SFist interviews Rachel Schutz of Darlybird and hosts a giveaway of some of her awesome wares...

The International Animation Festival starts tonight, kids. And speaking of them, don't bring yours to tomorrow night's wonderfully smut-filled orgy of animated shorts, Top Drawers. What's more, one lucky soul will get a free pair of tickets to tomorrow night's screening. You will have the chance to see such "playful, sexy shorts" as Signe Baumane's Teat Beat of Sex and Kelly Sears's Drift. So, the fifth person to send us an email to editor......

SFist interviews Mike Birbiglia and gives away tickets to his upcoming show at Cobb's. ...

SFist gives away tickets to Two Gallants at the Independent ...

We'll confess to having never really listened to Wolf Parade; maybe we got them confused with Mice Parade, and we've always though Wolfmother sounded pretty derivative, so they just fell through the cracks for us. But one of the two lead songwriters in Wolf Parade, Dan Boeckner, has a band with his wife Alexei Perry called Handsome Furs which we're really liking. It's a little dark and dire while still being melodic and engaging; we......

Never having been huge fans of instrumental music, we were taken by surprise when we listened to Maserati's latest record Inventions For The New Season. Their own entertaining bio describes the music as a "post-psychedelic orgy of hooks molesting the tired cliche of math-prog" and/or "a post-disco drone machine bristling with the buzz-saw sound of 1,000 angry square waves nestled on a California king size bed of shoegaze swirl." We like to think of the......

It's been a long time since we randomly clicked on a band's website and were utterly captivated by the music we heard. We saw Bowerbirds' name and photo in Cafe Du Nord's show listings and were drawn to listen to the songs they stream on their site. It's amazing the beauty you can find sometimes just by turning over a few rocks. The music is homespun and intimate; Phil's gentle croon and the spare......

Late August can be a bit of a slow season for touring, whether it's bands not wanting to deal with the blazing heat in most of the United States or record labels holding back tour support until closer to the lucrative fourth quarter releases. The upside is that local bands can sometimes benefit from a venue's slow month, and we're really excited about the chance to see Or, The Whale, Birds & Batteries and Social......

Forget that Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, and Chris Cooper star in The Kingdom. The divine Jason Bateman also appears -- reason enough to check out this action flick. IMDB tells us that it's about "a team of U.S. government agents...sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East." But seeing as how it's an action release, The Kingdom is bound to be riddled with explosions, the word "fuck," and tons......

John Vanderslice is someone you can truly count on. Aside from his incredible talent, we're always impressed with his indie rock work ethic. He keeps his studio Tiny Telephone open as an incubator for top quality recordings, he's always good for a genuine smile and a hug when we run into him, and about once every 18 months or so he releases another incredible album through Seattle-based indie Barsuk Records. His latest release Emerald......

The shows coming to San Francisco this week give us an excuse to talk about some of our favorite music of 2007. Perhaps the best album we've heard this year comes from a Texan named Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent. She's a seasoned touring guitarist for Sufjan and the Polyphonic Spree, but at only 24 years old she just released a debut album that's sophisticated, brave and artistically mature enough to make you think that......

The lovely local ladies in Von Iva are gearing up to release a brand new CD called Our Own Island. They're doing their part to heat up the chilly San Francisco summer by having a special CD release party on August 4th at 12 Galaxies (in addition to tomorrow's party at the Blank Club in San Jose). They promise a bikini bonanza (use your imagination) so risque that you have to be over 18......

Do you like film? Do you like theater? Do you like film and theater mixed together? Also, do you like happy hours and after-parties? Then you might be inclined to check out Happy Hour 3 this Saturday night! After two successful events in Los Angeles, the folks at Happy Hour are "packing their dry ice machine" and heading for the Brava Theater, located in our favorite part of the Mission. The happy hour starts......

Prolific, ornery, talented, unpredictable, easy on the eyes, genius, bastard - there are many ways to try and describe Ryan Adams, but at this point if you've heard of him, you've probably formed some sort of opinion. In his new single "Two" he sings: "I got a really good heart, I just can't catch a break." Whether or not you buy that, we're still loving his new CD. Easy Tiger is built on the......

Next Thursday, July 19th, Sonic Youth perform 1988's double album Daydream Nation in its entirety at Berkeley Community Theatre. The acclaimed album is lauded for its artistic vision and flowing dynamics from lulling instrumentals to all-out noise. We have a pair of tickets for one lucky winner to (re)discover the underground masterpiece. Watch the video for "Teen Age Riot" and enter to win. (Contest ends 7/15. Winner will be notified via email.) Tonight catch brazen......

Our top 5 moments at Feist's Fillmore show on Tuesday, June 26th:      5. Hearing a cash register clang at the back of the venue in the middle of the set, and realizing that the sold-out crowd was perfectly silent. San Francisco concertgoers can really take their music seriously. You stay classy.      4. Instead of playing to the crowd, Feist literally played the crowd by dividing us into three sections (by type of shoe......

We don't say this lightly, because there are really a lot of great artists coming out of the Bay Area, but we do have a current favorite: Birds & Batteries. We've been telling you about this co-ed quartet for a little while now, and our expectations for their new record were really high. Thankfully it's good news: we love I'll Never Sleep Again. It's still the B&B we met on their last release, but this......

Huge congratulations to our friend DJ Ted from BAGeL Radio who landed in the New York Times this week! A photo of BAGeL Radio HQ is featured in the story called "Big Radio Makes a Grab for Internet Listeners", along with a quote from Ted and mentions of bay area-based Soma FM, Live365 and Pandora. Ted's fighting the good fight to save internet radio from being crushed by soaring broadcasting fees. He's got full details......

SFist interviews Dan Smith from the Noisettes and gives away tickets and a drumhead...

It is our opinion that AT&T Park is the most beautiful place on God's green earth. That doesn't mean, however, that we think the experience of watching games there can't be improved. If we had our druthers, we think they could improve things by selling cheap beer. Followed by cheap beer. And failing that, more cheap beer. But that's just us. ...

Live 105's annual BFD Festival this Saturday brings 25 bands (check out the full lineup) to Shoreline Amphitheatre, but Interpol has ponied up two spots on the guest list for one lucky SFist winner. There's something about Interpol's first album, Turn On The Bright Lights, that reminds us of our two year stint living in Manhattan. Perhaps it's because we were leaving the city just as Interpol were taking it by storm, but more than......

It's another music giveaway bonanza this week! First up is a prize pack from Sea Wolf. They've been touring with Silversun Pickups (see a few SSPU members in the video for "You're A Wolf"), but they're a far more mellow outfit: Alex Church's vocals and melodies are gentle, strummy and soothing. Sea Wolf open for Devotchka on Friday night at the Grand Ballroom Bimbo's, and we have a pair of tickets for the winner......

Did you miss us last week? Here are our excuses: we caught a cold, had a birthday, and were up to here with work at our dayjob, for real. We're back now and anxiously awaiting a copy of Or, the Whale's brand new CD Light Poles and Pines to arrive in our mailbox. The few songs we've previewed on their site offer up banjo, steel guitar, and a chorus of male and female vocals......

The San Francisco world of restaurant gossip columnists went head over heels when Grace-Ann Walden retired from the Chronicle and the Inside Scoop column. She had all the info, friends in all dining rooms, ears in all the kitchens, she was our go-to-writer every Wednesday for all the tips on new restaurant openings, closures, chef musical chairs and overall juicy gossip. Who was going to dish it to us? We are thankful that Marcia’s Tablehopper......

What Made Milwaukee Famous just want to make your day a little better with their bouncing rhythms, pop melodies and plinking pianos. What, are you in a mood again? They've got something for that too. Just give them a listen and come as you are on Tuesday night when they play Cafe Du Nord. We're giving away a pair of tickets to one lucky winner. Tonight, the UK invades Popscene with Klaxons and Amy......

SFist is still giving away tickets to see our boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, when he brings his virtuoso blend of singing, dancing, and white boy flava to the HP Pavilion on September 12th....

Here's a list of things to do tonight...

In our ongoing effort to bring music to your ears, this week we're giving away two special prize packs from a long-standing Bay area band, The Mother Hips. Formed back in 1991, it's been six years since the band last released a full album. They're back with a new studio record on April 3rd called Kiss the Crystal Flake. Said singer/guitarist Tim Bluhm: "It is very different from anything we recorded in the past.......

All you 9-to-5ers out there who loathe working, Aim Low Kid's got your number. Their debut album, aptly titled, Soundtrack for the New Depression, is a handbook for the thinking working folk. Listen to their track Couple Dozen People and imagine any given day in the Financial District. Since we happen to be engaged to lead singer Daniel Phifer, we get asked what Aim Low Kid sounds like quite a lot. We usually get frustrated......

Hey everyone, we got yet another ticket giveaway for y'all. It's for a dance performance, The Shape of Poison, at the ODC Theater and the tickets are for Friday's premiere engagement. So what's up with this performance? Well, according to the hand-dandy press release, it's a mash up of Buddhism and modern dance performed by ODC artist-in-residence Manuelito Biag and his stable of dancers. ...