When The Lights Go Down In The City

Music-loving good samaritans, this is your lucky week. If you like to enjoy a little partying and live performance in exchange for your charitable contributions, you have no less than six different tsunami relief benefits to choose from. On Friday, The Independent is having their second benefit, featuring members of New Monsoon, ALO, Samantha and the Ritual for a donation of $10-50. Great American's benefit that night with indie kings Gibbard, Kozelek, Richman and Bachman is sold out, but buying a ticket from a scalper would be even more wrong than usual. Bottom of the Hill's "Wave of Relief" benefit is on Sunday, with Blind Justice, The MoFonics, OM&M, et al. Monday night Erase Errata, Murder Murder, Curse of the Birthmark and So So Many White White Tigers rock the Elbo Room. Wednesday night brings another benefit at Bottom of the Hill, with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Jason Quever from the Papercuts and several others, for $7 and up. Also that night is a benefit presented by A Show of Hands at Rickshaw Stop with comedy, film, dance, theatre and music from the likes of Hard Nox and Killing My Lobster, for a donation of $5-20. Look at you, San Francisco, doin' so good! For those about to rock for a good cause, we salute you.

If you've already donated to the relief effort, you can still support the arts around town this week. Tonight SFist Isaac recommends going to Bottom of the Hill to see former Come member Thalia Zedek. Get there early to see SFist favorites and Libya-bound locals The Heavenly States. Friday night Slim's has Kings of Leon -- we think their band-of-the-moment status has more to do with being corn-fed shaggy-haired southern brothers than with any discernable talent. But that's just us. SFist Isaac recommends seeing Gravy Train!!!! Those are not SFist's exclamation marks of extreme enthusiasm, they're part of the band's name, one for each member. Check them all out at Bottom of the Hill for some fun gay times. Tim Bluhm's having an album release party at Swedish American Hall, with opener Conspiracy of Beards, an all-male acapella chorus that sings only Leonard Cohen songs. Future Primitive Soundsession presents an album release show for Romanowski at the Independent, with Bing Ji Ling, JBoogie's Dubtronic Science and Alpha Zeta featuring DJ Zeph, Azeem & DJ Platurn.

KCRW.com invades the bay area with two separate shows on Saturday night, in what looks to us like a battle of the sexes. The ladies line up at Slim's, when alt-country crooner Tift Merritt performs with Tres Chicas featuring ex-Whiskeytown fiddler and crooner Caitlin Cary. The boys congregate upstairs at the Swedish Hall when Aqualung, Chris Gallagher and Etienne De Rocher take the stage. Tsk tsk, KCRW.com, separating the boys from the girls like that is so junior high school dance party. You can rock with both boys and girls at the Parkside when The Hangmen, Visqueen and The Nightmares perform. Local troubadour Bart Davenport celebrates his record release that night at Bottom of the Hill with Hard Place and Jan Norberg. Did we mention Kitchen Sink Magazine's Indie Mag All-Stars Party at Makeout Room featuring readings from Clamor, LiP, Watchword, and SFist's friends at Bitch? Oh yeah, we did.

If you're up for going out on a school night, Cafe Du Nord has the mysterious Americana of Hem on Tuesday. Hem singer Sally Ellyson's smoky smooth voice will appeal to fans of local siren Jolie Holland. Built Like Alaska plays a free in-store in support of their new album Autumnland at Amoeba at 6pm that night. "The Bard of Tomales Bay" Jesse DeNatale starts a month long residency this week at Red Devil Lounge. Find out why Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Tom Waits are fans of DeNatale on Wednesday, when special guests include Jonathan Richman and Matt Gonzalez.