Over the years, Ocean View Books (the press relocated from the West Coast in the mid 1990s, thus the name) has published a series of volumes on the history of Colorado art. The two-person operation — Lee Ballentine is the designer; his wife, Jennifer MacGregor, is the editor — has…
You know the cows are coming home when normally sleek and sultry local entertainer Lannie Garrett pulls on her cowgirl outfit and emerges as Patsy DeCline, a country singer who’s never going to make it to the Grand Ole Opry. On Friday and Saturday nights through May 5, the popular…
In an unprecedented collaboration between the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Performing Arts Complex, the outdoor exhibit Joel Shapiro was presented on DPAC’s lawn on Speer Boulevard; an additional piece has been placed in front of the DAM. The traveling show, which was put together by New York curator…
Rather than let a shrinking market for live music and shriveling pay end his career, Trace Christensen rolled with the changes. He’s now replaced bandmates with his own pre-recorded tracks, taking his one-man karaoke company into area clubs. As one musician playing the parts of four or five headbangers, Christensen’s…
Vertical Garden was the best of three solo exhibits mounted this past winter that showcased the most recent work of Lakewood sculptor Chuck Parson. An apparent workaholic, Parson created two complete environments for this show along with a group of related sculptures, all of which attempted to put a human…
Clark ov Saturn was a multifaceted contributor to Denver’s scene before his 1999 move to New York City. His local-access cable show — one teaching German, no less — never seemed to get in the way of his ambient DJ gigs or the touring schedule of his techno/industrial unit, ph-10…
The Robischon Gallery usually offers museum-quality shows, but few have matched Robert Motherwell: Early Drawings, which came down in early March. The late modern master was represented by some of his signature action paintings on paper as well as several examples of his later, and equally fine, color-field pieces. Many…
It’s been a rocky start for the still-fledgling Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver: During the last few years, the museum has had two permanent directors and an interim one. Now a third permanent director has been hired: Cydney Payton, who rescued Boulder’s Museum of Contemporary Art from obscurity during her glorious…
Denver-based songwriter Mark Ledwig first penned Permanent Teeth as a classroom tool: An elementary-school teacher in Los Angeles, he knew his catchy numbers might help bilingual students comprehend such things as punctuation, the alphabet, multiplication and environmentalism. But after hauling some of his professional musician friends into the studio and…
The time commitment required to see all of The Kentucky Cycle didn’t deter area theatergoers from sampling Robert Schenkkan’s nine-play, six-hour epic. Even though the evening could have easily degenerated into a Roots-length version of the old Daniel Boone television series, director Jeremy Cole staged the saga with economy, passion…
A longtime member of Hot Rize and a well-liked member of the local music scene, Charles Sawtelle died in 1999 at age 52. But he touched a great many people while he was here, as Charles Sawtelle: Music From Rancho deVille (Acoustic Disc) amply demonstrates. Guest appearances by acoustic artisans…
The World Horror Convention 2000, held last May in Denver, wasn’t for people with propellers whirling on their beanies; it was a feast for professional writers of horror. According to organizer Ed Bryant, generally accepted as the Colorado godfather of the genre, about 300 of the 500 people attending the…
Tucked away on a side street just a block from the 16th Street Mall, the Bovine Metropolis Theatre is a gem of a performance space, where comedy troupes like the Acme Comedy Players and the SansScript Players regularly bring out the laughs. Audiences can expect everything from improvisation to cleverly…
United Artists’ vast, fifteen-house multiplex on the teeming 16th Street Mall may not be the most pleasing edifice, architecturally speaking, but when the lights go down and the credits come up, moviegoers can revel in every postmodern comfort: sculpted, well-cushioned seats arranged in the steeply canted, viewer-friendly “stadium” style, convenient…
Technically, the Cherry Bomb Club never really went away. But the release of last year’s self-titled album on DivineShaker Records cast the collective — which counts prestigious Denver music alumni, including members of the Warlock Pinchers and Foreskin 500, among its members — in an exciting new light. Full of…
A lesser director might have turned Flyin’ West into a hiss-filled potboiler. But in director Jeffrey Nickelson’s capable hands, Pearl Cleage’s play became an expansive ode to courage, self-determination and the price of freedom. Despite the dramatist’s frank treatment of the subject of domestic abuse, the play was hardly a…
The man behind Boulder’s Starkland Records continues to put out some of the county’s most intriguing avant-garde CDs, and now Tom Steenland has branched out into a new medium: immersion. Starkland’s first DVD turns the spotlight on worthy performers such as Paul Dresher, Pamela Z, Meredith Monk and Denver veteran…
Although most people equate LoDo more with baseball than bands, Frank Schultz and his team at the Soiled Dove have been presenting living, breathing music almost every night of the week in a high-end setting. The venue’s music calendar has received a considerable boost from former Herman’s Hideaway booking manager…
Despite the hefty ticket prices, D’Angelo and his band, the Soultronics, put on a blazing show that quickly had the many pretty thangs in attendance rushing the stage and dancing in the aisles. With the lights dimmed low, the Virginia-bred funkster unleashed his smooth, soulful grooves on a stage that…
Now in its second year, the Pan African Film Festival is coming into its own as a significant cultural resource. More than fifty movies from black filmmakers all over the world will be screened this year, ranging from shorts to features to documentaries to works in progress. The festival, which…
It isn’t often that local audiences get the chance to spend extended periods of time in the company of actors capable of commanding any stage in the English-speaking world. This past fall, though, Royal Shakespearean Greg Hicks treated Denver to a nine-hour-long display of consummate skill. Hicks led the Tantalus…
Where’s Lucius Nunn when you need him? Back in 1891, the Telluride resident electrified the world when he and some colleagues built the first industrial hydropower plant (the Ames Plant) to produce alternating current. Two years later, the country’s energy industry was revolutionized when Nunn and Nicolas Tesla exhibited their…
