And how might you observe Guy Fawkes Night here in San Francisco? Here are our suggestions:...

Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. Nicole Atkins - Neptune City: This New Jersey native, reaches down deep to relate stories of her hometown, Neptune City on her debut release. "From the time I was a kid I started collecting these sad little tragically beautiful personal stories from the people in my life, and my own as well. That sense of history really appeals......

On Thursday night, political non-profit organization Music For America presented their inaugural Icon Awards to honor influential musicians, outstanding political achievement, and social responsibility. Honorees included Gavin Newsom, Green Day, Death Cab For Cutie, Oakland-based Youth Movement Records, Working Assets, and MFA Board Member Dan Lipski. With 60,000 members, Music for America endeavors to engage young people in politics through partnerships with musicians and music communities. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, MfA co-founder Dan Droller"......

On the bright side, at least matchbox 20's Rob Thomas won't be here: Gavin Newsom took some time out from romancing to regretfully announce that a planned free Santana concert at the Civic Center on April 22, in connection with the centennial festivities for the April 18, 1906 earthquake, has been indefinitely postponed due to lack of funds. We're not super huge Santana fans or anything, but it's cool that he was going to play free of charge -- and we're also a little disappointed to hear that Green Day was possibly also in negotiations to play that same show. We love Green Day! Newsom is doing his best to put a positive spin on it: they're going to keep fundraising, and you know, an earthquake celebration isn't about the date of the earthquake, it's about Survival! and Community Togetherness! -- that's what we're celebrating and that'll go on all year! A concert is appropriate at any time! "It will be even bigger and better than what we had been planning," Newsom bravely said, though he also declined to state when that bigger and better concert might actually take place, or even be announced. We hope the show'll be like Lollapalooza, with the big names on the center stage and a smaller stage for local acts! Barring that, we hope Huey Lewis and the News play. Picture of Carlos Santana performing at the 2004 SF Blues Festival...

Let's start by kicking out the jams. DJ Icewater mixes the sounds of Yay Area soul from past to present for a a Shout Magazine Shoutcast. What's old to Swerbo but new to us are hi-fi recordings of The Slip and Surprise Me Mr. Davis show at the Independent in November. Nicole Lee suggests some music podcasts, including a podcast by geek-rock legends They Might Be Giants. And topping the Yahoo search charts for......

Free tickets and concert picks for the week of 10/20-10/26. San Francisco's own Oranger is returning home after nearly a month on the road to celebrate the release of their CD New Comes and Goes. Check out their e-card to preview some songs off the CD and enter for your chance to win two tickets to their show at the Independent this Saturday with Sensations, The 88 and Black Fiction. (Contest ends tomorrow at noon!)......

Stage Fog doesn't have anything against dancers, and to prove it we're featuring some of our favorite companies this week. ...

SFist reviews Green Day at the Warfield...

Listen up! Two of our favorite indie rock bands are coming to town this week. "Indie" as in they're actually on independent labels ("indie" is not a genre); and "rock" as in crunchy guitars, dirty reverb and gratifyingly dour lyrics. Rock as in, we salute you. Those bands are Criteria and The Constantines, playing at Great American Music Hall on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively. Fire up your devil horns. Enter to win a copy of......

Now, we're not (too) ashamed to admit that we've loved Green Day ever since their first (no longer on Lookout) album from 1990. But.... come on, they're playing SBC Park? Who's the American Idiot now? We took so long to decide if we wanted to go to the show that by the time we bought our tickets, the only seats left were in the row that's second from the very top of the entire stadium. So it turns out that the only people who procrastinate over their arena rock tickets more than ambivalent sellouts like yours truly are.... truly devoted teenage fans from the East Bay who required months and months of pleading before a parent reluctantly agreed to brave the drive into San Francisco on a Saturday night to give the kids some fun. This was totally the best crowd we've ever seen a show with. They knew the lyrics to every single song! "ST. JIMMY'S COMING DOWN, ACROSS THE ALLEYWAY!!!!" They shrieked their hearts out! When Billie Joe asked for volunteers to come on stage to play with the band, they raised their hands! (Did we mention that we were in the second to the very top row in the top tier of the stadium?) They bought big foam fingers that said GREEN DAY on them!! How can you not believe in the redemptive power of rock and roll?...

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Life sucks in Haiti. Hybrids -- they may look cute, but their silent wheels make them angels of death for visually-impaired pedestrians! Cover article: Day in the life of the Homeland Security agent patrolling the bay in a gunboat. Down In Front thought the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show blew. Yay, Green Day! Yay, Blackalicious! And Savage Love: a baaaaaad experience with a mistaken-gender date, and an invitation to send your thoughts about it to Dan. Should be an interesting column next week! And some sad news from the other New Times affiliate, the SF Weekly: we got a tip that publisher John Mecklin will be leaving, as of next week. No! Who will Mr. Brugman fight with now? Thanks for all the fun over the last eight years, Mr. Mecklin, and we wish you the best of luck for whatever you do next. Weekly: Matt Smith's hilariously bad afternoon the day the beer truck blew up, which segues only somewhat seamlessly into a discussion about how we're misusing transportation money from Congress. Awesome Ted Rall about disasters across this great land. Are you an apologist for FEMA? Cover article: the Lower Fillmore area -- in-fighting about its redevelopment. Is Little Star better than Zachary's (or is it just SF snobbery?) The lead singer from Xiu Xiu. And Mecklin loves trance music. We'll miss you, big guy! After the jump: The Bay Guardian, the Metro, and the pick of the week....

Bet you're sorry now that you didn't pick San Francisco for the Video Music Awards, MTV! Apparently all pre-VMA parties for Sunday's VMAs in Miami have been cancelled in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The storm hit Miami right as this year's VMA host, Sean Combs (we are now point-blank refusing to call him Puffy, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, or Diddy, because, well, that's ridiculous) cut the ceremonial ribbon at "Hotel MTV" on Wednesday, so yesterday and tonight's parties all got cancelled. Sorry, Ricky Martin's listening party and the Hotel MTV B-Ball Tournament f/ the Ying Yang Twins and Mike Jones! See, MTV? Gavin was right; we would have been an excellent venue! We're having bee-yoo-tee-ful weather out here this weekend -- not too hot, not too cold, and the fog makes for beautiful sunsets. SF would have been a great place to watch our local boys from Green Day win some Moonmen. Oh well, MTV -- we'll just enjoy our city without you this weekend. (Gosh, we hope Farnsworth Bentley's umbrella doesn't flip inside out over Mr. Combs in the high winds out there in Miami, that would be terrible.) ...

You might have heard that after a long relationship with Oakland's Lookout! Records, Green Day recently decided to take back their pre-Dookie releases due to concerns over unpaid royalties. If you want to read more background on the story, Punknews.org, MTV.com and Pitchfork offer coverage. There seems to be a lot of hubbub over Lookout's business practices, with former president Larry Livermore quoted by Pitchfork as saying Lookout was "apparently using the [Green Day......

sfist interviews christopher appelgren, president of lookout records, home to greenday, op ivy, the queers, ted leo...

We went through the pains of watching Sunday night's GRAMMY Awards telecast so you didn't have to. Ray Charles was unsurprisingly the top winner, but our Bay area homeboys in Green Day made us proud with American Idiot's win for Best Rock Album. Their live performance of the title track was triumphant. Thankfully their use of fireball pyrotechnics elicited more of a rock n' roll fist pump than a cringe. Billie Joe was even invited......

The nominees for the 47th Annual GRAMMY Awards were announced yesterday in Hollywood, with homeboys Green Day earning an impressive six nominations. That's four less than Kanye West, two less than Alicia Keys and Usher, but one more than Norah, Loretta and Prince. Billie Joe, Mike, and Tré Cool are honored for American Idiot (the album and the single) in the categories of Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Rock Performance By......

roundup of the Bay Area weeklies...

SFist is thankful that San Francisco has the greatest live music venues in the country, despite the bad news SFist Isaac gave us about the closure of seminal Lower Haight club The Top. If you're looking for an excuse to get away from visiting relatives, or a fantastic place to take them for some entertainment, read on for our suggestions. Tonight you can get your punk rock served up stadium-style with hometown boys Green Day......

The San Jose Museum of Art plays host to the first major solo U.S. exhibit of work by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Citing influences such as Disney and Punk Rock, Nara is best known for his unsettling cartoon-like children. Although they may fit the Japanese sense of kawaii, the direct gaze and sense of malice that is often present in Nara’s characters excludes them from fitting a Western definition of ‘cute’. The tilte of the show, “Nothing Ever Happens” is an apt reflection of the startling sense of ennui that permeates much of Nara’s art....