Each Tuesday we will feature new music that should (or whatever) be on your radar. Standouts: 1. The Hives - The Black and White Album: The first song, "Tick Tick Boom" opens up with clanging of the drums and guitar tuning following with a huge guitar and drum entrance. Instantly your head starts to bob up and down. As the song progresses the bobbing turns into a rocked-out-90's-head-bang. We absolutely love the climax into the......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

The Alternative Press Expo is this Saturday and Sunday, and hot damn we're psyched. Who better to help kick off our celebration of alternative press than one of the guys doing comics right? Larry Young is a fixture at APE -- his company, AiT/Planet Lar has been presenting there for years, exhibiting a diverse and interesting line of OGNs ("Original Graphic Novels") and other comic books. We spoke to Mr. Young about his company and pending projects....

Tonight is another epic shindig at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission at 3rd), celebrating the opening of R. Crumb’s Underground, a thematically-organized show of collaborative drawings (including work with his wife, Aline), self-portraits, and counter-cultural chronicles, including early and new work, plus rare film screenings of some of the blues, swing and "exotica" bands that inspired Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders. The soirée also celebrates the opening of The Black Factory by William......

“Don’t clap. Change.” Those words kicked off the opening of the Black Panther Rank and File show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday. Spoken by one of the 19 teenagers from YBCA’s Young Artists at Work, they set the tone for the evening. The opening attracted an unusually diverse crowd, and while mingling among the black leather and activists, we felt as if we had stepped back into 1968. That is,......

The Black Angels swoop down on San Francisco tonight to bring their grimy psychedelic swing to Cafe Du Nord. Listen to their self-described Electrified Native American Drone 'n' Roll here or download the song "Black Grease" and stream the video for it [high or low]. Enter to win a copy of The Black Angels EP (contest ends Weds. 2/15). Thursday 2/9 Popscene's Valentine's Day Party with DJ Mike Relm and Von Iva @ 330 Ritch......

The new hot couple: Wednes-gelina! Tonight: Got apiarian tendencies? The San Francisco Beekeepers are having their monthly meeting tonight at the Randall Museum at 7:30. Past president Stan Williams will be reminiscing about his days in the club. Also -- looks like some unspecified drama on their bee-log! Thursday: The Asian Art Museum is featuring performances of Chinese dances by local troupe Peony Performing Arts at 7 p.m, with music by the South Bay Chinese......

We were just talking about how much we love food competitions! San Jose's own competitive eater Joey Chestnut has kicked off the Super Bowl in style, winning the annual Wing Bowl competition in Philly by eating 173 chicken wings over the course of the day. All wings must be stripped -- strict rule. Chestnut qualified for the competition by drinking a gallon of milk in 41 seconds. The Wing Bowl is a pre-Super Bowl tradition, and has been running since 1993. This year was the "Virgin Bowl," because for the first time, past winners were excluded from competition, meaning that our favorite competitive eater (scroll to 7/9/05, for a sample of our bloggery in the pre-SFist days), Sonya The Black Widow Thomas, couldn't re-eat her way to the top this go-around. Local boy Joey Chestnut is considered a breakout rookie on the competitive eating circuit, coming in third in this year's Coney Island hot dog competition, second only to The Black Widow and the famous Kobayashi. Chestnut's beaten Thomas once before, in the Waffle House waffle-off (18.5 waffles in 10 minutes), and almost beat Kobayashi in this year's Krystal burger competition (and was even leading him at one point, the first time in competitive eating history that anyone's outeaten Kobayashi). He's considered a lock for the prestigious title of competitive eating rookie of the year. ...

Maybe this is just stemming from a misplaced nostalgia for our fourth grade class, where everyone was required to buy the exact same edition of The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander, but we find something very appealing about the idea of the Library of Congress's One City One Book program. The One City One Book program is a city-wide reading group program, where city librarians select a book and suggest that everyone in the......

If this review were an Edgar G. Ulmer movie, it would be covered in fog, have a sweeping orchestral score (public domain of course), and SFist would be a nihilistic outsider desperate for acceptance. One-out-of-three ain't bad. Edgar G. Ulmer, the Poverty Row director responsible for such ultra-low budget classics as Detour, The Man From Planet X, and The Black Cat, has gained a cult following amongst film geeks and independent filmmakers because he......

Once it's finished later this year, Octavia Boulevard -- that eastern-edge-of-the-Castro strip where once squatted a disused offramp -- will be a sort of lasting, permanent demonstration of SF's long-held disdain for urban interstates, as well as an ecologically friendly memorial to what was once a divisive highway. Meanwhile, The SF Arts Commission, The Black Rock Arts Foundation, and David Best are scurrying to erect a new structure on nearby Hayes Green that in......

A weekly roundup of interesting theater you can check out this weekend. This week: A.C.T.'s "The Black Rider," a Neil Simon play, a world premiere from Shotgun Players, an Iranian drama, and another plug for the current production by the company that features one of EssEffist's writers....

While the New Yorkers and the nation are gearing up for the Repbulican National Convention in New York City this weekend, protesters are gearing up for what is likely going to be the largest public demonstration in a generation. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will be in the street speaking out against what many feel is a dishonest if not outright corrupt administration - including a sizeable contingent from the Bay Area. For those......