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've got a really cool giveaway this week. Everyone knows who Rufus Wainwright is, right? Please, tell us that you do. He's still crooning luxuriously behind the piano, wearing fabulously tailored suits and hasn't aged a day since his auspicious self-titled debut nearly ten years ago. His brand new record, Release the Stars, is hot off the presses and he's coming to play a special show at Nob Hill Masonic Center with Sean Lennon......

Drove out to China Camp State Park with Sufjan Stevens on the stereo singing about Chicago. The air sat heavy with oil from the Eucalyptus trees and salt from the Bay....

This week's giveaway comes from The Finches, a local duo who play endearing folk pop. The songs are refreshingly gentle and Carolyn's voice rings with a true sincerity. See them Saturday afternoon at 2pm when they play a free in-store at Amoeba, or celebrate their CD release at Cafe Du Nord on Wednesday night with The Moore Brothers, Colossal Yes and The Mantles. We're giving away a copy of their brand new CD Human......

SFist interviews JL Aronson, director of Danielson: A Family Movie...

How do you feel about holiday music? We thought that KOIT started playing their 24/7 holiday programming a little early this year, but we do love randomly hearing Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" in our car. There are two holiday albums out this year that we've been enjoying. If you're a fan of Sarah McLachlan, you should buy her holiday album Wintersong. The CD has several traditional holiday tunes, but we were pleasantly surprised by......

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Hey, the EBX is starting a blog -- we hear those are very trendy. But they've got us listed as a link, right below the Culture Blog, so it's all okay! Bottom Feeder mocks the errors made by the Bay Guardian in its East Bay endorsements. Would you buy expensive organic meals prepared by these folks? Confrontational atheists meeting near Walnut Creek. Cover article: the woes of air......

Who was fortunate enough to see Sufjan Stevens last week? We made our way to Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall for the first time, alone since our contact could only spare a single ticket but grateful to be able to continue SFist's support of Sufjan. Zellerbach Hall is a formal, seated venue built with the foremost value of great acoustics (rather than easy access to a sticky bar and stinky bathrooms). The majority of concertgoers looked to......

SFist inteviews Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond. They will be opening for Sufjan Stevens in Berkeley October 10 and 11 2006...

SFist interviews John Ringhofer of Half-handed cloud on the Asthmatic Kitty label...

SFist interviews Caila Thompson-Hannant from Shapes and Sizes off of the Asthmatic Kitty Label...

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......

We're giving thanks today for all the great venues in San Francisco, which attract bands of all shapes, sizes and levels of fame to our fair city. Our show pick of the week is tomorrow night in Hotel Utah's tiny two-floor room with Phosphorescent and Castanets. Phosphorescent's Aw Come Aw Wry is a strong contender for our year end Top 10, and fans of Okkervil River and Neutral Milk Hotel should listen up. Sufjan Stevens'......

"What? This isn't the Beck show?" we heard a guy ahead of us in line cry out in the Great American ticket line last night. Nope, the sold-out show was for quirky folkster Sufjan Stevens, who's touring on the second of his albums dedicated to the American states, Illinois. (Beck was about five blocks down the street, at the Bill Graham.) According to Asthmatic Kitty, the label that's putting out Illinois, they got an angry letter from DC Comics complaining about a picture of Illinois resident Superman on the cover art for Sufjan's album. They managed to work out a deal where they can sell the CDs they have but future albums won't have Clark Kent on them. So naturally, we ran to the merch table as soon as we got in, and, to our delight, they were selling off the CDs with the pictures of the Man of Steel. No, we didn't buy two (one to listen to, one to sell) -- but we thought about it! Making the pre-concert settling-in process complete, we looked up from lovingly caressing our new purchase to see -- not only SFist Krissy, but also -- Jason Schwartzman! Well, it was either Jason Schwartzman or a guy with Jason's distinctive nose and bad posture, wearing an aqua tank top and swimming upstream with his posse to get closer to the stage. uneven metered time, the Fighting Illini, a loud guy in the back, and a song about John Wayne Gacy, after the jump....

Our concert picks for the week of 7/14 - 7/20. Sometimes people get an extra helping of the good stuff. Like Sufjan Stevens, for example. Not only is he a wildly talented musician and songwriter with an expansive artistic vision and respectable indie rock ethic, yeah, he's also easy on the eyes too. Well this week San Francisco concertgoers can get a little extra helping of their own, with several high profile artists playing multiple......