Music starts at 9 p.m. at Elbo Room; $7

Starts at 7:30 p.m. at SomArts Cultural Center; $70.

-- 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. more ›

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: more ›

-- 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.) Screens at 7 p.m. (followed by Skatetown, U.S.A. at 9 p.m.) at the Castro Theatre; $6-9. more ›

-- 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. more ›

-- 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. more ›

-- "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 $25. more ›

-- "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. more ›

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! more ›

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 -- frequently call out La Cumbre as "best burrito." And maybe it is, but their nachos suck total ass. more ›

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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. more ›

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. more ›

Our concert picks for the week of 7/28-8/3. more ›

Our concert picks for the week of 6/23-6/29. more ›

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 to win here). more ›

SFist reviews Sharon Jones and the Dapkings more ›

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 Said Knock You Out, an emcee battle this Friday night at the Elbo Room. more ›

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. more ›

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. more ›

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 little bit of psychedelia, euphoria and mayhem to their grab bag of influences. Us SFists along with the kind folks at spinART Records would like you to enjoy the madness when By Divine Right plays at Red Devil Lounge this coming Wednesday. Click HERE to enter to win a pair of tickets. (Winners will be notified on Tuesday the 25th at 2pm PT.) more ›

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 in to see performances by Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters) and Eric Bachman (Archers of Loaf). We smell another sold out show coming on. more ›

"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 find out if us SFists are as toothsome in person as our clever words make us out to be. Afterwards, you can stay at Milk for the Future Primitive Sound event with D Sharp, Derrick D, Similak Chyld and special guests or you could head down to Popscene to check out West Indian Girl and Phoenix, who have a happy French pop thing going on, not unlike Tahiti 80. more ›

A weekly bar review column mostly transcribed from stuff carved into the walls of the mens room. more ›