We thank everyone for your understanding and cooperation around our reinstated mask policy here at Twist & Shout. We will, of course, be closely following all local and national information about Covid infections and restrictions, but while Denver and the region remains in or above the “substantial” range of infections, we are following CDC recommendations that it is everyone's best interests to require masks within the store for all staff and customers. We will be glad to provide you with a mask if you have forgotten yours — just ask for one at the front counter when you enter. We also continue to provide hand sanitizer, to encourage social distancing inside the store, and have our ventilation system that features virus-killing technology and will remain in place after the pandemic. Curbside pickup, in-store pickup, and mail order services continue to be offered with phone orders and purchases at shop.twistandshout.com, and you can read all our most up-to-date information about our Covid policies HERE. Thank you for supporting Twist & Shout and our ongoing efforts to keep everyone safe.
Be sure to take a peek at our staff faves of the year. Every year we poll our staff about their favorite releases of the previous year and tally the results into a list of the music that moved us throughout the year. Check out everyone's lists on our Spork blog HERE and check out some great new music!
Outside the store, happening tonight, hip-hop legend Rakim will be appearing at the Roxy Theatre. You can read all about the event and get tix HERE. And coming up next Friday, the Bluebird will be hosting Denver's finest Black Metal outfit Wayfarer, who will be at the venue on Friday the 28th (read about that one and get tix HERE). Looking out into February things keep rolling with a bunch of shows that should be on your radar. On Tuesday Feb. 22nd, the very LOUD psych-rock band A Place to Bury Strangers will be at the Larimer Lounge with TV Priest opening, and it should be a great show if my previous experience with their live shows holds true. Read all the details and get tickets HERE. And that same week at the Bluebird, Philly rockers Low Cut Connie will be putting on another high energy show on Thursday the 24th. I saw them opening for Big Freedia a few years ago and was blown away at their show – who would've thought a piano-lead classic rock and roll combo could pump out as much energy as Freedia's beats and booty-shaking? And yet, there the evidence was right in front of me. Check out more details of the show HERE and check out their excellent 2020 album Private Lives, or their live set Tough Cookies: The Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts next time you're in the store. And then yet ANOTHER show that week promises to be a killer — the always-reliable rock show of the Drive-By Truckers will roll into the Ogden that Friday the 25th. Probably you already know them, but suffice to say if you haven't seen them live, you don't know the full story of their music. Get info and tix HERE. And then looking out to March, the Larimer Lounge will be bringing Roddy Bottum (Faith No More, Imperial Teen) and Joey Holman (HOLMAN) who will marry indie rock distortion and queer pop sensibility with their Man On Man project. The duo will be playing on Wed. March 9 and you can read all about it or get tix HERE. Lastly, looking ahead even further into March, legendary Zambian rock band W.I.T.C.H. (We Intend To Cause Havoc) will be touring the States and playing the Bluebird Monday March 21st (with the excellent Night Beats as opener)! It's a safe bet these tix will sell out. You can read more details about the show or order tickets HERE and read a great article about them from the Chicago TribuneHERE. And I'll see you there!
And in new music releases, things are starting to pick up and I found several titles out there worth noting this week: Legendary jazz label Blue Note brings two more titles into the fold of their Blue Note Classic LP Series — Don Cherry's Where Is Brooklyn?, originally recorded in 1966 but not released until a couple years later, and Jackie McLean's 1964 release Destination… Out!; Toronto punk band Fucked Up releases Epics in Minutes, a collection of their early singles, on LP (we're experiencing a delay with the CD copies but they should arrive before the weekend is out); Georgia-based folk/blues singer Jake Xerxes Fussell returns with both CD and LP of his new one, Good & Green Again; the early Charles Mingus album Jazz Experiments of Charles Mingus, recorded in late 1954 (and featuring famed producer Teo Macero on saxophone!) is also reissued on LP this week; folk-rock singer/songwriter Aoife O'Donovan, who was delightful in person when she performed here in-store as part of the trio I'm With Her, gives us her third full-length solo album this week with Age of Apathy, available on a 2CD Deluxe package, and on LP this week (the regular single CD streets next week); and last but not least, downtown NYC avant-garde stalwarts John Zorn and Bill Laswell have worked within each others' orbit for decades but have released their first CD of music as a duo, Cleansing.
Over in DVD and Blu-ray, it's a pretty strong week out there. Many more titles were released this week, but these caught my eye: first and foremost, we've got the DVD and Blu-Ray of the documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, in which the former Beach Boy reminisces about his life while driving around L.A.; we've also got the new 4K upgrade of the anime classic Akira; and while the new remake is still bubbling around, a savvy studio person decided to release a Blu-Ray upgrade of Candyman III: Day of the Dead, and we've got that in stock as well; the Criterion collection has continued their 4K UHD upgrades of some of their best titles with the Beatles' classic A Hard Day's Night, available in a 4K UHD/Blu-ray 2-disc combo set; they have also put out both DVD and Blu-Ray of Garrett Bradley's moving and dramatic documentary Time this week; Edgar Wright's newest acclaimed horror film Last Night in Soho is also out on Blu-Ray, 4K, and DVD; Red Angel, the superb 1966 war drama from Yasuzo Masumura, is out on Blu-Ray from Arrow Films, who have also released a lovely Blu-Ray package of Mario Bava's 1977 film Shock; and in a similar zone of Italian horror, Blue Underground has released a Blu-Ray special edition of Dario Argento's Stendahl Syndrome; Blue Underground has also released a special edition Blu-Ray of the 1978 slasher film The Toolbox Murders; and in another direction entirely, Kino has released a Blu-Ray of Ernst Lubistch's 1924 silent drama Three Women; and we'll close it out for this week with more horror in the form of the French horror/thriller Titane, available on Blu-Ray.
Hope you're all doing well
and staying safe and healthy!
