Hey all -

We appreciate the business and your support as we slide into the holiday season. Speaking of that, here are our holiday hours during the next few weeks:

All other days we will be open our regular hours to help you shop for all your holiday needs! Every winter we always do a couple things to help stimulate gift-giving ideas. We create a free physical zine for the store — My Back Pages, a compendium of employee reviews, pics, and other bits. We've got copies available now, just come on down and grab your copy next time you're here. We also do an employee poll of staff favorites of the year and compile that into a list of the overall store faves. This year's official winner was Geese's acclaimed album Getting Killed, but the competition was heated! We've got books in store with all the employee lists, but if you're not local you can also see the winners and all the individual employee lists by clicking HERE. And be sure to check out the Friday Timewaster below for more year-end lists from publications, musicians, and more!

In other news, to help local businesses offset problems associated with the Colfax BRT project, the city, as part of their #webackthefax program, have launched a new initiative to help up the profile of Denver's most interesting street — The Fax Pass. The basic idea is simple — folks who patronize participating businesses (like Twist & Shout) receive a sticker, and the more stickers you collect for your book, the higher reward level you unlock for yourself (not unlike a green stamps book if you're old enough to remember those). You can read more about the program and sign up to receive your Fax Pass HERE. And we wanna keep a plug in here for Notes from the Underground Vol. 2: Denver, a compilation album of the cream of Denver's indie music scene, released by local label Label 51 Recordings/Flatiron Recordings. It's out on both CD and “Dive Bar Smoke” blue/black vinyl and features 12 of the finest of Denver's local scene, including Pink Fuzz, Bluebook, Barbara, bellhoss, Strange Americans, and more. Twist & Shout will be the exclusive vendor for this release until a wider release in January, so come on down and get yours!

And as Denver keeps changing, the ongoing BRT Bus Line construction project keeps creeping eastward into new sections further out on the Colfax Corridor — they're now out past Monaco, with the further west sections (including the space in front of Twist!) slated to be finished up by spring 2026). In the meaning, we've got this little page on our website HERE that will house all the latest information about what's happening and provide links to many of our favorite local business neighbors on this stretch of Colfax. Please make an extra effort to support all these local businesses during this construction project to ensure that Colfax keep its always-unique and fascinating flair!

As December winds down, new releases tend to thin out, but we've still got a few notable titles worth your attention: Aesop Rock returns with I Heard It's A Mess There Too, out now on CD, LP, and cassette; Juliana Hatfield delivers her latest batch of sharp, melodic indie rock with Lightning Might Strike, available on CD and as an indie exclusive pink vinyl LP; UK troublemakers Lambrini Girls unleash the gloriously chaotic Who Let the Dogs Out in a black vinyl “Slutcore” edition; and long-running Warp favorite Nightmares On Wax drops Echo 45 Soundsystem, a warm, dubby, grooves-first LP (no CD listed as of yet).

On the other hand, December is excellent for reissues and archival gems, and this week brings a genuinely strong lineup: Arca's 2020 mixtape @@@@@ finally arrives on vinyl for the first time; Blur revisit their Britpop era with a new colored LP reissue of The Great Escape; the Verve Acoustic Sounds Series rolls out audiophile LP editions of Clifford Brown and Max Roach and Wes Montgomery's Bumpin', while the Verve Vault Series brings back Max Roach's Percussion Bitter Sweet and Archie Shepp's Four For Trane; indie rock mainstays Death Cab for Cutie celebrate the 10th anniversary of their 2015 album Kintsugi with a fresh vinyl reissue; Depeche Mode offer up three more catalog titles on CD and LP; International Anthem expands its deluxe jazz line with new editions of Alabaster DePlume's To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 and Makaya McCraven's Universal Beings; goth icons Fields of the Nephilim reissue their 1987 classic Dawnrazor on CD and white vinyl LP; avant-vocal legend Diamanda Galás' harrowing 1988 album You Must Be Certain of the Devil returns on CD and LP; the Blue Note Classic Series reissues Johnny Griffin's A Blowing Session and Jimmy Smith's House Party; J Dilla's Donuts gets a 20th anniversary audiophile edition; Thelonious Monk's Bremen 1965 lands on CD and LP; New Order issue deluxe CD reissues of four catalog albums; Gary Numan celebrates 45 years of Telekon with a new anniversary LP; The Pogues mark Rum Sodomy & the Lash's 40th anniversary with a red marble reissue (plus a Fairytale of New York zoetrope 12”); and topping it all off, Violent Femmes' self-titled debut returns in a limited indie exclusive blue vinyl edition.

After a slow last week, this week has kicked back into gear for new home video releases. Holiday shipping delays may have some hitting the shelves a few days late, but here's what we've got on order and either have or expect momentarily: First off, across all formats — DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD — The Cure has released The Show Of A Lost World: Troxy Live 2024 documenting their most recent album in a live setting. In the world of Blu-ray, we've got Kinji (Battle Royale) Fukasaku's 1983 action-adventure/genre mashup Legend of the Eight Samurai, the 1986 Hong Kong action/comedy Rosa (starring Yuen Biao), the Radiance Film release of Kim Soo-yong's intense 1978 drama Splendid Outing, and more Hong Kong action/comedy from Eureka Films with the box set Triple Threat: Three Films With Sammo Hung (contains the films: The Manchu Boxer, Paper Marriage, and Shanghai, Shanghai). In UHD/Blu-ray combo package releases the Criterion Collection has upgraded the superb Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger drama I Know Where I'm Going! and Mira Nair's searing drama Salaam Bombay! in both Blu-ray and UHD/Blu-ray combo packs, Scream Factory has brought us the limited edition steelbook releases of Bob Clark's terrifying 1974 film Black Christmas, Arrow Films has given us Brian De Palma's other great gangster epic Carlito's Way, Severin Films has released Ben Wheatley's acclaimed 2011 horror film Kill List, and Kevin Smith's philosophical comedy Dogma is also out this week.

Outside the store, TONIGHT Friday December 12th at the Oriental Theatre, indie rockers Belly will be performing their classic King album for its 30th anniversary plus a full second set of more faves! Read more details and get your tix HERE! And our neighbors at the Sie, continue this month's Sie/Saw retrospective series. This weekend you can catch a screening of Civil War tonight, or a few shots at Black Christmas (1974) on 12/12 & 12/13. Coming next week are The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert which plays Tuesday 12/16, Tangerine on Wed 12/17, Hundreds of Beavers on Friday 12/19 & Sunday 12/21, and Shall We Dance? on Saturday 12/20, then the series closes out with Ran on Monday 12/22 and Tokyo Godfathers on Wednesday 12/23. Read about each of the films, see showtimes, and get your tix for them (or other repertory films not part of the series) HERE. And next Thursday December 18th at The Savoy Denver a great show will be taking place — Mr. Sun Plays Ellington's Nutcracker. This 5:30 show has just been added as the later show is already sold out! Lead by bluegrass legend, fiddler Darol Anger, this promises to be a terrific genre-spanning night of music. Read more about it and get your tix HERE! And closing out the month (and year!), on New Year's Eve, Wednesday Dec 31st, Itchy-O will christen the Federal Theatre with their NYE Saturnalia event. Read more about it and get your tix HERE!

Looking out to 2026, January has a bunch of compelling stuff happening. Back at the Sie, Scream Screen brings back the annual tradition of January Giallo, running on Saturdays at Sie from Jan. 10th through Jan. 31st. The series will feature two legends of Italian horror cinema — Lucio Fulci (Murderock) and Mario Bava (A Bay of Blood) — the brand new 2025 film Anything That Moves from writer/director Alex Phillips (who will be there in person for a Q&A), and closes out with the cat-centered animated murder mystery Felidae! Read all the details and get your tix HERE! On Tuesday January 20th, music aficionados will have a pair of great things to choose from — jazz violinist Jenny Scheinman brings her all-star All Species Parade band to Dazzle for two shows (you can check out the get tix for the 6:30 show HERE and the 9:00 show HERE. Meanwhile, across town at the Oriental Theater the long-running experimental rock group The Residents will be performing their 1979 studio masterpiece Eskimo in its entirety and you can get data and tickets for this rare treat HERE. And then the last day of the month, Saturday January 31st, proves to be even more complicated with three very different but equally compelling shows happening — Dazzle brings the all-star group of jazz legends The Cookers for two shows, check the 6:00 PM show HERE and the 8:30 show HERE; also happening in the Performing Arts Complex at Boettcher Concert Hall, the Philip Glass Ensemble will be performing his monumental score for the film Koyaanisqatsi and you can read all about that and get tix HERE; and lastly on this very culture-heavy day, local folk music legends Rich Moore and Mollie O'Brien will be joined by very special guest Celeste Krenz for a concert at Swallow Hill — get all the info for that HERE!

Cheers,
Patrick