Join us tonight at the Fillmore, where Sia (one of our favorites) will be headlining. We saw her at the end of last year and the show was definitely fantastic; we highly recommend checking out tonight's show. Her latest album, Some People Have Real Problems, is stellar and has garnered critical success jumping to #26 on the Billboard charts, selling more than 20,000 copies and finishing ahead of fellow press darling Kate Nash (all in......

While Oakland received tons of press over the weekend for its recent spate of murder, this Mission murder, which happened near 25th and South Van Ness (be careful, Phone Booth patrons!), went all but unnoticed. Around 6:45 p.m. last Friday, two men approached 21-year-old Jose Reynoso and shot him in the head and chest. He was taken to SF General Hospital where he died the following day. Police have "sketchy descriptions of the killers"......

A sad week for LAist as they lose their trusted and amazing editor Tony Pierce to the LA Times, but what a blast his last week was. He shared his 25 Favorite CDs of 2007 and wrote a great review of just a good movie, No Country For Old Men. At UCLA, thousands of students celebrated the end of their quarter by running around campus in their undies (lots of photos in a two-part......

We had twenty but it's down to the last five. Live 105, a big supporter of local music scene (see popscene) is at it again. Each December, Live 105 hosts the "Not So Silent Night" event which brings a host of great bands - this year it's Modest Mouse, Jimmy Eat World, Angels & Airwaves, Spoon and Paramore - to San Francisco. (Seems like a great line-up to us.) To make it even more......

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......

One of the glories of GooTube is that if you miss a show for whatever reason, there's a good chance it'll pop up on soon enough on the site. Like Live 105's "Not So Silent Night" show from last weekend, one of those shows that always sells out quickly and which Live 105 then proceeds to hit everyone over the head with the fact it's sold out. Luckily, a bunch of performances are posted,...

-On a cold, wintery afternoon that probably matched how A's fans are feeling right now, the A's went down to the Tigers 3-0 to now be down in the series 3-0. It happens every year in baseball come playoff time-- one team gets in explicably hot and can do no wrong (the '02 Angels, the '03 Marlins, the '04 and '05 Sox) and that this year is the Tigers. The A's, meanwhile, appear to be in that vicious playoff cycle in which hitting becomes almost impossible so the team presses and makes hitting even that much more impossible. Yeah, it's not over til it's over and the '04 Red Sox famously came from behind by an 0-3 margin, but.......

SFist had a rock-n-roll weekend that started last Friday night at Varnish for our 2nd birthday party. Not only did DJ Ted of BAGeL Radio rock the house with a few hours of his finest tracks, our friend Nick Tangborn from Jackpine Social Club also brought Mark Eitzel down for a few beers. It was great to meet some readers and the SFist bingo game was a real highlight, especially when one of our partygoers......

OK, so maybe we’re a little addicted to crime dramas, but when we finally rented HBO’s acclaimed Paradise Lost documentaries last year they literally changed our life. We’ve been following the plight of the West Memphis Three ever since. To give you some background: Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were once three young boys in rural Arkansas who happened to listen to heavy metal and wear black. Shortly after three eight-year-old boys......

We wanted to write two things to recap the year. The first one was our favorite songs of the year, the other one a recap of sports. We couldn't do it. We actually tried to put together our favorite songs from the year but once we read Pitchfork's Best Of list, we knew we couldn't compete. Those guys are just so much cooler than we could ever be. Plus, we have to admit that we don't really listen to new music these days. No, it's not because we're old fogies (well, maybe), but because it's way more fun to download (legally, of course) music that you liked way back in the day than suffer through Live 105 for hours on hours just in hopes you hear something new that is actually worth hearing again. That's the thing about this Internet. In a way, it makes it easier to listen to new music but it's also easier to just pull yourself into some sort of musical bubble in which you do nothing but listen to twenty year olds songs that you liked back in the day and haven't heard since then. And seriously, would you rather listen to the Killers or Van Halen? We think that choice is obvious. So with that in mind, we thought we'd combine our two write ups-- we're going to list our favorite music downloads of the past year with our recap of sports. We're not sure, but we think the kids call this a "mash-up."...

We've never really gotten hip to the all the bands the kids are into these days and for a long time we could never figure out why. Then, one day, it hit us: not enough guitar. Oh sure, Arcade Fire has a guitarist and the Killers have one and so do all of those generically named bands that are all featured on "Laguna Beach," but none of those bands ever used the guitar for what it was put on God's green earth to do-- to rock. What other purpose is there for a guitar other than to dispense bone crushing riffs, squealing guitar solos, and blissfully beautiful wah-wahed out guitar noise? If for no other reason, the reunion of Dinosaur Jr. is needed today just to show the young folks how it's done. For Dinosaur Jr. is the kind of band desperately needed in these "I Love the 80's" times, the kind of band that makes one giddy just over the fact they use stacks and stacks of Marshall amps. ...

For those wondering what happens to columnists when they get let go from their respective papers, we're beginning to find out that just like everyone else, they go blog. Oh, Internet, what aren't you good for? Case in point is Glenn Dickey, ex-columnist for the Chronicle who was unceremoniously "reassigned" last fall. While he still writes the occasional story for the Chronicle, his long-running column has ceased to be. So, over the past month, Dickey has gone online with a blog of his own, GlennDickey.com. Could Laurel Wellman be next? Rob Morse? Jon Carroll's cats? ...

If you’ve already done your Christmas shopping and have a little money left over that you want to give to a cause but just not sure of which, Scott Peterson's attorney Mark Geragos has a suggestion for you. Geragos has launched a Web site asking for donations in helping find the real killers of Laci Peterson. Saying that Peterson was “unjustly convicted”, Geragos’ wants donations so he can “continue to investigate the murders of......

"Because tonight, tonight, tonight - oh. Gonna make it right, tonight, tonight, tonight - oh." In the immortal words of Phil Collins, we're referring to our SFist shindig down at Milk, which everyone within the sight of these words should be attending tonight. Because the Iron and Wine show at Slim's is sold out anyway, you aren't a big enough old school GNR fan to see Adler's Appetite at Pound SF, and you're dying to......

Bay Area crime roundup...

Few bands can believably be compared to Joy Division, the Cure, Duran Duran, and Echo and the Bunnymen. Especially if they are from Las Vegas. Yet The Killers, the newest indie dance sensation, not only consistently elicit such comparisons, they actually seem to live up to them. With only one major label release under their belts, the Killers were picked up by Morrissey to headline his band earlier this year. Why all the attention......

summary of the Bay Area weekly papers (Guardian, SF Weekly, EBExpress and the Metro)....