The Pine Box Boys: Described as a group that creates "country ballads composed to accompany a slasher film," this local sensation dabbles on the Goth world ever so slightly in order to bring out country's dark roots. They perform with the Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit. Music starts at 9 p.m. at Elbo Room; $7 Juno (2007): Yeah, yeah - it's not a locally-produced event, or whatever, but we implore you to see it.......

Festivus: Although we see no mention of the traditional "Airing of Grievances" or the post-dinner "Feats of Strength" battle, we can't imagine any proper Festivus celebration without them. Still, whether or not tonight's party follows strict Seinfeldian doctrine, a good time will be had by all at Green Aid's holiday bash. Mutaytor performs at this Black Rock City-ish night of fun. Starts at 7:30 p.m. at SomArts Cultural Center; $70. Dub Mission: Renowned for......

-- Aimee Mann's Second Annual Christmas Show: Paul F. Tompkins, Sean Hayes, Chuck Prophet, and Morgan Murphy join the delightfully blond songstress for a night of holiday warm fuzzies. Because X-Mas is coming and there's no way around it, come catch this wonderful singer/songwriter during the, um, recording-a-holiday-album period of her career. Show starts at 8 p.m. at Bimbo's 365; $35.50. -- Margot at the Wedding: Fantastic movie. Just great. And whatever. It totally......

Welcome back, little piggies, from your night of binge eating and sipping. (That is, if you were fortunate enough to do so.) Why not get up, out, and about tonight to work off that meal, hangover with the following: -- Kristi Yamaguchi Holiday Ice Rink at Embarcadero Center: Our Kristi, our Kristi, why hast thou forsaken us? Alas, although no longer branded with Olympic gold-medal allure, you'll still have a blast at the holiday rink......

-- Roller Boogie (1979): '70s campfest about brightly colored roller skaters trying to keep their roller skating rink open should be fun, we think. For some reason older folks seem to have a higher tolerance for prolonged '70s-era camp like this, so younger movie watchers might get bored, but it's worth it to see Linda Blair in a non-possession role. (We always wished her career has gone a bit farther than it did. Alas.)......

-- The Arcade Fire: LCD Soundsystem and Wild Light open for this white-hot -- that's right, white-hot, or so we hear -- Canadian indie-rock band. Music starts tonight at 7 p.m. at Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View; $19-40. -- High School Musical: You know what? We watched this on Disney and it sucked us in. Sad, yes. Absorbing, for sure. Ray of Light Theatre and School of the Arts (SOTA) put on......

-- Patterson Hood: Co-founder of the très hip Athens, Georgia rock/alt-country/cowpunk band Drive-By Truckers performs solo tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Swedish American Hall, 2170 Market (as Sanchez); $15. -- Arise, Hollowhed, Agenda of Swine, and Alta Mira: Scary loud heavy metal will help wipe away poor Brit's depressing performance (and the subsequent vaginal shot sequel later on in the evening [NSFW]). The thrashing starts tonight at 9 p.m. at Elbo Room, 647 Valencia;......

-- "Zombie Prom": Halloween approaches, and soon Walgreen's and Rite-Aids will start stocking fun-size 100 Grand and Lik-M-Sticks. But until that glorious day arrives, check out this Zombie-themed dance club night in SOMA. DJs Glamtasm, Dire Delorean, and the Reverend Dusty Danger spin psychobilly, surf, garage, dark glam, rock, and more. The dead rise at 9:30 p.m. at Club Hide, 280 Seventh Street (at Folsom); $15 if dressed in prom or zombie-ish attire, or......

-- "Dub Mission": Resident DJs Sep and Vinnie Esparza welcome Teleseen to their weekly dub-dance club night in the Mission. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. at Elbo Room, 647 Valencia; $5. -- The Way Light Strikes Filled Mason Jars: This winner of the SF Fringe Festival has famous writers visiting a playwright on the precipice of completing his final work. Film starts at 7 p.m. (with free wine and cheese afterwards. Hic!) at the Traveling Jewish......

Corporate radio still sucks! Strike a blow for independent community airwaves and stop by Pirate Cat Radio 87.9 FM's benefit concert this Friday at the Elbo Room. The beloved low-power radio station/Internet radio streamer's hoping to use the money raised tonight to pay for their server, upgrade their transmitter, and generally keep bringing you local music and local talk! There's going to be burlesque dancers, Blag Dahlia of the Dwarves is emceeing, and the......

One could hop on the snark wagon and refer to Darfur, the current Third World cause célebre, as the new Tibet or appreciate the 21st Century sensitivity to the non-universality of Christmas, but we are not that "one." The genocide going on in Darfur is pretty shocking and awful, and thus we applaud the efforts of the folks at Distortion 2 Static and Pumpkin Cutter Projects who are putting on The Save Darfur Tour......

La Cumbre, on Valencia at 16th, is the kind of place people tell visitors to San Francisco to go to get some "real Mission Mexican." Heck, it's the sort of place we can imagine bringing out-of-town folks ourselves, in an effort to show them the world beyond our late, lamented (for the booze and sentimental reasons, not the food) Chi-Chi's. In fact, the smartest folks we know -- that is, SFist Interview subjects --......

Win it before you can buy it! We've got a copy of The Long Winters' excellent new Ultimatum EP that comes out October 11th. You can download the title track here and be sure to catch them opening for The Fiery Furnaces at Cafe Du Nord on Saturday. (Contest ends Weds. 10/5.) Tonight at the Rickshaw Stop Casiotone for the Painfully Alone celebrates a CD-single release, and at 12 Galaxies there's a Quintron and......

The Bay Area should be proud of at least two high profile record releases from local artists this week. Oakland's own The Lovemakers drop their major label debut Times of Romance on Interscope Records, and San Francisco's John Vanderslice keeps it real by releasing his latest, Pixel Revolt, on indie stalwart Barsuk Records. Even if you can't afford to rush to the CD store on Tuesday, we wouldn't want you to go without some local......

Nerds should start arranging transpo down to Menlo Park tonight for the latest Dorkbot at Onomy labs. Topics include artist Jill Miller's hunt for Bigfoot in the northern Sierra, PARC alums Scott Minneman and Dale MacDonald discussing collaborative innovation and somebody will be bringing an x86 laptop with OS X hacked onto it. It's getting rather queer over on the Craiglist listings -- it's Naughty Schoolgirl night at Divas, Bay Area Black In The......

Our concert picks for the week of 7/28-8/3. This week offers you chances to see spanking new UK rockers, hiphop's underground acts and chart-toppers, and yet another show by Tegan and Sara. We love those cute lil' Canadians, but how many times have they played San Francisco this year? Tonight starts early with a free performance by Nine Black Alps at Amoeba. The young lads of the UK's band-of-the-moment will rock you later at Popscene......

Our concert picks for the week of 6/23-6/29. While scanning for your best musical entertainment options this week, we noticed an interesting trend of late 90's alt-pop bands rousing from their silent slumber to play in our fair city. We mention them here not so much to recommend them, but more out of sheer wonder that they're still alive and kicking. Tonight Amoeba presents Madlib & MED for an in-store and signing before their gig......

Is your wallet looking slim this week? Fret not; there's plenty of free music to be had. Check out any of Amoeba's stellar in-store offerings, including Prefuse 73, Zion I, locals Six Organs of Admittance, and a rare acoustic performance by Trail of Dead. Local label Six Degrees Records presents Niyaz at Virgin Megastore on Saturday at 2pm. And SFist is giving away a free copy of Citizen Cope's CD The Clarence Greenwood Chronicles (enter......

SFist reviews Sharon Jones and the Dapkings...

Remember in 8 Mile how there was that climatic emcee battle at the end of the movie between Eminem and that other guy? Remember how that one guy totally dissed Eminem and it looked like Eminem was going down but instead he came up with some rhymes and totally won the battle? That was awesome. For those wanting to check out their very own Eight Mile moment, local hip-hip organization True Skool is hosting "Mama......

Valentine's Day is upon us, which means it's time to separate the lovers from the haters. Are those tiny red hearts shooting from your eyes, or little sharpened daggers? It's no matter, SFist promises to love you either way. Here are our picks for the this week's bay area music offerings. If you're aware that umlauts are the universal symbol for rock, you might already have your tickets for Thursday night's Queensrÿche show at......

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......

ENTER TO WIN! "I've got a non-dairy creamer in my jeans, I'm happy to see ya if you know what I mean." Oh, do we ever. Those are the words of Jose Miguel Contreras, ringleader of By Divine Right, a power-pop quartet en route from their hometown of Toronto to rock the bay area next week. Sweet Confusion, the title of their latest release, is the perfect description of their sound -- they add a......

We reckon a good percentage of San Franciso music-lovers will be at Great American Music Hall this week, whether it's at one of the three sold out Arcade Fire shows or Saturday's sold out X show. We commend you, SF, your taste is impeccable. While you're down at Great American, SFist Emily recommends stopping by the box office to purchase your ticket for the Tsunami Relief Benefit on January 28th. A $20 donation gets you......

"Because tonight, tonight, tonight - oh. Gonna make it right, tonight, tonight, tonight - oh." In the immortal words of Phil Collins, we're referring to our SFist shindig down at Milk, which everyone within the sight of these words should be attending tonight. Because the Iron and Wine show at Slim's is sold out anyway, you aren't a big enough old school GNR fan to see Adler's Appetite at Pound SF, and you're dying to......

A weekly bar review column mostly transcribed from stuff carved into the walls of the mens room. This week's bar is, in our drunken opinion, one of the best in the world. It's been great for years and doesn't seem to have ever had a time in its history where it was over-crowded or depressingly empty. It stands as a shining example of watering hole perfection, seemingly stuck in time serving drinks to a great......