bellulah wrote:if you get bored drive north to colorado springs.

Uh, isn't Colorado Springs south of Denver?


Anyway - - Since I'm a native of CO, let me tell you about the state I know so very little about:

There's a lot of shopping malls.
There aren't that many people there.
There's a lot of big cars and trucks there.
It's really dry. You'll probably need some chap stick.
There aren't that many trees in the cities and towns.
The mountains are beautiful, but can't really be appreciated unless you go into them.
Wax Trax in Boulder has always been pretty great. (Sad to hear that they might have closed.)
Robb's Music in Boulder is a cool music equipment shop. Robb is really nice. All the people that work there are really nice too.
I never spent that much time in Denver, but all of the outlying towns are really fun to visit, and when people there complain about traffic, keep in mind that when it's at it's worst, it's about as bad as Chicago is at 10PM.
Oh - Please, please, don't be one of those people that drives fast when there is ice or snow on the road. It really ticks off the people who grew up there because they know that it's the out of towners who are causing all the accidents. Seriously, just slow down and start to stop way before you need to. You can't always see the ice, but believe me, it's there.
You'll learn to love the altitude. Unless you have asthma. But it's great after you live there for a while and then you go to some sea level place, and you don't even have to try to breathe. You'll feel really healthy.

That's it for now.
russ

Wax Trax Boulder is definitely closed. I was out there in September and didn't know of the closing until I drove up to the Hill to pay a visit and found an empty storefront.

Overall, the Denver/Boulder area is a really cool place and people have touched on some good things about it. The only drawback from what I found in spending a few summers out there during college is that the music scene is pretty lame. It's way too trippy-dippy hippy for my tastes. Lots of jam rock and pseudo-world music (trippy dippy hippies playing tablas and sitars instead of bongos and guitars.) Maybe I was just hanging out in the wrong juice bars, though.

If you're into comics, Mile High is one of the best places to go. They're in Boulder, I think.

my bad russ - it is south. colorado springs is south. yupp.. due south. i was just so excited by colorado that my world was turned up-side-down.

sorry
josh

As a current resident of Denver,
I highly recommend and second:

Record stores: Wax Trax, Black and Read, Twist and Shout.

Restaurants: Watercourse- everything I've ever eaten here is amazing.
also: Illegal Petes- burritos and etc. vegan and otherwise. It seems they also imploy lots of musicians...

There is a really great student-run am radio station which is the Colorado University station, and plays all independent music. They also have plenty of great specialty shows. This is one of the major benefits in my opinion.
Depending on where you are in Denver, you can pick it up (from boulder) untill they cut power at sundown.
http://www.radio1190.org

they also have a concert calendar of indie shit around the area that's pretty reliable.

While I wouldn't say the Denver music scene is amazing, I think we have our fair share of weird and good and interesting bands, as well as terrible jam bands and HC clones. I've personally found it a little hard to find people to play music with, and there's also a very limited amount of drummers... I don't know comparitively...

Hope you like.

Sushi Den. Best sushi ever. Tommy's Thai on Colfax. Black and Read record store. 15th st.tavern, Larimer Lounge, Lion's Lair, Gothic Theatre, Wax Trax (Boulder store r.i.p) Pete's Kitchen, P.S Lounge, Illlegal Pete's in Boulder, Abo's Pizza on the Hill, Fallefel King, Great Wall Chineese food on Colfax.

Infrasonicsound wrote: Abo's Pizza on the Hill

the one on the other side of the hill by the bike shop is much better, can't remember the name though..

sushi tora in boulder is GREAT

watercourse is basically the chicago diner, but everything is about five or six dollars cheaper. it's pretty good. there's a great metal store in the 'springs, if you're into that kind of thing.. it was always worth the drive for me. well, it's half metal and half bongs, but isn't every metal store?

i heard the starlight in fort collins just closed.. something about drugs. fort collins sucks.

If it's still there, Jerrys record exchange on Colfax is very cool. A few doors down from the wierd second hand store with the Jesus with the opening eyes. And Uzi, for all your rubber fetish gear
A second nod to Pete's kitchen. I love that place.
The Myan theater for movies. The Ogden for shows -if it's still around...