Colorado Literary Happenings
Denver Library Celebrates 50th Anniversary of “On The Road”
The Denver Public Library is gearing up for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of beat icon Jack Kerouac's most famous book, On The Road. The centerpiece of the festivities will be a display of the On The Road scroll in the Central Denver Public Library from January through March. According to a press release, the library will exhibit "the original 120-foot scroll on which Kerouac wrote his first typewritten draft of On The Road." The book is significant for Denver because a good portion of it takes place here, where Kerouac meets up with pal Neal Cassady, who is called Dean Moriarty in On The Road. [more]
Web Happenings
Arts & Culture Web RoundupThis week marks the one-year anniversary of the Tattered Cover's podcast service, Authors On Tour-Live! According to a press release, "more than 100,000 of its free podcasts have been downloaded by book lovers around the country."
The Center of the American West launched its new website this week. The updated site isn't totally completed yet, but it does offer free downloads of documents and reports on such topics as "Abandoned Mine Remediation" and "Boom/Bust Economy." Fans of scholar Patricia Limerick should check out her piece, "Patty's Pedestrian Diet."
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art offers an online gallery tour and history lesson on its website. Patrons can download the tracks onto their own iPod, or borrow an iPod at the museum to listen to the commentary as they stroll the galleries.
Finally, congratulations are in order for Nick Urata and his band, DeVotchKa. The soundtrack to the film Little Miss Sunshine that they composed is up for a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack. Those of us who have been Urata fans since his days fronting The Reejers in the late '90s in Boulder are delighted. While fellow Colorado Grammy nominee The Fray enjoyed virtually overnight success, Urata has been toiling away at his unique music for decades, and is finally reaping the rewards.
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Colorado Environmental Writers
New Anthology Celebrates the Poudre River
Pulse of the River: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre is a new collection of essays, poetry, and fiction about Colorado's Cache la Poudre river. In their introduction, editors Gary Wockner and Laura Pritchett, who had previously worked together on the anthology Comeback Wolves, write about how they found the river "bone dry" one day as they hiked together. "Three large dam-and-reservoir projects are in the works," they write, "that will take ever more of the Poudre's flow and divert it out of the main channel toward the unquenchable thirst of its users." The writers whose work is collected in Pulse of the River are passionate advocates of the Poudre's preservation, and many describe through poetry and prose how the river has sustained and healed them, physically and emotionally.
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Local Music Sound Off
Jonah Werner’s “Sweet Relief”
Colorado-raised Jonah Werner is a singer-songwriter now based in Texas. He's released four albums and tours extensively, often playing in non-traditional venues such as churches. Werner has offered New West readers a track from his new CD. Click here to listen to Jonah Werner's "Sweet Relief."
Jonah Werner will headline the Boulder Theater on Wednesday, September 13 to celebrate the release of his fifth album. Trace Bundy and Katie Herzig will open. Tickets are $10-$12, and the show starts at 8 p.m.
Local Music Sound Off
The Motet’s “Them Or Us”
Nederland is gearing up for this weekend's NedFest at Barker Reservoir, a three-day jam band, world beat, and bluegrass extravaganza that has been going strong for eight years now. This year's lineup features Dr. John, the Sam Bush Band, Melvin Seals, and of course, The Motet, the Boulder group that has been playing NedFest since the beginning. The jammy world beat band, led by drummer Dave Watts, has a new CD out, Instrumental Dissent, and a busy schedule of fall performances.
The Motet has offered New West readers an MP3 to tide them over until the NedFest performance. Click here to listen to "Them or Us."
The Minders were a key part of Denver's lo-fi indie pop scene for several years as a member of the Elephant Six Collective that included such similar-minded bands as Denver's The Apples In Stereo and the Athens, GA group Of Montreal. Frontman Martyn Leaper and drummer Rebecca Cole moved the band to Portland in the late '90s, and have endured several lineup changes since then, but The Minders have regrouped this summer to release their first full-length in three years, It's a Bright and Guilty World on Future Farmer Records.
The Minders have offered New West readers a track from the new album. Click here to listen to The Minders' "Don't You Stop."
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New West Book Review
A Review of “Colorado Curiosities” by Pam Grout
Colorado Curiosities
by Pam Grout
Globe Pequot Press, 275 pages, $13.95
Colorado Curiosities, which hit bookstores last month, is the latest entry in the burgeoning group of travel guides to roadside attractions and unusual sights--besides the Insiders' Guide Curiosities series, there's also the Oddball series, with a Colorado book that came out a few years back, and the Weird series, which hasn't issued a Colorado volume yet. It's amazing there's enough local color left in this rapidly homogenizing country to fuel so many publications. I've lived in Colorado all of my sentient life, and so I wondered if Colorado Curiosities would contain any information that would surprise me. The answer is not really--we all know about Nederland's Frozen Dead Guy Days and Fruita's annual celebration of Mike the Headless Chicken by now. But Colorado Curiosites is still interesting to skim through for more in-depth stories behind familiar attractions, and would come in handy for amusement on road trips across the state.
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Western Independent Presses
An Interview with Matthew Davis of Ghost Road Press
In 2004, Colorado natives Matthew Davis and Sonya Unrein founded Ghost Road Press, an independent press based in Denver. Now the press is flourishing, annually publishing a variety of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction titles, many of which are written by Western authors. Matthew Davis recently discussed the history and future of Ghost Road Press in an email interview. [more]
Local Music Sound Off
Everything Absent Or Distorted’s “Closer Than You Think Pt. 1”This Friday's local MP3 features Everything Absent Or Distorted, an up-and-coming Denver indie rock band that will celebrate the release of its first EP on Friday, August 12 at the HI-Dive (9 p.m., $7). The disc, titled The Soft Civil War will be the second release on local label Needlepoint Records. Everything Absent Or Distorted is currently cultivating its mystery, releasing only distorted photos and fanciful bio on its website and MySpace page, but the band did make public its own manifesto, which begins, "I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum."
EAOD has offered New West readers a track from the new EP. Click here to listen to "Closer Than You Think Pt. 1."
Local Music Sound Off
Matthew Moon’s “It’s Alright”
Colorado-raised Matthew Moon spent many years honing his catchy pop tunes on Denver stages and releasing three full-length albums before his recent move to Venice, California. Local fans will have a number of opportunities to catch the Matthew Moon Band's live show in August, beginning with a 7 p.m. appearance at the Rock Bottom Summer Concert Series in Denver on Friday, August 4, and including an August 11 show at Soiled Dove Underground (10 p.m.).
Moon has offered New West readers a track from his 2002 album, I Thought You Should Know. Click here to listen to "It's Alright."
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