best Place to Get Your Jam On

Originally more of a jazz-oriented setup, Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey has hopped branches and now embraces the jam nation with equal enthusiasm. Though images of Miles Davis and John Coltrane have been replaced by shots of Warren Haynes and Bob Weir, the overall vibe remains the same: mellow, welcoming and dedicated…

Best Gay Club

Club Evolution opened last year in the building that was once home to Muddy’s but looked wrecking-ball-worthy in recent years. Fresh from a floor-to-ceiling overhaul, the place is now a gorgeous, two-story jewel of a club with an intriguing split personality. During the day, the upper level welcomes a wi-fi…

Best Large Venue

Sure, it’s pain a for Denver dwellers to drive to Boulder to see a show. But the Fox Theatre makes it impossible not to. Over the past year, the venue has begun snagging a ridiculous amount of noteworthy acts from nearly every sliver of the spectrum: jam, soul, reggae, blues,…

Best Small Venue

There’s no doubt about it: When it comes to booking the best national acts, the Larimer Lounge consistently beats every venue in town. Sometimes, though, the club’s intimacy has worked against it — especially when bands are way too big, in terms of both popularity and sheer size, to fit…

Best All-Ages Venue

All-ages venues have had a spotty history in Denver — mostly due to outmoded liquor laws that make it prohibitive for clubs to admit teens and still serve that rent-paying alcohol. Though Rock Island has long hosted sixteen-and-up dance nights, the club’s kiddie offerings got a boost when Mike Barsch…

Best New Club (Since March 2004)

Before an enormous black-and-white mural of Johnny Cash graced the east-facing facade of Bender’s 13th Avenue Tavern, the run-down, windowless structure was home to a string of short-lived hip-hop and goth-oriented night spots: Tongues Untied, Club Onyx and Club 314. Enter Tyson Murray, upright-bassist for local country powerhouse the Railbenders,…

Best Jukebox

Nothing sucks more than getting drunk to crappy music. But at Capitol Hill mainstay Gabor’s, there are no worries: The bar’s jukebox is stocked with a passel of discs that make the firewater slide down all the easier. From the twang of Patsy Cline and Neil Young to the shiver…

Cut-Ups

The art world is constantly searching out fresh material, which is why there’s always interest in talented artists in their twenties. But another way to come across stuff that’s new is to rediscover artists who’ve been out of sight for a long time — people who are typically in their…

Artbeat

In the center spaces of the Sandy Carson Gallery (760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585), director William Biety has installed Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend: Mixed Media, a display of oddball, multi-part pieces made of offbeat materials. The show doesn’t really go with the Jeff Wenzel feature installed across the front of the gallery…

Now Showing

BOCTOK. Steve Antonio is not a former Soviet artist, although his large paintings at Capsule, the gallery part of Pod, might make you think he is one, since these neo-pop compositions depict the first generation of Soviet cosmonauts. The little room at Capsule looks great and is perfectly filled by…

Man, Oh, Man

When I first saw publicity for The Testosterone Monologues at the PS Grille (now PS 1515), I imagined some guy playing with his penis — literally or metaphorically — in a nasty, smoky joint. Surprise number one: PS 1515 is a nice place, well-appointed, shiny wood fittings, roses on the…

Examining 9/11

It takes time for major historic events to find expression in art (a serious body of literature about the Vietnam War didn’t emerge until almost a decade after the peace treaty was signed), and it seems to me that playwrights are just beginning to feel their way into the topic…

Encore

Always…Patsy Cline. Always Patsy Cline is a light, mildly entertaining evening. You get an efficiently evocative set that’s divided into three parts: a down-home apartment; an old-fashioned country bar, complete with jukebox; and, in the center, the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. There are two skilled singer-performers, one of…

Mad About It

The Upside of Anger belongs to Joan Allen, who plays Terry Wolfmeyer, a wife abandoned by her husband and left to pick up the pieces and collect them in a giant bottle of vodka. Terry’s is the cold, composed visage of a woman struggling to keep it together; through her…

Finder’s Fee

Damian Cunningham has the face of an angel — calm, cool blue eyes perched above freckled cheeks and a benevolent grin — which is only appropriate for a seven-year-old boy who speaks with the late, great saints, among them Peter, Joseph, Claire and, of course, Francis of Assisi. Damian sees…

Losing Steam

Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy will be released nationwide in both subtitled and dubbed versions. At the press screening, both were shown simultaneously in neighboring theaters, leaving reviewers to choose which one to see. This critic went with the subtitled cut, not purely for reasons of cinematic snobbery, but mostly because the…

Ghost and the Machine

The Ring, Gore Verbinski’s 2002 remake of Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, offered sufficient closure, so it didn’t exactly demand a sequel. The horror lay in wondering why a mysterious videotape kills viewers seven days after they watch it; to a lesser extent, there was the mystery of the creepy girl, face…

Flick Pick

The heroine of Alain Corneau’s culture-clash comedy Fear and Trembling (2003) is a Japanese-born Belgian career girl, Amélie (the always-animated Sylvie Testud), who pursues her goal of becoming “a real Japanese” by submitting to a series of hideous chores — including endless photolcopying and bathroom work — even though she’s…

Soap Star

You could never call Thaddeus Phillips boring. The New York-based East High and Colorado College grad has become the toast of the fringe-theater crowd, and he’s done it all by his lonesome, with little more than a healthy imagination and a knapsack full of props that come to life in…

This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, March 17 You won’t find a better St. Paddy’s Day party in town than tonight’s Green Tie Event, a benefit gala for the Metro Community Provider Network, Family Tree and Helen’s Hope, hosted in the Irish spirit by former district attorneys Dave Thomas, Bill Ritter, Jim Peters and Bob…

Buzzy Blues

“Popular music, and especially blues- influenced music, has been a really important venue for women to express their wilder side,” says Boulder-based author Buzzy Jackson. “Unfortunately, they do pay a price for it. It’s not an easy road to go down.” Evidence of this contention can be found on practically…

Talking Shop

Most mothers of small children know the score: They shyly finger the racks at Oilily or April Cornell, purposely ignoring the price tags and, well, dreaming. Because unless they’ve got hundreds of bucks to throw away on a gorgeous ensemble their kid will outgrow next month, they know they’ve got…