Here's another chance to win a pair of tickets to Asian Art Museum's popular Matcha series. This week's event has the titillating theme of Sensuality, making it the perfect post-Valentine's Day date event. The fifth person to email sfistevents@gmail.com with Matcha in the subject line, along with their full name, wins! Good luck. more ›

Here's another chance to win a pair of tickets to the Asian Art Museum's fabulous Matcha event on Thursday, featuring New Indian cuisine. The fifth person to email us at sfistevents@gmail.com with their full name, along with Matcha in the subject line, wins! Update: Contest Closed. Congrats, J.G.! more ›

There's a scavenger hunt going on today, sponsored by GayCities.com, in which local drag impresario Juanita MORE! is checking in (via iPhone app) at various locales throughout the city and dropping off pairs of tickets for lucky scavengers. more ›

The San Francisco International Film Festival's Closing Night event is sure to be an exciting one. We have a pair of tickets to give away to lucky entrant number 7 who emails us (sfistevents@ gmail.com) with their full name and Closing Night in the subject. You must be 21+ to enter. more ›

The eighth person to email us (sfistevents @ gmail.com) with their name and "Every Little Step" in the subject is the winner! more ›

Here's our third giveaway for the SFIFF Sunday screenings at the Castro Theatre. more ›

And now for our second giveaway: Write a haiku with the words, "cult" and "housewives," and enter to win a pair of tickets to the 3 p.m. screening at Castro Theatre on Sunday. The winner will be notified by 12:30 p.m. tomorrow. more ›

The San Francisco Film Festival starts tonight! more ›

Two nights down, four to go. What show(s) did you check out last night? We saw the Papercuts and Mountain Goats at The Swedish American Music Center-- it was amazing. Tonight, we're torn, we love Josh Ritter, Thao Nguyen, Thee Oh Sees, Martha Wainwright, Dr. Octagon vs. Dr. Dooom & Mike Relm (and that's just the headliners). Since the first two are sold out, are you going to brave craigslist, or do you have a strong reason why other shows should be seen instead? Tell us in the comments! more ›

What did you check out last night? Tell us about it in the comments. Tonight, we're going to see the Mountain Goats. There's several other shows that look killer too-- Stepen Malkmus, French Kicks, Matt Costa and more. Sleep is obviously out of the question. more ›

Tis the season for existential angst to descend on all music loving folk in the area. The Noise pop festival starts tonight, and thehttp://www.noisepop.com/the-2009-festival-schedule about which shows to go to have driven many a hipster to the brink. As always, SFist is here to help. We'll be sharing our daily pix, and thanks to to the kind folks at Noise pop, we've got tickets for you too. more ›

SFist interviews Rachel Schutz of Darlybird and hosts a giveaway of some of her awesome wares more ›

The International Animation Festival starts tonight, kids. And speaking of them, don't bring yours to tomorrow night's wonderfully smut-filled orgy of animated shorts, Top Drawers. more ›

SFist interviews Mike Birbiglia and gives away tickets to his upcoming show at Cobb's. more ›

SFist gives away tickets to Two Gallants at the Independent more ›

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Forget that Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, and Chris Cooper star in The Kingdom. The divine Jason Bateman also appears -- reason enough to check out this action flick. more ›

John Vanderslice is someone you can truly count on. Aside from his incredible talent, we're always impressed with his indie rock work ethic. He keeps his studio Tiny Telephone open as an incubator for top quality recordings, he's always good for a genuine smile and a hug when we run into him, and about once every 18 months or so he releases another incredible album through Seattle-based indie Barsuk Records. His latest release Emerald City offers a somewhat gentler take on his always-unique melodies and music and a move towards even more intricate and adventurous lyrics. In the first song alone, he sings about the kookaburra tree, frangipane, bundestag and terabytes. He builds and inhabits fantastical tales and delivers them in such a convincing way as to make you believe he lived through them. In honor of John playing a free show at Amoeba Records at 2pm on Saturday, we're giving away a copy of Emerald City to two lucky winners. Listen to "White Dove" and enter to win. (Contest ends 8/14; winner will be notified via email.) more ›

The shows coming to San Francisco this week give us an excuse to talk about some of our favorite music of 2007. more ›

The lovely local ladies in Von Iva are gearing up to release a brand new CD called Our Own Island. They're doing their part to heat up the chilly San Francisco summer by having a special CD release party on August 4th at 12 Galaxies (in addition to tomorrow's party at the Blank Club in San Jose). They promise a bikini bonanza (use your imagination) so risque that you have to be over 18 to get in. Don't worry, they'll make sure your beer stays chilled by offering special "I Partied with Von Iva" cozies, which is possibly the best merch item we've heard of all year. We're giving one lucky winner a copy of the brand new CD and a beer cozy of their very own. Listen to the new single "Lala" and enter to win (contest ends July 31st; winner will be notified via email.) more ›

Do you like film? Do you like theater? Do you like film and theater mixed together? Also, do you like happy hours and after-parties? Then you might be inclined to check out Happy Hour 3 this Saturday night! After two successful events in Los Angeles, the folks at Happy Hour are "packing their dry ice machine" and heading for the Brava Theater, located in our favorite part of the Mission. The happy hour starts... more ›

Prolific, ornery, talented, unpredictable, easy on the eyes, genius, bastard - there are many ways to try and describe Ryan Adams, but at this point if you've heard of him, you've probably formed some sort of opinion. In his new single "Two" he sings: "I got a really good heart, I just can't catch a break." Whether or not you buy that, we're still loving his new CD. Easy Tiger is built on the careworn love songs with memorable melodies that he does best, with no gimmicks or interludes. Bring your broken heart to hear him perform live on Monday night at the Herbst Theatre or on Tuesday at the Berkeley Community Theatre. We're giving away a copy of Easy Tiger to get one lucky winner fired up for the shows. (Contest ends 7/24; winner will be notified via email.) more ›

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Our top 5 moments at Feist's Fillmore show on Tuesday, June 26th: more ›

We don't say this lightly, because there are really a lot of great artists coming out of the Bay Area, but we do have a current favorite: Birds & Batteries. We've been telling you about this co-ed quartet for a little while now, and our expectations for their new record were really high. Thankfully it's good news: we love I'll Never Sleep Again. It's still the B&B we met on their last release, but this time the woeful steel guitar and Mike Sempert's deep drawl are buffered by better production, including warm bursts of synth so thick you could hold them in your hand. The record starts out by making the simple, straightforward Neil Young classic "Heart of Gold" into an existential epic, and we love the song "Starclusters" so much that it's secured a solid entry in our top 10 tracks of the year. One lucky winner will get a Birds & Batteries prize pack, including two tickets to the CD release party on Wednesday night at Cafe Du Nord, a limited edition copy of the CD with silk screened artwork, plus a poster from the show. Enter to win (contest ends 6/25; winner will be notified via email). more ›

Huge congratulations to our friend DJ Ted from BAGeL Radio who landed in the New York Times this week! A photo of BAGeL Radio HQ is featured in the story called "Big Radio Makes a Grab for Internet Listeners", along with a quote from Ted and mentions of bay area-based Soma FM, Live365 and Pandora. Ted's fighting the good fight to save internet radio from being crushed by soaring broadcasting fees. He's got full details on how to help the cause on his blog, along with an announcement of a benefit show on July 1st at Bottom of the Hill. We'll keep you posted with details on the show as it approaches.
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SFist interviews Dan Smith from the Noisettes and gives away tickets and a drumhead more ›