Best Country Recording 2001 | Always Say Please and Thank YouSlim Cessna's Auto Club | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Country Recording

Always Say Please and Thank You
Slim Cessna's Auto Club

Thanks to the beneficence of former Boulderite Jello Biafra -- the onetime leader of the Dead Kennedys who created the Alternative Tentacles label -- Slim Cessna finally got the opportunity to display his eccentric take on country to a sizable audience beyond these parts. And he's made the most of it. Always Say Please and Thank You is frequently hilarious -- check out the timeless stomp "Last Song About Satan" -- but never at the expense of C&W verities.

Best Avant-Garde Recording

Scream of Consciousness
Mike O'Neill

Intimate solo-guitar improvisation filtered through casually chaotic sleight of hand (you know -- the induced vertigo from digital delays, ebos and assorted effects-laden gewgaws) is too easy a description for Mike O'Neill's impressive Scream of Consciousness. Scratch deeper and you'll discover methodically disarranged classical pieces, spiffy one-liners, and explorations into looped-based environments with all the distortion of a funhouse mirror. Amusingly titled cuts such as "Cupid's Gymnasium," "Shit-canned" and "Effing the Ineffable" hint toward prog-minded excursions -- something not entirely surprising given O'Neill's alumni status in Boulder's confounding quartet. Instrument Panel. Available through saxophonist Jack Wright's home page, www.springgardenmusic.com, Scream covers all of the basic food groups and then some. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll scream.

Best New Novel

Kissing the Virgin's Mouth
Donna Gershten

Before she moved to Colorado, Donna Gershten ran a health club in Mexico -- and she put that experience to good use in Kissing the Virgin's Mouth. Her haunting, lyrical novel won not only raves from critics, but also the first $10,000 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, established by Barbara Kingsolver when the best-selling author was feeling flush and decided to do her bit to help out other authors. "This is the kind of book you inhale in one breath and can't forget afterward," Kingsolver says of Gershten's work. Mexico's loss is our gain.

Best Theater for Younger Audiences

...And Now Miguel

Jim Hughes and Will Graveman's musical, ...And Now Miguel, examined an adolescent boy's agony in wondering whether anyone else understands what it's like to feel like an adult and be treated like a child. Thanks to Tony Garcia's astute direction, the joint production of Denver's El Centro Su Teatro and the Arvada Center successfully delivered that message to audiences of teens and preteens. Hushed silence greeted the leading character when he crooned, "Grownups can do whatever they want, but for me, life is different." And not a soul looked bored when Miguel offered the refrain "I can't express the feelings in my heart that come easily/ Being Miguel is not easy to be." It was a valuable reminder that plays can illustrate what parents and politicians sometimes can't.

Best Place for an Afternoon Coffee Klatch

Mayan Theatre

Three words: atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. Sure, you might be able to get a bigger selection of fancy java drinks at Starbucks, but can you drink your skinny caramel macchiato with sprinkles in a locale imbued with such genuine art-deco flair? Arrive early at the Mayan Theatre, buy some tickets for the 4:30 show, and head up to the second floor, where you can drink your cuppa joe at a cozy, tucked-away table. The jolt of pre-movie caffeine is sure to keep your eyelids from drooping during even the most slow-moving French art flick.

Best Uncategorizable Recording

Carnival Detournement
Hamster Theatre

What began as a creative outlet for multi-instrumentalist Dave Willey has turned into a real band -- and a unique one, at that. Carnival Detournement (Cuneiform) is a cornucopia of jazz, art rock and Eastern European folk music that's at once endlessly intriguing and unexpectedly accessible.

Best Living Book

1933

Randal Myler and Brockman Seawell's adaptation of onetime Boulder resident John Fanté's novella 1933 Was a Bad Year entranced from start to finish. That's mostly because Myler, who also directed 1933, staged the play with near-cinematic fluidity. He was aided by an ever-shifting backdrop of photographic montages: Vintage Boulder neighborhoods were suggested by contemporary snapshots that had been digitally sanitized to make each locale look as it did seventy years ago. The overall effect was largely one of an unbroken, almost symphonic backward glance -- peppered with bursts of hijinks -- at the forces that shaped a young man's destiny.

Best Bluegrass Vocalist

Bradford Lee Folk

Bradford Lee Folk's voice is the musical equivalent of Rogaine, a hormone-rich wonder that raises the hair on the head, neck and everywhere else. One of many highlights in his stellar acoustic group, Open Road, Folk sings pre-country music with ache, anger and appreciation for his forebears. His ghostly, coal-dusted voice is high lonesome in the flesh.

Best Perfect Change

The cast of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change

An outstanding quartet of local actors drove beyond the shortcomings of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change to offer up an insightful, sometimes hilarious look at America's love-hate relationship with dating games. Whether they were dovetailing in four-part harmony, pairing off in warring/cooing duets or going it alone during a few gratifying solos, Mark Devine, Jordan Leigh Gurner, Elizabeth Rose and Gina Schuh-Turner exuded a winning combination of artistry, timing and humanity. Best of all, they ushered in a welcome change in area casting trends, proving that local talent can bring as much -- if not more -- to the Denver Center's stages than most any assemblage of ringers.

Best Street Promotion Team

3Deep Presents

3Deep Presents, which started in 1992 as a mobile DJ unit on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, consistently brings some of the best hip-hop music to town. In the past year, the crew promoted the DMC Technics Regional DJ championships at the Fox Theatre. And in conjunction with House of Blues Concerts -- where founders Francois Baptiste and Alvin LaCabe now work -- the company co-produced and laid down the street promotion for such rap luminaries as Method Man and Redman, Common, and the Cash Money Millionaires. 3Deep has also given props to local artists such as DJ Chonz, Don Blas and Kingdom, who have all opened up for a number of the Deep's shows. Area hip-hop heads know that 3Deep events are bound to be banging.

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