Shit. It's Valentine's Day this Thursday and by the looks of it most of you have already planned your perfect date. Three shows are already completely sold-out: The Kills at Rickshaw Stop, Slightly Stoopid at The Independent and Common at Mezzanine. While there are still several shows you can chance Thursday night, it might be wise to stay home and wait till the weekend to take your crush out. We are. Friday, the local music......

We're sure you've read, by now, Pitchfork's or Paste's, "Best Albums of 2007" lists. Now we could get all "official" and post a similar list to Austinist's Top 15 (which we agree pretty heavily with) but we didn't want to type the same list and publish it again; we're going to try something a bit different. Now, at Sfist we use the collective and most sacred "we", but this time, this is strictly mine. I......

The shows coming to San Francisco this week give us an excuse to talk about some of our favorite music of 2007. Perhaps the best album we've heard this year comes from a Texan named Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent. She's a seasoned touring guitarist for Sufjan and the Polyphonic Spree, but at only 24 years old she just released a debut album that's sophisticated, brave and artistically mature enough to make you think that......

Our top 5 moments at Feist's Fillmore show on Tuesday, June 26th:      5. Hearing a cash register clang at the back of the venue in the middle of the set, and realizing that the sold-out crowd was perfectly silent. San Francisco concertgoers can really take their music seriously. You stay classy.      4. Instead of playing to the crowd, Feist literally played the crowd by dividing us into three sections (by type of shoe......

What do Broken Social Scene and Peaches both have in common? Leslie Feist! The Canadian singer-songwriter performs at the Fillmore tonight with Grizzly Bear. 1805 Geary St., SF. If you can't score tickets to the show, head over to Bottom of the Hill and check out NOMO, an Afro-beat band from Detroit for $10. 1233 17th St, SF. Calling all PSP fans! Head over to the Sony Playstation store at the Metreon to celebrate......

SFist interviews Bart Davenport of Honeycut...

Special video bonanza! Last night we made it out to the Noise Pop BAGeL Radio happy hour at Thee Parkside just in time to see Peloton. That's right, in case you haven't heard or experienced it yet, Noise Pop is in full swing here in San Francisco. Thee Parkside was packed with festivalgoers and BAGeL fans and DJ Ted couldn't help but beam proudly at the full house. It's good to see music fans supporting......

Special chock-full-of-mp3s-from-great-local-bands edition! Hailing from Helsinki, Husky Rescue blends the rich, cinematic production and songwriting of Marko Nyberg with the gorgeous, honeyed vocals of Reeta-Leena Korhola. The result is a hypnotic combination that lies somewhere between futuristic and backwoods. Listen to "New Light of Tomorrow" and enter to win a copy of their record Country Falls. Be sure to see their live show on Friday at the Rickshaw Stop. (Contest ends 9/13; winner will be......

Now that Noise Pop is over, things are settling down at live music venues across the city, and we miss it a little. Our highlights from the festival included Feist at Bimbo's, Britt Daniel at Swedish American, Two Gallants at Bimbo's, the David Dondero and Craig Wedren show at The Knockout, and seeing old friends and making new ones. Feist's performance at Bimbo's, which SFist Emily posted a vibrant review of last week, was one......

Holy crap Noise Pop! We're going, are you? We gave away tickets to Feist, Rogue Wave, and Craig Wedren. We went to see Feist and Rogue Wave. We ran interviews with Aqueduct, John Vanderslice and Bing Ji Ling. And when we were done with all that, we went Noise Pop Shopping.......

Special Noise Pop 2006 edition Noise Pop '06 is already proving to be memorable. Tuesday night's Feist show was among the best shows we've ever seen, despite the relentless sound problems at Bimbo's, and last night we went backstage to witness a saucy embrace by Britt Daniel and John Vanderslice. Luckily our new favorite photographer Julie Schuchard was there to document the love; look for her photos in our show reviews! See another hot indie......

SFist reviews Feist, John Vanderslice, Youth Group, and The Boticelli's at Bimbo's as part of the Noise Pop festival...

SFist interviews John Vanderslice. Repeated for the Feist/ Vanderslice show at Noisepop 2006...

In case you haven't already heard us say this in ten different ways, Feist is a genius. That's why we're so excited to offer one of you a pair of tickets to go see her Noise Pop show tonight at Bimbo's. There's something for everyone in tonight's lineup: Feist will indulge your taste for something smooth, sophisticated, and heady; John Vanderslice (one of our favorite humans) takes the singer-songwriter genre in a quirky and creative......

These are my top 12 favorite albums of 2005. That's right, I said "my" not "our." That's because once a year at SFist we get crazy and write a post in the first person (and also because my fellow SFist music writers probably have wildly different favorites of their own). Sufjan Stevens Illinois Young, ambitious, talented, and accomplished, Sufjan Stevens has topped the majority of 2005’s Best Of lists his own way, on tiny independent......

So many of our favorite artists are coming to town this week, including John Vanderslice, Feist, Orenda Fink and Metric. There are also some strange celebrity bands coming through, the SF Jazz Festival is happening, and giveaways are back! San Francisco's own pride and joy John Vanderslice [read the SFist interview] recently released his fifth full length record in as many years -- let's hear it for that indie rock work ethic! He's also working......

We are big fans of Feist, the Canadian chanteuse with an esteemed indie pedigree and smooth, seductive, award-winning sound. She's quite popular throughout the blogosphere, even though her internationally acclaimed record Let It Die just saw its US release in late April. So sending us to see her open for Rilo Kiley was basically preaching to the converted. Unfortunately, we're not sure how many new converts she won over at The Grand Ballroom on Saturday......