Under A Blood Red Sky

Tuesday, August 21st: It was a wild, surreal way to get hitched. In front of a sold out audience (9,000 people) at Red Rocks, sandwiched between two sets of the U2 tribute band Under a Blood Red Sky and the smash hit film “Wedding Crashers”, Christine Alducin and Brian Rouse pledged their undying love for one another, slipped rings on each other’s fingers, and united themselves in holy matrimony. Read on …

Floral Hair

Saturday, August 11th: Vain Salon, owned by the flamboyantly tattooed Tina McKeever, hosted an evening of hair culture and art on Saturday night. Models with wild floral hairstyles walked around with Jello shots for the attendees while paintings by Pedro Saldarriaga were on exhibit for the edification of the masses. Read on …

The Bare Essentials

Saturday, August 11th: It was well past midnight. I had been drinking since early afternoon, my flash was beginning to die, and my ears were ringing from being too close to the speakers. Happy beyond words, I had just gluttonously feasted upon a small sample of Denver’s underground music scene: Born in the Flood, Cowboy Curse, The Swayback, Vonnegut, Laylights, Hot IQs, and Black Lamb. And then Machine Gun Blues revved up their engine at the 3 Kings Tavern and went into lunatic overdrive: long hair flying, balls to the wall, good ol’ fashioned rock ‘n roll that had you begging for more. Where the hell was I? At the 7th annual Underground Music Showcase—a rapidly expanding, South by Southwest style music festival of over 80 bands, 12 DJs, and a motley collection of comedians and MCs—which howled into life at 1pm on Saturday under the steady hand of Ricardo Baca, the Denver Post’s pop music critic. Read on …

His Widow

August 1st, 2007: The room was packed with aging hippies critical of the Bush Administration and young kids giggling whenever drugs were mentioned. They kept asking, “What would Hunter think….” (of this or that). His widow, Anita Thompson, author of The Gonzo Way: A Celebration of Dr Hunter S. Thompson, fielded the questions as best she could, but they wanted more. They wanted to see their thin, balding anti-hero once again, hear his gravelly voice rushing in machine gun bursts of raw, unedited turns of phrase, revel in his critique of modern American life. The ghost of Hunter Stockton Thompson was in the room. Read on …