READING: Idiolexicon Poetry Series brings together different types of poets -- from slam to experimental, hip-hop and academia -- having them share a stage. Tonight, the lineup includes performances by poets Stephen Meads and Myron Michael, and music by Cynthia Weyuker. Happens tonight at the Boxcar Playhouse. COMEDY: Part of local sketch comedy troupe SPF7, Justin Lamb and Jay Starr perform tonight at Club Deluxe. MUSIC: One of the Innovators of the Bakersfield Sound,......

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Nicole Atkins - Neptune City: This New Jersey native, reaches down deep to relate stories of her hometown, Neptune City on her debut release. "From the time I was a kid I started collecting these sad little tragically beautiful personal stories from the people in my life, and my own as well. That sense of history really appeals......

-- Toshio Hirano: Local country music star -- alongside his trusty bassist, Kenan O'Brien -- croons tonight at 9 p.m. at Amnesia; free. -- San Francisco Contemporary Music Players: David Milnes leads this nineteen-member strong group of experimental and orchestral musicians, many of whom are already members of the San Francisco Symphony, Ballet, or Opera Orchestras. Starts at 8 p.m. at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; $10-27. -- Arse Elektronika's Afterparty: Tech-, machine-sex......

Here's today's sports news...

We first became aware of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music back in 2000, when the Coen Brothers' released O Brother, Where Art Thou? After listening to the old-timey music on the soundtrack, we pondered just what we should call that stuff so we could seek out more of it. Was it country music? Bluegrass? Folk? The key factor, at the time, was we wanted to hear the original recordings and not a......

It's long been our experience that when a significant other says, "I think we should have an open relationship," what they really mean is, "let's ensure that our impending breakup is painful and prolonged." And if there's a lesson to be learned from Life in a Box, a brand-new documentary about a gay country/folk duo called "Y'all," it's that painful, prolonged breakups make for good watching, and, unexpectedly, can ultimately be uplifting. The documentary......

The irrepressible Mr. P.J. Corkery asks the question on everyone's mind -- what's on Gavin Newsom's iPod? Well, after some hemming and hawing ("I don't have time to download 99 cent tunes," "this iPod is just like being a mayor -- lots of diverse music!", "the acoustics in my mayor's office are great! I don't like earphones"), Newsom coyly reveals the following:

So I've got Andrea Bocelli ... Sade ... Jerry Garcia, of course ... Emmylou Harris ... Alanis Morissette ... AC/DC ... Prince ... John Mayer ... Gosh, there's a lot of country music here... John Mellencamp ... Linda Ronstadt ... John Denver ... Placido Domingo ... Rascal Flatts. ... Jane's Addiction. Lots of Jane's Addiction. ...

A friendly crowd greeted Filipino filmmaker Steven Mallorca at the San Francisco screening of his labor of love, Slow Jam King -- about three rows of seats were reserved for his family and friends, various members of the film's crew, and other people affiliated with the movie, and the rest of the seats rapidly sold out with people interested in small indie comedy film, Filipino country music aficionados, and people eagerly waiting outside in the suddenly-cold weather in the rush line. (Can't SFIAAF let them wait someplace a little warmer?) Slow Jam King was written, directed, and produced by Mallorca (and exec produced by John Woo), and Mallorca also wrote almost all the songs on the soundtrack too. Dang, a quadruple threat! The movie's main focus is a young depressed Filipino-American named JoJo, the former salutatorian of his high school who's dropped out of college for the aspirational hiphopper pimp lifestyle, in an attempt to win the heart of a Filipina girl in the neighborhood, who's already dating the neighborhood gangbanger. The gangbanger gives JoJo a hot gun, at which point JoJo carjacks Vance, a country-music-loving perfume salesman from Tennessee, and ropes his African-American friend DeVaun into a road trip to Nashville. Take a trip to the South, after the jump....

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....