Hit Pick

With a third album, Deep Throat, in production, the members of Nixon Grin are proving that they don’t really care if much of Denver snubs them. The four-piece began playing up and down the Front Range in 1999, bringing its pop sensibility and solid, radio-ready tunes to stages of varying sizes. Four years later, original members Chris Kooman and Australia native Rod Dupen have joined with Alex “Skinny” Winkler and Chris “G-Dub” Gartenmann to create music from a hodgepodge of influences. Easy on both the eyes and the ears, Kooman and Dupen were approached to pose for a local beefcake calendar last year, but the band’s steady, danceable beats are its most alluring element. Everyone will be smiling when Nixon Grin opens for Dada at the Gothic Theatre on Friday, May 2.