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 ›

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Do you want to be a fill-in copy editor for the Weekly? First question: does fill-in need a hyphen? Also, you must know Quark. We skipped Matt Smith this week, we just weren't up for the hate. The Apologist on traffic. Can we also confess that we don't really get the Ephraim the Track Bike column, though we do love it. Advice on effective protesting. Cover article: a con artist in jail made some prank phone calls and punked the police into letting a bunch of people out of prison. Dang! Hawaiian hardcore at El Rio on Saturday. Meredith takes her mom to the seafood place on 14th and Church that SFist Ced went to a month or so ago. A listing of your latest indie rock darlings -- the name Oh No! Oh My! is pretty good. And SFist Eve's horoscope: Rob Breszny suggests listening to Emmylou Harris. more ›

Last year's phenomenal lineup of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival earned it one of our esteemed 'Fistie Awards for Best Musical Event, for being both amazing and free of charge. more ›

Were you among the tens of thousands who attended the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival this year? We cannot say enough good things about this event. If you're a fan of folk, Americana, country, bluegrass, or roots music of any ilk, you should have been at Golden Gate Park on September 30th and October 1st. This year's Hardly Strictly drew over 50 acts, most of which were headliners in their own right. Lucky for us, a friend of ours who was performing hooked us up with all access backstage passes, and we were able to witness how the vibe was as nice among the artists as it was among the crowd. more ›

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. ...