Comedic birthing pool

Upright Citizens Brigade incubates top talent and the accompanying laughter

Putting comedy within anyone’s reach has been one of the goals of the Upright Citizens Brigade, a comedy troupe that enjoyed a run on Comedy Central from 1998 to 2000 and now operates theaters in Los Angeles and New York that have served as stepping stones for many comedic actors and writers. The company also tours the nation, putting on comedy shows coast-to-coast.

Scratching an itch

Devil’s Thumb takes on ‘Bug’

It’s not often that one has the opportunity to see psychological horror played out on stage. Pratfalls and buffoonery abound. Studies in tragedy crop up weekly. Musical theater is so prevalent that it has become its own sub-genre. But plays devoted to the terrors that come from within one’s own mind are few and far between.

F-this

Kate Clinton will get you to do more than laugh it off

You don’t have to look much beyond the title of comedian Kate Clinton’s latest show to get her take on the state of the world. In “All Fracked Up,” Clinton cranks through woes of the modern world like fracking (of course), global weirding and Republicans.

It has a wealthy dowager in it

What more needs be said?

In a world brimming with so much cynicism, now more than ever people occasionally need the kind of charming, guileless sentimentality offered up by shows like The Drowsy Chaperone. Though it first hit Broadway in 2006, aside from its meta-structure The Drowsy Chaperone feels like it could easily be a product of the Jazz Age.

Musical anarchy

The tall task of setting Emma Goldman’s life and philosophies to music

One of Emma Goldman's speeches supposedly inspired the assassination of President William McKinley. What better subject for a musical?

Black Friday for record shops

Boulder music stores gear up for Record Store Day

In the age of the Internet, buying an album is about as personal as checking the weather. Gone are the days of awaiting the next release of your favorite band before buying a copy at your local music store and popping a copy into your player at home.

The man, the myth, the legend

Tribute to Johnny Cash hits all the right notes

Though they were incredibly gifted performers whose music still resonates and whose influences remain readily apparent today, you don’t see bumper stickers reading, “God Bless Janis Joplin.” Or Jimi Hendrix. Or Frank Sinatra. Or Dean Martin. The only such bumper sticker you ever see is, “God Bless Johnny Cash,” and you don’t just see it on beat-up, old pickup trucks.

Women are beautiful, naturally

Garry Winogrand’s photographs capture women as they were

The Denver Art Museum (DAM) has assembled 50 photos from its permanent collection of Winogrand images — about half of what it has in its archives and a fraction of the photos Winogrand took on the subject — for the exhibit Garry Winogrand: Women are Beautiful.

If it ain’t broke, don’t tinker with it

Roger Ebert’s CWA legacy lives on

Starting in 1975, Roger Ebert began a rather novel idea for a film series, which he called “Cinema Interruptus.” Screen the film on day one, and on days two through five, screen the film again, but allow any audience member to stop the film (by yelling “Stop!”) and begin a discussion.

He came, he saw, he kvetched

Cantankerous curmudgeon comically cudgels citizenry

Originally produced in 1939 and since adapted for radio, television and the big screen, The Man Who Came to Dinner has proven itself deserving of the label “classic.” Yet, until now, I have never seen it live on stage, so I want to give a great, big “Thank you!” to the Longmont Theatre Company for bringing George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s comic crucible to Boulder County.

Astrology | Week of May 24, 2012

“My soul is a fire that suffers if it doesn’t burn,” says Jean Prevost, a writer and hero of the French Resistance during World War II. “I need three or four cubic feet of new ideas every day, as a steamboat needs coal.” Your soul may not be quite as blazing as his, Aries, and you may normally be able to get along fine with just a few cubic inches of new ideas per day. But I expect that in the next three to four weeks, you will both need and yearn to generate Prevost-type levels of heat and light. Please make sure you’re getting a steady supply of the necessary fuel.

Astrology | Week of May 17, 2012

the spell of a bewitching passion that rivets your focus. I disagree with that view. It may be true that you’re better able than the other signs to be objective about your fixations. But that doesn’t necessarily dilute the intensity you feel when they rise up and captivate your imagination with the force of a thousand love songs.

Astrology | Week of May 10, 2012

According to my understanding of the astrological omens, you have a sacred duty to cultivate more slack as if your dreams depended on it. (They do!).

Astrology | Week of May 3, 2012

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY AUDIO HOROSCOPES and DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877- 873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700..

Astrology | Week of April 26, 2012

SAGITTARIUS NOV. 22-DEC. 21:.

Astrology | Week of April 19, 2012

I nominate you to start the trend, Virgo. You’re the best choice, since your tribe, of all the signs of the zodiac, will most likely have the wildest rides and most intriguing adventures in the coming weeks..

Astrology | Week of April 12, 2012

MARCH 21-APRIL 19:.

Astrology | Week of April 05, 2012

Maybe we have more slack in our quest for intimacy if we love but are not obsessed..

Astrology l Week of March 29, 2012

“Go to the worst crimeinfested place you can find. Go heavily armed, wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up shop in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are there to help them, and in the loudest voice possible yell that every Crip and Blood within hearing distance is a PANSY.

Astrology l Week of March 22, 2012

that you’ve gone a long way toward outgrowing the dark fairy tale that had been haunting your dreams for so long? And yet all this may just be a warm-up for your next metamorphosis, in which you make an audacious new commitment to becoming what you really.

Evil Cheesey rides again

Local filmmakers to produce documentary about Boulder daredevil

Now, two filmmakers hope to remind Boulder of the mythical man who still garners attention and fond memories from fans today. Chris Leising, a 26-year-old University of Colorado Boulder alum with a film degree, and 36-year-old Jack Hanley, currently completing his master’s in English, have taken on the task of bringing local Boulder history to life with their upcoming documentary Evil Cheesey Rides Again.

Cheer up with the blues

Taj Mahal is crown jewel in this year’s Summit lineup

When the second incarnation of the Boulder Roots & Blues Summit kicks off this weekend at the Boulder Theater and Fox Theatre, audiences will be able to take their pick from a smorgasbord of musical delights.

Different recipe, same great taste

Leftover Salmon shakes off the freezer burn and returns from hiatus

The band (which at this point consisted of Emmitt, Herman, Vann, accordion player Gerry Cavagnaro, drummer Michael Wooten and bassist Rob Galloway) plays the cover pretty faithfully for the first couple of verses. Then, suddenly, the drums cut out and Herman starts a spoken-word creed filled with local imagery, delivering a tale of.

Sensitivity problems

The Fray frontman Isaac Slade is still figuring himself out

The band that rode to platinum-selling success on the song “How to Save a Life” could now write a song about how the Muppets may have saved a band.

Scents for a woman

Yves Saint Laurent retrospective comes to life with perfume pairing

Artwork in museums is usually meant to be seen and not touched, not tasted and not smelled. But the Denver Art Museum is partnering with local perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz to organize an event that turns that notion on its head.

Electronic community

Art bridges cultural divides at Communikey Festival

As Communikey approaches its fifth year as a festival and its eighth year as an organization, founder, creative and managing director Kate Lesta is in disbelief over how the electronic music scene has changed in the past decade.

Dance rock

Ballet Nouveau Colorado presents an unlikely mix of ballet and rock ’n’ roll

In a dance studio in an industrial section of Broomfield, the dancers of Ballet Nouveau Colorado, decked in casual athletic clothes, are performing to the wall-length mirror inside the studio. The music of David Bowie blares through speakers, and the room is as much filled with glam rock as it is with the breathing of the winded dancers.

My kingdom for some Shakespeare

IFS devotes week to films inspired by the bard

Whether it has robots, high school politics or rival gangs dance fighting — film adaptations of William Shakespeare’s beloved plays vary across all genres. And this week, the International Film Series is bringing you a taste of the variety with a week of Shakespeare on film.

Flee!

Europe has no taste for the subtle nuances of Gwar

We were recently granted audience with Oderous Urungus from GWAR’s Slave Pit headquarters in Richmond, Va. Urungus had not long before announced that the European leg of their latest assault had been whacked (out of fear, presumably). We asked if there was a sense of letdown in the Swarm.

Swamp thing

Moreland and Arbuckle the outlook

Dustin Arbuckle’s year is still young, but if the guy at the recent New Brunswick, N.J., gig is any indicator, he may want to plan for longer set lists.

Elton John Cancels Three Concerts After Hospitalization

Elton John is canceling three Las Vegas performances on doctors' orders after being hospitalized with a respiratory infection.

Kevin Costner on His 'Fearless' Life, Family and Returning to the Spotlight

Call it the softening of Kevin Costner. When asked about his new History miniseries, Hatfields & McCoys, the actor steers the conversation to a discussion of the grueling 85-day shoot in Romania and how the protracted absence from home took its toll.

Kanye West Debuts Short Film 'Cruel Summer' at Cannes

Kanye West premiered his much-discussed short film/art installation Cruel Summer at the Cannes Film Festival last night. Starring Kid Cudi as a car thief who falls in love with a blind Arabian princess, the clip is the project he was reportedly working on in the Middle East in February. The film's cast also includes Razane Jammal, Pusha T, Big Sean, Palestinian actor Ali Suliman, Aziz Ansari and West himself.

Kanye West, the Throne, Beyonce Lead BET Awards Nominations

BET Awards viewers will be watching the Throne. Kanye West and Jay-Z's collaboration has five nominations at this year's ceremony, including Best Group, Best Collaboration and two nominations for Video of the Year ("N***as in Paris" and "Otis"). (West earned solo nominations for Best Director and Best Collaboration, giving him seven overall nods.)

Mark Cuban's Reinvented Cable Channel Will Be All About Live Programming

Mark Cuban has sold a company for a billion dollars, won championships with the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and shown his business acumen on ABC’s Shark Tank, but the cable TV channel he launched in 2001, HDNet, hasn’t grown as he hoped in audience, profits, programming or carriage on cable systems.

Beastie Boys Ad-Rock and Mike D Speak Out for First Time Since MCA's Death

Beastie Boys Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz expressed their immense grief over the loss of bandmate Adam "MCA" Yauch in online statements days after the musician and filmmaker's death on May 4, but the surviving members of the group have shared more specific memories of living and working with their friend of three decades in the new issue of Rolling Stone. Asked to explain where Yauch, who died at age 47 after a three-year fight with salivary gland cancer, fit into their creative process, both men say MCA was the force that challenged them to experiment and see things from different perspectives.

Hip Hop Hall of Fame Finds NYC Home

Organizers say the Hip Hop Hall of Fame Museum has found a home in midtown Manhattan.

Jay-Z announces lineup for Budweiser festival in Philly: Pearl Jam, Skrillex, Odd Future, and more

Philadelphia has more than Bruce Springsteen concerts to look forward this summer. As previously announced, the Jay-Z-curated Budweiser Made In America festival in Philly is on for Labor Day Weekend (Sept. 1-2), and today the lineup’s been released.

Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' Unveiled by Harvey Weinstein

What would American slaves have called a Quarter Pounder with cheese? The first footage from Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained doesn’t answer that question. But in many ways, the ten minutes of brief scenes – first unveiled Monday to a gathering of journalists at the Majestic Hotel in Cannes – suggested that the movie, which the Weinstein Company will release Dec. 25, will be quintessential Tarantino.

Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb dies at age 62

Robin Gibb, who along with his brothers Maurice and Barry made up the Bee Gees, has died at age 62, according to a statement from his spokesperson which cited Gibb’s “long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery.” Gibb reportedly spent a week in a coma last month, after announcing he’d been fighting colon and liver cancer in an article in the London newspaper the Daily Mail.

Psyching out the rock

Jane’s Addiction’s new musical styling the result of collaboration

Farrell didn’t spell out exactly how Jane’s Addiction will achieve this immersive concert experience, but he said there will be a film component to the show and a specific look that he described as “1920s surrealist twist mixed with a ’60s Warhol pop.”

Prodigal Child

CU grad Pat Grossi brings Active Child to the Larimer Lounge

It’d be a bit of a stretch to find contemporary points of reference to adequately qualify Pat Grossi’s music; we’ll go out on a limb to suggest a club-tempered melding of Jimmy Somerville-meets-Andrea Vollenweider at a trip-hop rave, and if that sounds improbable, well, that’s about the best we can do.

A titanic composition

MahlerFest takes the stage to perform composer’s epic Second Symphony

Robert Olson remembers the first time he conducted Mahler’s Second Symphony. “When you get to conduct your first Second, it’s like your first love,” he says. “You never forget it.” Olson, artistic director and conductor of the Colorado MahlerFest, will be reunited with the Second Symphony on Saturday, May 19, and Sunday, May 20, in Macky Auditorium, conducting the unforgettable score as part of this year’s festival.

The future is black

Denver hip-hop trio BLKHRTS creates its own genre

The Denver hip-hop trio BLKHRTS is seeing that some people are having a hard time trying to classify the type of music they make. The music is dark and aggressive and influenced by industrial and punk rock like Joy Division and The Misfits. The trio, which consists of Yonnas Abraham, King FOE and Karma tha Voice, dress in all black, give menacing looks from the stage, and when the music drops, go crazy. One writer called their style “goth rap.”

Ghosts of blues past

Otis Taylor’s latest album leaves you among the spirits of the past

That’s not a coat that Otis Taylor is wearing on the cover of his latest CD, Contraband, released on Telarc a couple of months ago. Not a Sasquatch costume, not a blaxploitation set piece. “It’s a rug!” Taylor explained to us last week. “They threw it on top of me; it was still too dirty.

Celebrating women in classical music

Pro Music Colorado devotes program to telling ‘The Women’s Story’

Cynthia Katsarelis, director of Pro Music Colorado Chamber Orchestra, is a storyteller. “I kind of believe that music is always telling some kind of story, even if it’s an abstract story,” she says.

From grades to the Gothic

A closer look at ‘Best of Boulder’ winner Hatrick Penry

Balancing high school, extracurriculars and college prep is hard enough — until you throw in band practice, late shows and planning a tour. But somehow, the members of Hatrick Penry can do it all.

Todd Snider’s bipolar spring

Politics and tribute discs on this year’s agenda for singer-songwriter

Our rationale goes something like this: Hey, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and USA Today have already lauded Todd Snider’s Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables, the songwriter’s none-too-subtle screed against the current trickledown angst consuming an American public being prepped for four years as Mitt Romney’s pool boy, so we took the opportunity to quiz the songwriter instead on his soon-to-be-released Jerry Jeff Walker tribute CD, Time As We Know It.

Cracking wise

Das Racist breaks ankles with wicked intellectual crossovers

You might call them “culture warriors,” though you won’t find them armed with Bibles and picket signs. They’re not even that angry. New York rap trio Das Racist are more hipster wise-alecks battling mediocrity in witty verses lined in hip slang and carpeted with pop culture sediment.

Angular music

Boulder Phil and Takács jam a lot into concert season finale

The Boulder Philharmonic’s season finale concert has more unusual angles than a geometry textbook. And fortunately for Boulder’s classical music audiences, they are all positive.

Event calendar | Week of May 24, 2012

City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks open house on the evaluation of the Voice and Sight Tag Program.

Arts | Week of May 24, 2012

Allegory — photos by S. Gayle Stevens. The Center for Fine Art Photography, Art Center of Fort Collins, 400 N. College Ave., 970-224-1010. Through June 30.

Words | Week of May 24, 2012

Birds of Paradise — by Diana Abu-Jaber. Tattered Cover Book Store, 2526 East Colfax Ave., Denver, 303- 322-7727.Series, 1907 24th Ave., Longmont, 303- 518-6740..

Theater | Week of May 24, 2012

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will..

Kids Calendar | Week of May 24, 2012

Bilingual Spanish/English Storytime/ Hora de Cuentos Bilingües.

Event calendar | Week of May 17, 2012

Words In Flight. 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the St Julien Hotel

Arts | Week of May 17, 2012

Anne Evans: Colorado’s Cultural Visionary — Photographs, sculptures and the original writings and paintings of one of the leaders of Denver’s cultural development at the Byers-Evans House Museum.

Kids Calendar | Week of May 17, 2012

P’zazz Children’s Choir and Dynamix Singers. 7 p.m. Friday at the Broomfield Auditorium

Words | Week of May 17, 2012

Let the Birds Drink in Peace — by Robert McBrearty. 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Boulder Book Store

Theater | Week of May 17, 2012

Bug. Devil’s Thumb Productions at The Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, 303-250-8177. Through June 2.

REVIEW: Technicolor Tone Factory at the Fox Theatre

The first week of school can be rough, as students are only half-awake from the slumber of winter break. When nary a soul was at the Fox Theatre when the doors opened for Boulder group Technicolor Ton

SLIDESHOW: Infamous Stringdusters at the Fox Theatre

Photographer Jeremy Williams was at the Infamous Stringdusters concert last night. Check it out. 

The House of Marley’s headphones bring Positive Vibration

With the music industry clamoring to find ways to make money, the artists themselves are using their names to brand a variety of products. As of late, headphones have been all the rage. Thanks to Dr. Dre and his line of Beats by Dre headphones, other artists like 50 Cent, Ludacris and RZA have all jumped in to cash-in on the craze.

SLIDESHOW: Winter Dew Tour in Breckenridge

December 15-18 brought some of the best winter athletes to Breckenridge to compete in the Winter Dew Tour, a three-stop competition. Boulder Weekly's Dane Cronin was there and took some sweet picture

Powerbag keeps you powered up

We now live in an era where we carry an abundance of portable electronic devices on us. Whether it’s a phone, a camera, an iPod, tablet computer or some other device, we find the need to stay connected and powered up. But what if the battery of your iPad is at 10 percent or your smart phone’s battery indicator is in the red and there are no available outlets to power up?

SLIDESHOW: Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart signs autographs in Boulder

Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart met with and greeted fans at PosterScene on Friday, Dec. 9. Check out Susan France's photos of the event below.

REVIEW: Eliot Lipp at the Fox Theatre, Dec. 7

For those who didn’t sweat the end of another semester, last night’s Fox show was a really good local showcase of mid-tempo get-low beats helmed by respected downtempo maestro Eliot Lipp.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 says this is World War 3

The drama surrounding Modern Warfare development studio Infinity Ward and former studio heads' beef with their bosses at Activision, and ultimately the firing of the studio heads, had fans questioning if the quality of the "Call of Duty" spinoff would suffer. But with the game breaking sales records by selling 6.5 million copies of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" within 24 hours of it being released, the back story apparently didn’t matter. The Call of Duty franchise has cemented itself as an unmovable bastion of the video game world similar to Mario, Madden and Zelda. And "Modern Warfare 3" backs it all up.

SLIDESHOW: Big Head Todd and the Monsters at eTown

Dane Cronin snapped photos at the Big Head Todd and the Monsters show last night at the Boulder Theater. Check them out and wish you had been there.

CD review: "Exits & All The Rest" by Girl in a Coma

If you gave Girl in a Coma’s new CD, Exits & All The Rest to 10 different people, you’d likely receive in return 10 different opinions about which established female vocalist lead sing