The third and final batch of Noise Pop acts was just announced for next month’s festival, and it features St. Vincent and Death Cab for Cutie/Postal Service frontman Benjamin Gibbard, both playing separate nights at the Grace Cathedral.

If you’re gearing up to have your winter blues cured by the music festival Noise Pop (February 20 - March 2), you probably knew there was already a pretty good line-up in the pipeline for this year, including Soccer Mommy, Mercury Rev, Nick Lowe with Los Straitjackets, and the Reverend Horton Heat. But Noise Pop has just popped off another batch of announced performers, and they include St. Vincent and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service, who blew us away at Outside Lands this year.

Both new big headliners will be playing at Grace Cathedral, with the St. Vincent show on Sunday, February 23 (it’s already showing as sold out), and the Benjamin Gibbard show on Tuesday, February 25 (tickets currently on sale).

The new announcement also includes Earl Sweatshirt on February 26 at the Great American Music Hall, and a now-timely David Lynch Tribute by the Red Room Orchestra, also at the GAMH.

A few other standouts that were already on the bill, but perhaps you could use a reminder, are Fantastic Negrito in a February 14 pre-festival set at the 4 Star Theater, the Flamin’ Groovies  also at the 4 Star on February 22, and American Football doing a 25th anniversary tribute to FKA Twigs’ LP1 at the Great American Music Hall on March 1.

You can find the full Noise Pop 2024 schedule and lineup here.

Related: Go Do This Thing: Ben Gibbard At Davies Symphony Hall [SFist]

Image: (Left) Justin Higuchi (Right) Andy Witchger via Wikimedia Commons

While San Francisco is best known for its acclaimed food scene and unyielding political righteousness, it is also known to hold some pretty swank and artful events boasting worldwide talent. Highbrow enrichment, if you will. Thank god. And with that, we give you the top culture events in San Francisco.

FRAMELINE FILM FESTIVAL
Now in its 37th year, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival—better known as Frameline—is the longest-running and largest film festival in the world devoted to LGBT-focused programming. The festival coincides with Pride season in SF, and this year's festivities will run from June 20 to June 30—they're actually still accepting entries through February 15. Annual attendance clocks in around 55,000 people, and in recent years the fest has particularly been a showcase for queer cinema from countries where coming out remains a courageous act with life-and-death consequences.

NOISE POP FESTIVAL
Outside Lands and the Treasure Island Music Festival might be the big concert draws in the city, but after more than 20 years of bringing independent and alternative music to San Francisco, the NoisePop festival is still where our local scenesters turn for what's next. More intimate than most of SXSW Music and less chaotic than CMJ, NoisePop proper takes place every year at the end of February and beginning of March. For 2013, the festival overflows with S.F. Sketchfest tie-ins, live music at S.F. Beer Week and the return of Culture Club celebrating independent culture beyond the music scene.

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
"Everything was beautiful at the ballet, hey," crooned A Chorus Line's Sheila—and indeed it is. Founded in 1933, the San Francisco Ballet Company stands as one of the most respected dance companies in the world (along with American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet), and is the first professional ballet company in the United States. The 2013 season, which kicks off this Thursday, will boats such stellar shows as Onegin, Borderlands, Criss-Cross, and Cinderella, just to name a few.

ETHNIC DANCE FESTIVAL
The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival (the month of June) began in 1978, and was the first multicultural, city-sponsored ethnic dance festival in America. It's the main annual production of the World Arts West organization, whose mission is to sustain the world's diverse dance traditions and provide the public with opportunities to learn more about these cultural traditions. They've played host to over 600 dance companies from over a hundred different genres including folk dance, social dance, traditional classical dance, sacred dance genres, and vernacular dance forms. It's a huge event that perhaps goes under the radar outside of the dance community, and each year concludes with a lavish benefit evening hosted by the Mayor at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Maria Bamford will appear at SF Sketchfest 2013. (Photo: Scott Beale)

SF SKETCHFEST
Although this year's Super Bowl (featuring the 49ers!) overlaps with SF Sketchfest, our clear eyes and full hearts are firmly looking forward to the latter. Each year the country's best and most esteemed comedic talent come to Baghdad by the Bay to perform or put on a show. We look forward to it every year, and this year is no exception. The 2013 roster includes such soiled-your-trousers-with-laughter talent as Maria Bamford, Jennifer Coolidge, Rachel Dratch, Janeane Garofalo, Maya Rudolph, Julie Klausner, Fred Willard, Drew Carey, Jenny Slate, Billy Eichner, Jon Hendren, Kristen Schaal, and Andy Richter. And more. So very much more.

CATCHING A SHOW AT SF OPERA
Founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola, it remains the second largest opera company in North America. Expert productions aside, just walking into the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House is a formidable and gorgeous cultural experience by itself.

Day of the Dead procession 2012. (Photo: clowntraps)

DAY OF THE DEAD (Día de los Muertos)
Though it has somewhat turned into yet another PBR-swilling party for privileged twentysomething Missionites, the annual Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) procession manages to retain some of the old Mission District charm.

SF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
More "international" in terms of appeal than the number of films with subtitles, the SFIFF draws filmmakers and movie industry hotshots from all over the world. The roughly 175 screenings that take place over two weeks in April/May routinely sell out, thanks in part to the celebrity appearances that in recent years included Mike Mills and Ewan McGregor for the premiere of Beginners, Oakland-based songstress Merill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs providing a live score for Buster Keaton shorts, Yo La Tengo soundtracking The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, Rosemarie DeWitt attending for Your Sister's Sister and Harmony Korine premiering his Vice Media-produced The Fourth Dimension starring Val Kilmer. Even if you plan to skip the Director Q&A sessions, do yourself a favor and attend either the opening or closing night galas to rub elbows with folks you'll see at the Oscars in a year.

NoisePop, the city's all-over-town music festival announced the lineup for their 20th anniversary festival this afternoon and true to form it's ripe with NoisePop alumni, recent noisemakers and younger up-and-comers. Below, the current lineup of music acts in non-discriminant alphabetical order:

Archers of Loaf
Bleached
Born Gold
Budos Band
Built to Spill
Christie Front Drive
Craig Finn
Cursive
Die Antwoord
Disappears
Grimes
Imperial Teen
Laura Veirs & The Hall of Flames
Laura Veirs & the Tumble Bees
Mount Moriah
oOoOO
Pickwick
Porter Robinson
Surfer Blood
Taxes
Ume
Veronica Falls
Virgin Islands

More artist announcements, plus the full schedule of non-music events like the film series and Culture Club lectures and panels should follow in the weeks before the fest kicks off on February 22nd. In the meantime, NoisePop will be celebrating the announcement with a special Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences this Thursday.

Poster art by Shepard Fairey.

[NoisePop]

Tomorrow night the tireless local music promoters at NoisePop and musically inclined kitchen staff from graffEats are teaming up again to combine classy foodie-ism with playful music appreciation. The theme this time: next weekend's Treasure Island Music Festival — meaning all the dishes on the menu tomorrow night dinner are a subtle nod to the artists at the festival. Because this is a rock 'n roll-style event, everything can be "shot, sucked or eaten with your fingers." Naturally. Observe the tentative menu/lineup:

• Death Cab for Cutie: Tomato and peach "Caprese", sweet balsamic, aged cheddar, smokey almond pesto
• Flying Lotus: Angel-spiced halibut, carmelized onion and fennel, black olive oil
• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: Beer-fried game hen & yeast-risen waffle, mustard, radish
• Death From Above 1979: Berber spiced ribeye, grilled paneer, baby eggplant and minted yogurt
• Empire of the Sun: "Head on a stick"...golden peaches-and-cream push pop, star anise salt and gold, of course
• Aloe Blacc: Foie gras bon bon (!), dark chocolate, plum, sea salt

Weird, insufflating foie gras must be bad for you or something. Anyway, we would have picked a grilled chicken heart on a stick for Death From Above 1979, but that's just us. The whole thing pops up at San Franpsycho's North Beach shop on Grant Street tomorrow evening and tickets are still available. Just be careful while you nosh and mosh.

[Details]

San Francisco's venerable indie music festival promoters NoisePop are joining forces with the traveling foodies at graffEats to create another one-night-only dinner of food and music on September 8th. You might remember we attended their last dining event which featured "covers" of signature dishes from some well-known chefs paired with cover songs to match the mood of each course - and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was like a culinary mixtape, if you will.

Like last time, the 6-course dinner will again have graffEats chef Blair Warsham putting his spin on dishes from famous chefs worldwide, but the theme: "A Culinary Tribute to Serge Gainsbourg" is a little more focused this time around. For the Gainsbourg fans, you can expect covers like a Snooze remix of "New York, USA". And the foodies can expect the menu to lean heavily on French influences with dishes like Eric Ripert's (of Le Bernardin in New York) carolina shrimp ravioli.

Adding a bit of that Gainsbourg mystery to the whole thing: the dinner will be held at a currently undisclosed location in SoMa. Tickets are $85 a head and the friendly graffEats staff will even pop your own bottle for you. The VIP upgrade gets a sponsored cocktail hour and included wine pairings. Not too shabby. There's currently only one seating scheduled for September 8th.

[NoisePop]

And we leave you with some late era Gainsbourg:

Tuesday: Our first Noise Pop night was on Opening Night at the Rickshaw Stop, which was available to badge-holders, staff, and volunteers. We got there right when the doors opened and went straight up the stairs toward the complimentary Blowfish Sushi, which we loaded onto our cocktail napkin that soon became soggy with wasabi and soy sauce. (We gave all but two of these rolls to our spouse who was working the merch table all night.) We helped out at the table for a while, but we unfortunately couldn't stay for the bands.

Thursday: We were at Cafe Du Nord, where the line-up was The Dodos, Or, the Whale, Bodies of Water, and Willow Willow, a fun, sexy night of '70s-esque rockin'/folkin' guy/girl harmonies. The crowd was really nice, and three out of the four bands were too. Most of them had their own people watching their merch, and we were happy to handle their stuff here and there, in between selling the Noise Pop stuff. One band just assumed we would watch their stuff for the entire night, which was especially stressful when their merch started selling like hotcakes toward the end of the show. Not a please or thank you was uttered. but we don't think they were even aware of their rudeness, for what it's worth. LESSON: Bands, take your merch seriously, especially when lots of people want to buy it.

Friday: We took a break from volunteering and attended the Mountain Goats show at Bimbo's, accompanied by Jeffrey Lewis & the Jitters, Okay, and Aim Low Kid (disclosure: they're fronted by our spouse). It was another stellar night with a really happy crowd and happy and talented bands. We were thrilled to see the Mountain Goats live, and we are now even more enamored with John Darnielle. Behind his awkward storyteller persona, he is a charismatic and top-notch entertainer, and his drummer and bass player amazed us as well.

Mountain Goats/Noise Pop poster by Lil Tuffy