Denver Blog

There are two ways to enjoy Buntport Theater's Teacher's Pet, which is probably the most unusual open mike you'll ever attend: You can sit back and watch, only to wield your thumbs up or down at the end of the evening, or you can take the stage for a carefully meted five minutes of soul-searching on a theme, during which you can tell a story in whatever way you choose.

Buntporters like to call the evening, which rotates on third Tuesdays throughout the year with Pecha Kucha and Buntport Versus, show-and-tell with homework. Tonight, said theme is "Brush with Fame" (surprise encounters with "celebrity"). We all have at least one.

So what's it gonna be? Will you bare your soul and compete for the top prize? If so, arrive early at 7:30 p.m. to sign up for your five-minute slot and brace yourself. If not, the show starts at 8 p.m., hosted, with antics, by Buntport funny folks Erin Rollman and Brian Colonna. Buntport Theater is at 717 Lipan Street; admission is $4 to $6, determined by a roll of the dice. For details visit Buntport online or call 720-946-1388.

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Feeling down in the dumps, all cooped up at work on a Monday when the sun is shining and the trees are green? Yeah. Where did the weekend go? But salvation can be found in the foothills north of Boulder tonight, in the trimmed-down form of naughty roots-music belter Candye Kane, who's back on the road after a battle with cancer that left her more than 100 pounds lighter yet still full of life. Plus, there's truly no better place on the Front Range to see this hard-luck advocate of the human undertow than at Oscar Blues, 303 Main Street in Lyons. Its big, greasy roadhouse ambience will easily make this show way more than you bargained for: filled to the brim with up-close raunch, roll and crowd-pleasing double entendre.

The somewhat less-voluptuous Kane will wrap her voice around tunes from an upcoming CD, Superhero (her ninth), beginning tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10; visit Oskar Blues online or call 303-823-6685 for concert information. In the meantime, check out Kane's website for information on how to order her Therapeutic Bra Pillow, a home accessory like no other, each created from an undergarment guaranteed to have been worn by Kane herself. Whoa.

And if you miss out tonight, Ms. Kane will reprise her performance on Wednesday, May 20, at the Boulder Outlook Hotel; tix there are $15. Call 303-443-3322.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

There's just not anything better than a Steve Earle concert, except maybe a free Steve Earle concert. That'll be the ticket at Twist & Shout, when Earle arrives at 6 p.m. for a free performance promoting his new fifteen-song CD Townes, a musical tribute to the late singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt, who was a key figure and mentor in Earle's own development as an artist. Though the album's guest list -- which includes Rage Against the Machinist Tom Morello, Tim O'Brien and Earle's own kid, Justin Townes Earle, with his obvious middle name -- won't be along for the ride, Earle by his lonesome, sitting on an incendiary set of music, is sure to be a treat.

Expect a tight squeeze and a mad rush for the precious wristband that will admit you to this event. To get yours, drop by Twist & Shout, 2508 E. Colfax Avenue, and preorder Townes in advance; you'll even get a free promo poster for your trouble. And don't worry: If it's not in your stars to be there, KBCO FM 97.3 will broadcast the in-store live, you lucky dog. Log on to Twist & Shout's site or call 303-722-1943 for details.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

Mark Obmascik.

Back in 2002, Mark Obmascik, part of the Denver Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, took a year off in order to write a book about, of all things, bird-watching -- and the slower pace agreed with him. "In journalism, we do things by the hour," he said at the time. "But a book is timed by the calendar -- which is nice for a change."

Looks like the change agreed with him. After the success of his birding tome, The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, he's returned to the first-person book form with Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled -- and Knuckleheaded -- Quest for the Rocky Mountain High, in which he writes about scaling all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks in less than a year's time. The results could have been a grim slog, but Obmascik ladles on plenty of humor. Indeed, one reviewer admits that a certain passage caused her to laugh so hard that he "blew beer out of my nose." Bet Tolstoy never got an endorsement like that.

Obmascik talks about Halfway to Heaven at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Tattered Cover's LoDo branch, 1628 16th Street. There's no charge for admission. To learn more, phone 303-436-1070 or visit this page at TatteredCover.com.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

No less than an all-out love affair between British comedy and the Great White Way, Monty Python's Spamalot pairs a plot blatantly (and with blessings) stolen by Eric Idle and Mike Nichols from the screenplay for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with music and lyrics by Idle and John Du Prez. And the result, we all know by now, is a stunning, hysterical, delightfully daft and utterly loony Tony Award-winning cult classic that continues to leave audiences crying in the aisles with laughter, whether or not they first filed into the theater as diehard Monty Python fanatics who know already every line from every routine by heart.

This is not-to-miss musical comedy at its best, so if you haven't yet had the pleasure, you have five fabulous days to follow through: The Spamalot road show, starring actor John O'Hurley of Seinfeld and Dancing with the Stars fame as King Arthur, opens tonight at 8 p.m. at the Buell Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Center, for a seven-performance run through Sunday, May 17. We think you should, at all costs, try to beg, borrow or steal a ticket before the side-splitting show packs up its rusty suits of armor and clanks out of town.

Visit the Denver Center website or call 303-893-4100 for tickets; admission prices start at $30.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

When's the last time you had a laugh-out-loud good time in an art museum? Like, never? That will all change when a show that brings out the Three Stooges in all of us opens tonight in the Project Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver. Denver artist Jim Green's sound-art installation, Unplugged, might sound like a perfectly serious venture beforehand. But what you'll find there are six interactive gadgets that emit what Green calls "an exuberant mix of contrasting rhythms constructed from the signature 'flarp' of the Whoopee Cushion" when pressed. And considering that this all comes from the same artist who created the Denver Art Museum's "Singing Sinks" and the "Laughing Escalator" at the Colorado Convention Center, it all begins to make perfect sense.

Green invites you to pull his figurative finger at a reception tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. On a more serious note, You're Not My Father, an installation by Dallas video artist Paul Slocum that makes a lo-fi statement, also opens tonight in the Lu and Chris Law New Media Gallery, for a run through June 28. Green's cushions will be making Whoopee at the museum, 1485 Delgany Street, through August 30. Log on to MCA's website or call 303-298-7554 to get more information.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

One supposes it would be tough to pin down an artist as diverse in style as Peter Coffin, an internationally known master of multi-media whose work plays out in every form, from video to sculpture. But the Aspen Art Museum did: Coffin served as the museum's second Jane and Marc Nathanson Distinguished Artist in Residence, creating a body of work that's anything but stodgy. Of course, we'd expect nothing less from a guy who last year built a 24-foot wide UFO studded with hundreds of flashing LED lights in Gdansk, Poland.

Coffin's well-subsidized show, which opens today, includes a human-scaled nest-in-progress inspired by the male Australian Bowerbird's predilection for building nests lined with blue objects (viewers are invited to add their own blue items and hang out in the nest throughout the run of the show); another gallery is ringed with a series of tri-colored Rothko-esque prints in psychedelic hues. The works will remain on view at AAM, 590 N. Mill Street, Aspen, through July 24, and a reception with the artist takes place on July 16.

Find more information at the AAM website or call 1-970-925-8050,

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

You haven't really experienced skateboarding until you've seen downhill skateboarding, a breakneck extreme sport requiring special longboards that are built more for speed than fancy skateboard tricks. And it takes a special kind of athlete to pilot one -- in particular, one who's addicted to adrenaline and probably has some right gnarly tattoos. But since more than fifty of these hard-headed nut-cases will be flocking to Colorado from across the U.S. and Canada, you're welcome to a front-row seat for the action during this weekend's Buffalo Bill Downhill on Lookout Mountain in Golden.

Beginning Saturday, May 9, at 10 a.m., boarders will test the tilted twists and turns on the paved Lookout Mountain Road track during freeriding and practice runs until 4 p.m.; promoters suggest that it will be the best opportunity to chat up the pros for tips and autographs. The real racing then begins at 10 a.m. Sunday, until around 2 p.m., when the prize-passing commences. Parking will be available along South Lookout Mountain Road via the Western Lariat Loop road and spectating is free. Go to www.bbdownhill.com for detailed directions and information.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

There's no shop-till-you-drop affair more time-honored in the metro area than the annual Ladies Only Sample Tour, which began several years ago in Historic Downtown Littleton and spread more recently to fellow Original Shopping Districts member neighborhoods. It's a sweet idea, wherein local independent merchants band together to offer free samples, goodies, coupons and more during an evening stroll with a breezy $12.50 price tag.

This year's tour gets underway today from 4 to 8 p.m. in four districts -- Olde Towne Arvada, Historic Downtown Golden, Historic Downtown Littleton and Old South Pearl Street -- with dozens of retailers and restaurants participating in various ways. For instance, Pearl Street's two 5 Green Boxes stores, respectively at 1596 S. Pearl Street and 1705 S. Pearl Street, will host a Triple Trunk Show of locally made jewelry at the former and free sampling of World Cuisine recipe packets at the latter. But the only way to find out what else is in store as the afternoon rolls into evening is to purchase an invitation packet, which are available only in limited quantities, from your favorite participating merchant.

Don't miss out: Get a complete listing, rules and regulations, and information on the happenings in each district at the LOST website.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.

It's not hard to fall under the spell of that psychedelic-poster show currently wrecking the walls at the Denver Art Museum. The Victor Moscosos alone brought me to my knees they're so trippy -- but let's not belittle the rest of the artists on display there. Included among them is Stanley Mouse, who, with fellow poster-genius Alton Kelley, created that beautiful Jim Kweskin/Big Brother Mucha rip-off in blazing orange and magenta and an iconic Grateful Dead skull-and-roses poster, among other classic images.

Can't get enough? Then stroll a block or so south of the museum and set your sights on Michele Mosko Fine Art, 136 W. 12th Avenue, where Art Rocks!, a perfect companion to the DAM's The Psychedelic Experience, opens tonight with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Mouse, whose work will hang alongside vintage '60s rock photography by Amalie R. Rothchild, will be at the gallery. So make an evening of it by stopping in before or after Psychedelic Experience curator Darrin Alfred offers a behind-the-scenes look into the museum exhibit from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the DAM, 100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway, as part of an ongoing Conversation Lounge Series. Call 720-913-0059 for reservations.

Art Rocks! continues at Michele Mosko Fine Art through August 1; a separate reception with Rothchild is planned for a date in July. Go to www.michelemoskofineart.com or call 303-534-5433 for information.

For more ways to rock the night and kill the day, go to westword.com/calendar.