1833 Page St., SF. more ›

So what movies are opening this weekend, the last weekend before the holidays start up? The big one seems to be the new Bond flick, Casino Royale. It's getting good reviews and getting a lot of attention because of it's desire to "restart" the Bond franchise by changing the tone and introducing the "origin myth" as it were in telling how Bond became the Bond, James Bond we all know and love. Frankly, from what we're hearing, the new Bond is all broody and angsty and apparently gets roughed up. Even worse, there's only one femme fatale. In all seriousness, we don't want our Bonds angsty and broody and dark. We want our Bonds making bad jokes and sleeping with tons of hot women and having no problem with violence. What made Sean Connery so badass was because he was the only Bond really to actually look like he was enjoying himself. And if you were James Bond, how could you not be enjoying yourself? more ›

It's not too early to make plans for Halloween weekend, and if you want to make this year especially memorable, hop a plane to Las Vegas for the Vegoose Music Festival. It's an impressive lineup of tons of bands in one place: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Mars Volta, The Raconteurs, Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band (we'll see about that), Gomez, Fiona Apple, Jenny Lewis, BRMC, and a bunch of those jammy/jazzy bands that people seem to like, including Widespread Panic, G. Love, MMW, and more. more ›

Special chock-full-of-mp3s-from-great-local-bands edition! more ›

This past Monday we headed down to The Fillmore to see Cold War Kids open for Editors. Cold War Kids had all the right ingredients to stand out from the pack, especially with singer Nathan Willett’s piercing voice. None of what they played sounded derived or expected, which is an impressive feat these days. Judging by the resonance of crowd favorite "Hospital Beds", we’re witnessing another dazzling San Francisco export. Editors played their catchy and competent post-punk-by-numbers to an enthusiastic response. Live 105’s Aaron Axelson mentioned to us that Editors played his most well-attended 2006 Popscene show only seven months ago at the comparatively tiny 330 Ritch, so a sold-out Fillmore proved their popularity is soaring. Frontman Tom Smith made the most of the stage as threw his arms over his head at the microphone and crouched over his piano, making angles reminiscent of Chris Martin. Though we’re hard-pressed to find the originality in it, Editors do what they do extremely well. more ›

We don't know if we have a library guardian angel or if our late return repeat offender status has put us in a special class, but we've started getting "courtesy notes" in our inbox when the due dates approach on our checked-out items. Of course, when we get an email from the SFPL we get all excited and assume our online reserves are in, but a reminder to get our stuff in on time is pretty nice, too. more ›

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