You know that sinking feeling you get when you realize the group of people behind you in the darkened movie theater will not stop talking for the next two hours? There are very few movies that can quiet that kind of people. “The Place Beyond The Pines” is one of them.

Directed and written by Derek Cianfrance of “Blue Valentine” prestige, “Pines” is not a movie you can text and talk through.  The movie is set up as a triptych film, no doubt inspired by Cianfrance’s time studying under famous avant-garde filmmakers Stan Brakhage and Phil Solomon of the CU film studies department. This triptych formation never allowed the film to grow stale, even over its two hour and 20 minute span.

Ryan Gosling stars as Luke in Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines, a Focus Features release. (Courtesy Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features)

Due to this three-movies-in-one kind of plot, it’s a hard film to explain content-wise. Overall, the film is about fathers and sons, family legacy, actions and consequences and the emotional baggage that stems from those consequences. The first section of the movie centers on heavily tattooed Luke Glanton, a traveling motorcycle stuntman who begins robbing banks to support his newborn son, played by Ryan Gosling. Ever the quiet, brooding type, Gosling fits the character perfectly – though his portrayal of Glanton never feels reminiscent of past roles.

However, it wasn’t Gosling that stole the show as the best actor. That renown goes to the supporting character of Robin, played by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn.  Though Mendelsohn has limited screen time, he becomes a thread connecting Luke, in the movie’s first section, to his son in the last. Out of all the other actors, Mendelsohn amazes by what he doesn’t do: act. Every word that comes out of Mendelsohn’s mouth is through the voice of Robin; not a single line feels scripted or performed. Perhaps most importantly, Robin becomes a character totally devoid of stereotypes. Despite the fact that it is Robin who first convinces Luke to rob banks, he never seems like a grand manipulator or even a criminal mastermind. He’s simply a guy trying to scrape by, who has a friend with what he calls a “unique skill set.”

Compared to the stellar acting from Mendelsohn, Gosling and Bradley Cooper, the movie’s final section falls a bit flat. It was an interesting choice to have the sons portrayed by little-known actors, compared to the star-studded cast of the movie’s beginning. Emory Cohen, playing A.J., the son of Avery (Cooper), speaks in a fake Brooklyn accent throughout the movie in order to appear thug. While a seemingly practical acting choice, the accent goes too far and mostly just makes you grit your teeth. When comparing the overly gangster A.J. to the overly pathetic Jason, son of Luke (Gosling), the dynamic of the pair becomes overpowering, each actor taking their characters just a bit too far.

The odd pair of sons at the movie’s end, however, is not enough to even tarnish the effect of the movie as a whole. The film is expertly crafted, and the extra homework that Cianfrance and his actors did shines through the script. The cast is stacked from major characters to minor: Ray Liotta, playing detective Deluca, is a particularly well-crafted cameo. In short, “The Place Beyond The Pines” has all the hallmarks of a real classic. I, personally, can’t wait to see what Cianfrance will come out with next.

“The Place Beyond The Pines” opened last Friday, April 5 in Colorado.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

Derek Cianfrance, director of “Blue Valentine” and graduate of the CU Film Studies Program, is a storyteller through and through. He has proven himself not only a capable director, but a gifted screenwriter for his newest movie, “The Place Beyond the Pines,” starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes.

Cianfrance has earned awards and nominations for his previous films, “Brother Tied” and “Blue Valentine,” including “Most Promising Filmmaker.” He sat down to talk with CU Independent‘s Sarah Elsea about Gosling’s face tattoo, shooting through Hurricane Irene and the underlying politics of his new movie.

You’ve said before that you encourage your actors to go off-script often, which can sometimes cause really intense emotional scenes. What was the hardest emotional scene to film in “Pines?”

The whole thing is very challenging because I write from a place of vulnerability. What I’m trying to do in a script is challenge my actors. All I want them to do is to make it alive. I’m trying to find the place where the acting stops and behavior begins.

Ryan called me a few months before we’d started shooting and he said, “Hey, D, how about the most tattoos in movie history? I want to get a face tattoo. It’s going to be a dagger, and it’s going to be dripping blood. Face tattoos are the coolest.”

I said, “Well, look, if I was your parent, I’d tell you, don’t get a face tattoo. But you’re the guy, you’ve got to be [Luke], do whatever you need to do.”

He showed up on set with all these temporary tattoos and a face tattoo. On the first day of filming, there was clearly something bothering him. At lunch time he says, ‘Hey, D, can I talk to you for a second? I think I went too far with the face tattoo. I’m regretting it. Can I take it off and just re-shoot everything?” I say, “Absolutely not. This film is about consequence. Now you have to live with your choices.”

All of a sudden this thing that he thought was cool wasn’t cool anymore. He was shamed by it.

There’s a scene in the script when he walks into this baptism and sees this other man up on stage at the pulpit with his [character’s] baby. Gosling’s supposed to go sit down and get enraged. I had the camera in the back of the church and I tell Ryan to come in and find a place to sit. Ryan walks in and he’s literally a marked man. He can’t just go sit down with everyone. We bring the camera in to close-up, and I notice that he’s trembling. He’s not getting enraged. There was this great shame flooding over him. All I want to do as his friend is shut the camera off and say, “It’s just pretend.” But, that’s what we’re there for — to find these moments where the acting stops and behavior begins.

Though “Pines” can’t be called a political film, it felt politically conscious. 

Courtesy: Focus Features

There are politics in the film, a lot of it in the way that it’s dealing with legacy and tribalism in America, how when you’re born on a certain side of the railroad tracks it’s very hard to be anything but that. Luke [Gosling’s character], for instance, he’s trash for anyone concerned. How is he ever going to provide for his son if he can only make $100 a week as a mechanic? He’s never going to move past that, so he has to make these bold choices that end up taking him out of his son’s life altogether.

Conversely, Avery [Cooper’s character] is a man who is born into a world of privilege, but he wants to be his own man, he wants to be a cop. But being a cop, he acts with too much ambition and he makes this one mistake. If he owns up to this mistake, there’s going to be a punishment. But he doesn’t want the punishment, so he lies about it. By lying about it, he preserves himself, but that punishment never goes away.

Self-preservation is often rewarded in this country. That’s how the elite stay elite, and how the poor stay poor.

You have mentioned that Hurricane Irene struck in the middle of production. When exactly did that happen and did it have any affect on the mood of the movie?

It was about six weeks in. It struck and I had to move my family out of the house we were living in. The house was buried fifteen feet underwater.

I had to rescue all my kids’ stuffed animals.

Our film truck was buried under water. My A/C [Assistant Camera] Ludovic Littee had to row out in a canoe and save the film stock from the truck. It devastated the town. The only positive that came from it is that we got a day off.

The stuff we shot the day before was these kids smoking weed and hanging out. It felt like there was a sense of a storm coming. It was a beautiful relationship but also this thing in the distance. Something happens after a hurricane that gives this green tint to the air. We all felt very mortal.

Like in “Blue Valentine,” this movie seems to be about more than just one individual. Would you say “Pines” is about a specific person?

No. It’s just about people. I want everyone to be as true as I can make them. I feel like, oftentimes, you’re bombarded with perfection on the screen. As I grew up, I started to feel really lonely watching these movies, wondering where do I fit in? Why isn’t my life like that? Why doesn’t my story wrap up that way? Instead of being taken by the fantasy, I felt betrayed. I made it my point to make movies that would be about people that weren’t perfect, because I didn’t know anyone that was perfect. I don’t know black and white, I know gray. I try to celebrate flaws, and humanity in the movies, even if it goes to the dark places.

“The Place Beyond the Pines” opens in theaters on April 12.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

Despite Boulder’s love of the color green, there aren’t many options for St. Patrick’s Day festivities around town. Having been named America’s 15^th drunkest city by Forbes,  you’d think Boulder would offer more options for a St. Patrick’s Day you’re sure to forget. Luckily, there are more than a couple options for you to show off that 1/8 Irish heritage you’re so proud of the whole year through.

Conor O’Neill’s 

Leave it to Boulder’s resident Irish Pub to get the party started—as early as 8 a.m. Boasting a line-up of Irish dancers and bagpipers all the livelong day, the live music starts at 2 p.m. with Trout Steak Revival. The party goes until they shut it down, but make sure you get there early—this bar is the hottest spot in Boulder for a St. Patrick’s celebration.

Lazy Dog Sports Bar & Grill

After some setbacks during Super Bowl season, the Lazy Dog is back in business and ready to cater to all your green-beer-soaked needs with drink specials and St. Patrick’s Day events all weekend.  The celebration kicks off Friday night with Smack Thompson and continues through Sunday night.

The West End Tavern 

Boulder’s West End Tavern is going green for St. Pat’s as well. The WET is offering a whole bar’s worth of Irish favorites, such as seven Irish beers on tap and drink specials for both Bushmill and Jameson. If you’re hungry, they’re also offering some delicious Irish meals like Bangers & Mash, Corned Beef & Cabbage and Shepherd’s Pie. Stop by at 1 or 7 p.m. to check out the Irish Dancers.

Denver’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade

If you feel like heading over to Denver, be sure to check out the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Saturday. The parade, a Denver tradition that began in the 1800s, spans over ten blocks and starts at 10 a.m. If you’re looking to stick around after the parade ends, there are plenty of Irish pubs nearby to grab a bite to eat and a drink.

If you’re feeling extra daring, you can always check out an infamous CU mega-party (read: riot) that’s been known to happen on St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Erin go bragh!

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu

If you were one of the many “Ned-heads” that showed up to the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival on Friday night, you would have been greeted with a primal scream from Queen Sluti, lead vocalist of Nederland’s own hip-hop outfit, Powerlung Rangers: “May you all have a lot of good sex and smoke a lot of good weed!”

The Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, which started 3 p.m. Friday and continues on through Sunday night, is a hodge podge of death-themed athletic events, funky music, tasty food trucks and microbrews.

Amanda MacDonald, this year’s event coordinator, called the festival a “winter Mardi Gras.”

“It’s just a bunch of people being goofy in the middle of winter and bracing [against] the cold, turning that cold, dark time into something fun,” MacDonald said. ”It’s a celebration of life.”

The story behind Frozen Dead Guy Days is an odd one. The Frozen Dead Guy, Bredo Morstoel, affectionately known to Nederlanders as “Grandpa,” died in Norway in the late 1980s. His body was packed in dry ice and moved to California by his daughter and grandson. After four years in a California cryonic facility, he was moved again to Nederland, Colorado. Trygve Bauge, the grandson, was deported in 1994 due to an expired visa. His mother, Aud Morstel, was evicted soon after. It was only once Morstel wondered aloud to a reporter “what would happen to the bodies” that Grandpa was discovered. His body still rests in Nederland to this day.

Though the festival might be frozen, it’s a lot livelier than Grandpa. With events ranging from the Coffin Races to the Frozen Salmon Toss, there is no downtime to be found at Frozen Dead Guy Days.

[Show as slideshow]

The music schedule is stacked from 11 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. in two main tents, with more other various acts playing many local bars and restaurants. If Friday night was any indicator of the festival’s dedication to good music, then the rest of the festival will have something for everyone.

Following the “dirty sexy / x-rated” hip-hop stylings of Powerlung Rangers came Rocktin Grove, a massive seven-piece band self-described as “funkabilly new-grass.”

“We love Nederland,” said saxophonist Garrett Cropsey. “Frozen Dead Guy Days is a great festival. It has a lot of local prominence.”

Mandolinist Jon Kimbell agreed. “[Nederland] has the ability to carry bands. Their fans in Ned are so devout.”

Frozen Dead Guy Days does draw many repeat visitors. Stephanie Reaves of Texas said she just had to come back after last year.

“When we came last year, we had the time of our lives,” she said. “It was so much fun. We stayed the whole weekend, just did everything nonstop. The Coffin Races were my favorite—and the Polar Plunge was amazing, but kind of disturbing. We’re actually competing in the Coffin Races this year!”

Amanda MacDonald agreed that the Polar Plunge and the Coffin Races were the two favorite events for festival-goers and added that the Frozen T-Shirt Contest was another must-see.

“The Frozen T-Shirt Contest is the funniest event to watch,” MacDonald said. “It’s actually kind of gory…people sometimes get bloody trying to rip off the shirts.”

Frozen Dead Guy Days kicked off Friday at 3 p.m. and goes on into Sunday evening. All events and music are free to watch, but food, beer and souvenirs cost extra. More information on the events schedule can be found here.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

Tyler, the Creator will be hitting the Fox Monday for a free, all-ages show, according to a tweet from the artist.

Tyler, the Creator of the rap collective Odd Future performs on Mar. 11, 2012 at the Fox Theatre. Tyler the Creator is coming back to the Fox for a free show on Monday. (James Bradbury/CU Independent)

The Tumblr Staff blog made the announcement first on Tuesday. According to the blog, the show is on a first-come, first-serve basis, and the doors open at 8 p.m. The show comes only about a month before Tyler, the Creator’s new album, “Wolf,” is released. The album is available for pre-sale.

Odd Future, the L.A.-based hip-hop collective that has given us such acts as Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator himself. This will be Tyler, the Creator’s first solo show at the Fox.

As of Wednesday morning, the Fox Theatre’s Facebook page and website has not listed the event.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

Program Council  announced on its Facebook page Wednesday morning that Aziz Ansari, famous comedian and beloved character “Tom Haverford” of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, will be coming to Macky Auditorium on May 8.

Ansari strikes a delicate balance between sad-sack, self-depreciating humor and a can’t-help-but-love-him narcissism. Recently, Ansari was named “the funniest man under 30” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 10 Comedians of the Decade” according to Paste Magazine. Ansari recently released a two-hour comedy special, “Dangerously Delicious,” for only $5 on his website, following many other comedians in cutting out the middle man and putting his comedy directly in the hands of his fans.

The stop on campus is a part of his “Buried Alive” tour that begins in April. The show is scheduled for May 8. Tickets are on sale now, and you can get them here. Student tickets are going for $25, with public tickets at $35.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

It seems that Boulder isn’t quite ready to embrace the world of Silent Disco, judging  by the poor turnout at Shine Restaurant’s event on Friday.

Hosted in conjunction with Elm and Oak, the Silent Disco featured a line-up of five local disc jockeys including Elm and Oak co-owner and Boulder favorite, Raw Russ, a.k.a. Berk Visual.

The concept of a “Silent Disco” came from festival culture, Co-Owner of Shine Restaurant and Gathering Place Jill Emich said.

“[Silent Discos] started at festivals where there were sound ordinances, you could still have the party go all night,” Emich said. “Then, people really started digging on it, especially on the East Coast and the West Coast. It started happening in clubs.”

Ross Kiser, foreground, and Matt Friedman, background, adjust the levels
during their sets on Friday. Kiser and Friedman are members of Need &
Necessity. (Sarah Elsea/CU Independent

The Silent Disco format seems like a recipe for success. Two DJs play at one time on their own tables, and patrons are given a special wireless headset at the door. Each headset is capable of switching back and forth between the two DJs’ individual frequencies, and the headphones light up either red or green to let everyone else in the room know which frequency you’re jamming out to. It becomes a sort of “friendly competition,” according to Visual and Emich.

The second round of DJs, the duo from band Need & Necessity, failed to capitalize on that competitive aspect. On the red channel was Matt Friedman, and just a quick scan across the room of bobbing heads proved Friedman the clear winner over his musical counterpart, Ross Kiser. Although Friedman laid down some funky house music that got people moving, the failure was in the similarity of the battling DJs frequencies. These two, coming from the same electronic act, failed to offer different musical styles to attendees.

Unfortunately, the crowd peaked during Need & Necessity’s set.  At its fullest, there were no more than 50 dancers on the floor. These concert-goers missed one of the best sets of the night, which came from Slim Trillionaire, the red-frequency DJ playing of the first round. Even though most people were tuned into the green channel featuring “Nu-Disco,” DJ Munson Meeks, Slim’s hip-hop flavored bass music got more people shaking it on the dance floor.

Unsurprisingly, the best round of the night came in the third round between Raw Russ and Shine favorite, Mr. Gettdowne. Mr. Gettdowne,  a.k.a., Matt Kapinus, is also a yoga teacher from the Yoga Pod who leads Shine’s fourth-Friday Urban Flow yoga classes. Raw Russ played his signature hip-hop inspired dub-music while Mr. Gettdowne kept it light and funky with his almost mash-up-sounding house music. The two DJs complemented each other well. Because most patrons switched back and forth continuously, neither DJ seemed to come out a victor.

The format of the Silent Disco is pretty close to perfect: patrons can control the volume of their music, the type of music they want to listen to and there’s no yelling involved in talking to your neighbor when you simply take your headphones off.

Whom or whatever you blame for the low turnout, just be sure to mourn the day that Boulder rejected one of the coolest events that’s ever been hosted on Pearl.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

Press pause on your soft jazz and trade it in for some “Silent Disco” at Shine Restaurant & Gathering Place this Friday.

Presented by both Shine Restaurant and Elm and Oak Records, this dance party promises to be anything but soft. According to Jill Emich, co-owner and event coordinator of Shine, Silent Discos are no new thing.

“They started at festivals where there were sound ordinances so you could still have the party go all night,” Emich said. “It was really popular at festivals first, and then people really started digging on it. Especially on the East Coast and the West Coast, it started happening in clubs.”

Berk Visual, also known as Raw Russ of Elm and Oak Records and the headliner at the event, said Silent Discos are different than normal DJ shows.

“It’s a whole experience. There will be two DJs playing at one time and the patrons are given the option to select which DJ to listen to on their headset. The second layer of that is that the headsets light up different colors based on who you’re listening to, so you can see by looking around the room who’s listening to who. It becomes a competition of sorts.”

It’s also pretty hilarious, according to Emich and Visual.

“You’ll have half the room dancing to one thing and the other half dancing to something completely different,” Visual said. “One DJ might be playing some more up-tempo stuff and the other one’s playing hip-hop, so you have some people head bobbing and other people rave dancing. Ultimately, it’s hilarious because if you take your headphones off, everyone’s dancing in silence. To an on-looker, it’s like, ‘What are those people doing?’”

“It’s fun to witness,” Emich said.

When asked what kind of crowd they were expecting, Emich said Shine was a perfect venue to draw an eclectic crowd.

“We get a really good cross-section of people here. We’re known for community gatherings and community-type events. Just the fact that we’re doing this with the guys from Elm and Oak next door, that this is our first collaboration together—I’m really excited about that.”

According to Visual, the mix of DJs will draw quite a unique crowd Friday night.

“There are six DJs on the event, and they’re all different,” he said. “There’s going to be hip-hop, electronic music, dance stuff….Typically on a DJ show you might not have that many. We’re hoping to pull from all six of those crowds. One of the [DJs] is actually the guy that does [Shine’s] yoga class, Mr. Gettdowne.”

Emich and Visual are hopeful that the Silent Disco can become a regular gig.

“This is the first time, you know, so we’re hoping people come out and have a good time. If this goes well, we’re certainly going to do more of it,” Emich said.

The dance party starts at 9 p.m., right after Shine’s Friday Urban Flow Yoga class. Tickets are $10 alone or $5 with the purchase of a pass to Urban Flow (also $5). This is a 21+ event.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

CU students and bass fans from afar will be scraping the paint from their ears for days following Saturday night’s Life in Color concert headlined by Borgore at Balch Fieldhouse.

Life in Color, brought to campus by Program Council, boasted an impressive lineup with infamous Borgore and Denver-local Basscrooks. Although the venue’s 4,000 tickets took until Friday night to sell out, they did sell out and Balch Fieldhouse was packed.

Seven Lions missed the show due to a cancelled flight, leaving Basscrooks, originally slated to play as mid-show support, to fill the space. Basscrooks’ set included an epic remix of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” that got the crowd absolutely raucous.

Basscrooks threw in clips of their most recent mixtape “Meet Me In The Trap Vol. 2” and their  “Titan” remix, recognizable by seasoned fans. Their two-hour set had the crowd moving in a way only Borgore could top later in the night with the addition of the Cream Machine.

[Show as slideshow]

After the relatively low-lit first five hours of the concert, the entrance of the Cream Machine woke the crowd up from their dance-infused daydream. The Cream Machine is a massive ice cream truck-shaped structure with a huge DJ deck cut into the middle and surrounded by some of the brightest LED screens ever seen on stage. The always-controversial Borgore used his out-of-the-box backdrop as an opportunity to display images of half-naked women that, at points, neared on pornographic.

The highlight of the Cream Machine’s time on stage was when Borgore surprised the crowd with a remix of the “Macarena.” Yelling out for all the “hot Boulder ladies” to come take the stage with him, Borgore moved out from behind his DJ tables and performed the Macarena with ten of Boulder’s finest as the 90s-tastic music video played on the screens behind them.

Borgore’s set was expertly crafted and featured tracks from a variety of EDM sub-genres. He hit his up-tempo fans with his song “Incredible” featuring Carnage, remixes of “Bonfire” and “Centipede” by Knife Party and “Kyoto” by Skrillex. For hard and slow dubstep fans, Borgore gave them “Foes,” “Nympho” and the appropriately titled “Ice Cream.”

Despite the on-campus venue, Borgore stayed true to his filthy roots and included the song “Love (Gagging Version)” to his lineup. In-between the heavy bass and laughable, simplistic rap-verse overlay, the sound of a young woman choking and spitting reverberated through the Fieldhouse. While a couple guards at the fringes of the show looked confused — if not nauseous — the crowd danced harder and paint spray continued.

Early on in the show, a giant countdown clock was projected behind the acts to mark the time left until the next big paint blast. As the Fieldhouse filled up, the paint came more and more frequently. At first, a lot of fans were disappointed with the paint — not only was it messy and slimy, but it also burned the skin — cross your fingers that you never got it in your eyes or mouth. As the show went on, however, fans accepted their messy hair and peeling faces and started smearing paint all over their friends. At least three times throughout the concerts, paper confetti was released from the ceiling, covering painted fans wall-to-wall in a papier-mâché of tissue paper and slime.

If that sounds gross to you, well, you had to be there.

If you had been standing outside of Balch Fieldhouse at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, you would have seen a huddled mass of dripping wet, pink and green zombies pouring out the door. If they weren’t smiling, it was only because they didn’t have the energy.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.

Slated to perform at Life In Color (formerly Dayglow) on Saturday at CU’s Balch Fieldhouse with many other acts, Basscrooks is gearing up for a huge production of music, dancing and—of course—paint. Akbar Mohabbat and Elliot Oveson, the dream team that makes up Basscrooks, sat down with the CU Independent to discuss Life In Color, Denver’s music scene and the success of their latest remix, “Titan.”

DJ Empir3, left, and DJ Wushu, right, of Basscrooks, being interviewed by CUI’s Sarah Elsea at “The Goose.” (Gary Sheer/CU Independent)

CUI: The two of you had solo careers before forming Basscrooks. What kind of stuff were you two doing? 

Akbar Mohabbat: Prior to the “marriage,” as you can call it, we were both separately working and we didn’t know each other. In St. Louis, my friends and I were running a weekly show called Mashup Monday. Elliot had come through because one of the kids in St. Louis was friends with him from back home in Indiana. He came back about two months later and, believe it or not, opened for LMFAO around the time of “I’m in Miami, Bitch,” which wasn’t even that popular yet. We exchanged numbers then. We kept in mild contact. After some minor conversations, he told me he had ended up in Denver, and that tickled my fancy to head to Denver.

CUI: How would you say Denver’s electronic dance scene compares to other cities?

Elliot Oveson: For me, it’s great because it seems to be more of the mid-tempo dubstep-type music. The amount of shows that go on in Denver is awesome.

AM: There are true fans. This Saturday, we have Life In Color coming up. But there’s also Bingo Players, Funtcase and Cookie Monsta…and I guarantee all those shows are going to have 75-80 percent of the room filled. In those other markets, you don’t see that. Currently, Denver is the Hollywood of music. Just as Hollywood is for actors, this is the Mecca right now for bass DJs, dubstep, drumstep…

EO: There’s so much music. On the same night, there could be four or five headliners, where, in a lot of other cities, they could only support one of those.

CUI: Your remix of “Titan” by Clockwork has been blowing up. Has that been your most-hyped track to date? How has that been for you?

AM: The “Titan” song was just this snowball. I’d like to say that in today’s market, the fans and the crowd trust blogs and websites over the rankings of radio and top 40. The charting is irrelevant these days. The “sheeple” are dead.

EO: We can thank the internet for that. The internet has allowed anybody the opportunity to present themselves.

CUI: I saw on your site you had Dayglow-watermarked photos. You’ve played a Dayglow/Life in Color concert before? When were those and who did you open for?

EO: Yeah, this’ll be our third one, actually. Both of the ones we’ve already done were in St. Louis. The first one was in a warehouse, the Koken Art Factory. We opened up for Nervo. The second one we did was in St. Louis on the Illinois side where we opened for Swanky Tunes.

AM: We’re veterans now.

EO: Not that many people have gotten to play more than one. I think we’re doing something right.

AM: When we played Dayglow in St. Louis, they’d never had bass-heavy EDM artists. It was a shot in the dark with them. After we had put our set together, [the Dayglow team] sent us requirements way out of our element.

EO: We didn’t think it was bad, it was just different.

AM: Totally different. They wanted house. The thing was, they trusted us, and they let us go with it. It just worked very well. The overall production of Life in Color from show to show is getting better and better.

CUI: What do you think you guys are bring to the Life in Color lineup that would be missing otherwise?

EO: I’d like to think our track selection is really good and appropriate for our time slot, from ten to eleven.

AM: Even if you gave all five of us musicians the same song list, you’d get five different results of a mixtape. We usually do well with mixing and programming our mixes … we spend 20 to 30 hours before we even do a one-hour set. Another thing that we stray away from is the “top 10” songs, or what’s “popular” at the current moment. We try to find music that is equally as good but not as mainstream, per se.

Life in Color tickets are on sale through Ticketfly here. Tickets range from $50 for a general admission ticket to $250 for an all-access VIP ticket. Program tickets previously available in the UMC are sold out.

Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.