Earlier this month we mentioned that The Decemberists' five-night engagement at the Fillmore was canceled. It was going to be the highlight of our week, but we guess tofurkey will just have to do. This week, our picks are Travis who are playing with Maximo Park at the Fillmore tomorrow night. Friday night at the Fillmore, The Drones (listen to "Shark Fin Blues" here) are opening for Band of Horses, an indie-rock band based... more ›

For those of you who don't care what happens to Pam and Jim: more ›

-- Trannyshack's Siouxsie and the Banshees Night: Trannyshack icon and Scissor Sisters [NSFW] star Ana Matronic returns home to help Heklina host tonight's Siouxsie tribute. Also, we heard a rumor that Ana likes to watch live Broadway musical clips on YouTube. (i.e., str8-gay hipster suicide.) Is this true? We don't believe it. But if she does, she just landed herself a new stalker. Music starts at 10 p.m. and the show begins at midnight... more ›

Still plenty of shows for the Frameline , SF Improv, and the Hole in the Head festivals.... more ›

Los Gatos-based NetFlix has one of the greatest products around, and we give them a lot of leeway despite the company's annoying, ever-present pop-up ads. more ›

We've written before about our love of soccer but unfortunately, being here in the States, it's a little hard to get the full flavor of it. Major League Soccer isn't quite that exciting and there's no longer a franchise here. There are also plenty of places in the city to watch some Premiere League (and occasional Serie A games) but it's not quite the same as watching the games in Europe. Also, we don't like to get up early. So we're kind of excited over the news that Stanford is going to host a game between the Premiere League's Chelsea and Mexico's Club America on July 14th. more ›

Last night, we went to last night's Warriors/Cavs game, a game the Warriors lost in overtime. Now, we'll let Basketball Chris do the analysis and post-game wrap up, but we wanted to make an observation of our own. Mainly, that we went to see Lebron and we were disappointed. But not surprised. more ›

We visited The Homestead for the first time last summer and it instantly fell in love with the relaxed ambiance, gilded decor and fantastic jukebox. We'd never seen a DJ in there before, so when we saw one this past Monday we were a little worried. It didn't take long for Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party hosted by DJ Chas Gaudí, to win us over. He plays blues, jazz, R & B, country and early rock n roll - all on twin Califone turntables. We don't even want to think of how long and hard he had to work to fill three boxes full of pristine scratch-free 78s. Catch him any Monday this month at the Homestead. Highly recommended. more ›

What? This isn't Thursday? OK, all this holiday brouhaha has made us a day late from our usual posting schedule but we just know you'll forgive us. To make it up to you, we want to share a brand new video from Trainwreck Riders. According to our buddy Nat, last week the band hit the streets with a super 8 camera and a bag full of costumes that they dug up from their basements. They started the day at 'Drink Liquor' (where they used to buy alcohol at when they were in high school - uh, allegedly), picked up some 40 oz's of Olde English as inspiration, and shot a video at some of the stomping grounds that Pete sings about in the song. more ›

With visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through their heads, the -Ists began to get into that holiday mood. Well, some did. more ›

One year ago, husband and father Jerry Tang disappeared from his Upper Haight apartment. He hasn't been seen since. more ›

Sharks 2 Blues 0- the Sharks good early run continues on as they shut out the St. Louis Blues. It's their second shutout in a row and their third straight win. It's also their third win in five of its past six games and nine of its past eleven games. Not too shabby. more ›

more ›

SFist Interviews Nate Grover, Singer of Love is Chemicals more ›

This morning around 6:45, a pedestrian was killed by a northbound Caltrain near the Mountain View train station. Train service was help up for about an hour afterwards and started up again around 8 and there were 20-30 minute delays afterwards. It's the twelfth death this year involving the trains. There were ten last year and according to the police, about 80% of them were suicides. more ›

Listen up, because SFist has a scoop for you. Our hometown boys in Two Gallants are heading out on a fall tour with Langhorne Slim and fellow San Franciscans Trainwreck Riders, starting in September and culminating with two nights at Bottom of the Hill on October 21st and 22nd. Two Gallants are supporting their sophomore release what the toll tells; you can still get it if you haven't already gotten it. more ›

OK, so you know, we don't know who this is (maybe we'll hit Ireland's 32 on May 18 and find out!), we never recieved a demo from this person, and we got this one three times in the editors' box, and twice in our own. An embarrassment of riches, indeed. more ›

With the sun finally appearing, it's time to think about our favorite springtime city activities. Like street fairs. Our favorite street fair? The North Beach Festival. Nothing we love more than hanging out in Washington Square Park, downing some brews, then drunkenly stumbling into the maelstrom for more food, booze, and White Boy Blues. Man, what fun. Oh wait, there's going to be no booze allowed this year? Nevermind. more ›

On the bright side, at least matchbox 20's Rob Thomas won't be here: Gavin Newsom took some time out from romancing to regretfully announce that a planned free Santana concert at the Civic Center on April 22, in connection with the centennial festivities for the April 18, 1906 earthquake, has been indefinitely postponed due to lack of funds. We're not super huge Santana fans or anything, but it's cool that he was going to play free of charge -- and we're also a little disappointed to hear that Green Day was possibly also in negotiations to play that same show. We love Green Day! Newsom is doing his best to put a positive spin on it: they're going to keep fundraising, and you know, an earthquake celebration isn't about the date of the earthquake, it's about Survival! and Community Togetherness! -- that's what we're celebrating and that'll go on all year! A concert is appropriate at any time! "It will be even bigger and better than what we had been planning," Newsom bravely said, though he also declined to state when that bigger and better concert might actually take place, or even be announced. We hope the show'll be like Lollapalooza, with the big names on the center stage and a smaller stage for local acts! Barring that, we hope Huey Lewis and the News play. Picture of Carlos Santana performing at the 2004 SF Blues Festival more ›

It takes a very open mind indeed to look behind the unnecessarily gaudy covers, trashy titles and barely acceptable advertisements and recognize the authentic power of a kind of writing that, even at its most mannered and artificial, made most of the fiction of the time taste like a cup of lukewarm consommé at a spinsterish tearoom. more ›

Tom Foremski defends his opinion that bloggers, and not Bono, Bill and Melinda, should have gotten Time's recent Person of the Year cover. Om Malik realizes that GigaOm's content is being ripped-off, and wonders what he can do about it -- we see this kind of crap all the time, and hope that there's an especially hot place in the afterlife for the perpetrators. Eric Rice gives a video camera to a five year old for Christmas, and the kid is videoblogging in minutes, it's that easy. more ›

Boris Delepine also starred for the victorious HOGs. He played a solid first base, sometimes stretching his lanky frame to amazing lengths, and he also contributed at the plate with two singles and triple. more ›

After thirty-five years, Alameda County sheriff's investigators have finally closed the murder of Meredith Hunter at the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert 35 years ago. Apparently, they’ve been looking for the semi-mythical "second knifeman" for the past thirty-five years only to come up with nothing. Which just goes to show you that shouldn't necessarily base a murder investigation on the testimony of thousands of people on brown acid. more ›

The June music issue of The Believer will come packaged with a CD compilation of pure indie rock gold. We hear that local do-gooder and author extraordinaire Dave Eggers is behind the compilation, proving his excellent taste and indubitable influence by convincing the persnickety indie rock elite to cover each other's songs. Local duo Two Gallants made the cut, as did Devendra Banhart, Vetiver and Joanna Newsom. The majority of the songs were recorded specifically and exclusively for the compilation. All this genius for only eight bucks, friends! Behold the track list: more ›

Okay, this SFist has complained in the past about indie rock. It's not the indie part so much as the rock part -- all too often we find that it's "rawk" instead of "rock." Fauxhawk instead of mohawk. Post-punk instead of punk. Blues-influenced instead of bluesy. You get our drift. Look, we like danceable stuff, with syncopated rhythms, groovy baselines, horns and/or an organ. You can keep your crunchy guitars and self-reflexive lyrics to yourself, thank you very much. So that's why we were so surprised when we started tapping our feet and nodding our head in time to the bands at Mesh's Spring Spectacular party on Saturday night at the Rickshaw stop. After the jump: sport coats, Pat Benatar boots and our conversion to the church of Jillian Iva. more ›

If you long for boundary-crossing or brio or fun in country-western music, git along to San Francisco State University the next three Tuesdays (March first, eighth and fifteenth) to celebrate Bob Wills at 100. The inventor of “Western Swing,” Bob Wills combined country music with Nawlins jazz, blues, ragtime and traditional Mexican music. more ›

Ah, it’s raining today and for those of us working, nothing quite sums up the first day back after the holidays like it being grey and miserable outside. It looks like it’s going to be grey and miserable for awhile as five-day forecasts call for rain, rain, and more rain. When it rains, there’s nothing quite like the high-comedy that comes with watching the local news broadcasts as they spend what always feels like half the broadcast letting everyone know that “OH MY GOD! IT’S RAINING!” and then whip around to like every reporter they have on staff, all strategically placed throughout the Bay Area, just so that they can show to everyone that, yep, it’s raining there too. more ›

First thing is, you gotta understand that at least one SFist writer obsesses over the Giants to a damned near unhealthy point and scours the internet on a fairly regular (constant?) basis looking for Giants orts. So it's pretty rare when significant San Francisco baseball news reaches him through the papers first. Today, though, the Chron had a pretty sweet scoop when it reported that the Giants have all but signed Florida closer Armando Benitez to a three-year $21 million deal. Once he passes a physical, which could happen as soon as today, Thunderbirds are Go and the Giants look like the team to beat in the NL West, especially if they sign a legit bat to hit behind Barry Bonds. more ›

For in-depth analysis from the Lunatic Fringe, visit El Lefty Malo, Westwood Blues, Only Baseball Matters, Waiting for Boof, or another of your favorite Giants blogs. more ›