Arts & Entertainment >>

• Readers' Poll
  Best Local Magazine 7x7 Best Local Music Trend Bluegrass Best Radio Station KUSF-FM (90.3) Best Movie Theater Castro Theatre Best Club Catalyst Cocktails Best Place to See Live Rock Red Devil Lounge Best Theater ACT Best Local Band/Musician Punk Rock Orchestra Best Art... More >>
• Best Local Blog
  SFist
  Our infatuation with the SFist is like a gnarly case of shingles: At first we didn't even realize we had it, then we didn't know what it was, and now it's so distracting that it keeps us from doing any work. The scrappy blog seems to have its nose in just about every nook and cranny of San... More >>
• Best DJ Night
  Fallout at the Rickshaw Stop
  When it comes to throwing a great dance party, quality selections are far more important than superhuman DJ skills. That's why a user interface designer and an attorney are throwing the best DJ night in town, which takes places the third Saturday of every month from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Designer... More >>
• Best Strip-Club Happy Hour
  The Gold Club
  Had another one of those long, hard days at work? Looking for a casual respite from the daily grind? For the weary working stiff, SOMA's Gold Club offers a long, hard grind of a different kind. With a bevy of beautiful ladies who will bend, dip, and shake their way into your heart, it's an ideal... More >>
• Best Thoughtful Theater
  Last Planet Theatre 351 Turk (between Hyde and Leavenworth), 440-3505, www.lastplanettheatre.com Secreted away in a drafty dance hall at the bottom of an otherwise nondescript building, Last Planet is a sparkly thing in the heart of the Tenderloin District. Since it launched in 1998,... More >>
• Best Local Hip Hop Legend
  Andre Nickatina www.andrenickatina.com With a gruff voice that scrapes against his beats and an unwavering flow that is at times dull and monotonous, Fillmore MC/hip hop mogul Andre Nickatina might seem an odd candidate for hip hop legend. But he's also armed with a constant cadre of... More >>
• Best Local Music Icon
  Tom Waits The prince of boozers, losers, and users, Bay Area resident boho Tom Waits has been thrilling audiences with his whiskey-soaked tales for more than 30 years. But it isn't his propensity to dredge the bottom of society that makes Waits an icon; it's his ability to inject life,... More >>
• Best Glimpse of San Francisco's Past, Present, and Future
  Market Street Railway Mural
  Part work of art, part history lesson, and part wishful thinking, Mona Caron's Church Street mural is one of the most treasured pieces of public art in the city. The 38-foot-long painting features a streetcar careening through 80-plus years of San Francisco history. The first panel is... More >>
• Best Public Art Space
  Clarion Alley
  Whether we're talking about Ray Patlán's Balmy Alley Project or Andrew Schoultz and Aaron Noble's Lexington Street mural, the Mission District is home to one of the most vibrant public art scenes on the West Coast. But the narrow lane called Clarion Alley is something special. A former... More >>
• Best Local Magazine
  Planet www.planet-mag.com The Mission District-based Planet may be only 3 years old, but in that time it has carved out a distinctive niche that straddles the line between the modern urban cool of Black Book or Fader and the sociopolitical academic leanings of Bomb. Whether subjecting... More >>
• Best Musical Revivals
  42nd Street Moon www.42ndstmoon.org Everyone's heard of songs like "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," but how many of us know who wrote these toe-tapping standards or where they came from? The 42nd Street Moon troupe has the answers. Since its founding in... More >>
• Best Dance Company
  ODC/San Francisco
  ODC/San Francisco is proof that you don't need to have an outpost in New York to be a successful dance company. Founded in 1971 by Artistic Director Brenda Way, who trained under George Balanchine, ODC is a benchmark for West Coast choreography, performing for more than 50,000 people each... More >>
• Best Offbeat Theater
  Exit Theatre
  Exit Theatre has been a sanctuary for small-scale, big-attitude San Francisco stagecraft since 1983. Home to the theatrical free-for-all of the S.F. Fringe Festival, the theater (and the auxiliary Exit Stage Left a couple of blocks away) hosts a number of small companies and individual artists.... More >>
• Best Local TV Show
  Distortion 2 Static www.distortion2static.com Yes, we've had Bay Area Backroads for a bajillion years, but in the meantime we've lacked in local TV shows for those over 15 and under 40 who enjoy more than wine, computers, or gardening. (The news doesn't count.) Distortion 2 Static, Sundays... More >>
• Best Theater Ensemble
  Rococo Risqué www.rococorisque.com Despite stints at obscure spaces like the Outer Mission's Danzhaus, Rococo Risqué, an ensemble-driven cabaret troupe and self-described purveyor of nuttiness and ballyhoo, continues to sell out shows and jar audiences from performance art... More >>
• Best Gospel
  Glide's "Sunday Celebrations" in the Tenderloin draw people from all over to sway and clap with the most diverse gospel choir in the city. Directed by John F. Turk Jr. and Ron Sutherland and backed by a full band, the 140-member Glide Ensemble leads the congregation through gospel, jazz,... More >>
• Best Cure for PlayStation
  Think today's games are violent? Drop a coin into French Execution, a fine example of the macabre from Edward Zelinsky's collection of early-20th-century mechanical arcade games, animation boxes, and other fun-house fare housed in a warehouse on Pier 45. Although the collection tends toward... More >>
• Best Cover Band
  Enorchestra www.saucefaucet.com/tiger.html You can have your Cheeseballs, your Super Diamond, your Wonder Bread 5. Who wants to hear a cover band that plays songs that other cover bands play? Who wants to see people dressed up in ill-fitting costumes and fake chest hair? Frankly, who... More >>
• Best Cigar Bar
  Cigar Bar & Grill
  Descending into this sublevel hideaway is like stepping back in time to a particularly festive Havana nightspot circa 1947, complete with thrumming congas, frosty Mojitos, a brick-lined courtyard, and the fragrance of smoldering cigarros perfuming the night air. There are perhaps a half-dozen... More >>
• Best Jazz Joint
  Today's local jazz scene isn't nearly so prosperous as when the Blackhawk, El Matador, and Jimbo's Bop City kept the town swingin', but down in the Mission an elegant new nightspot is helping to keep the flame alive. Savanna Jazz is an intimate and shadowy venue of the classic tradition where... More >>
• Best Salsa Dancing
  Sunday Afternoons at El Rio
  Pulling a mambo on El Rio's luxuriant back patio on a balmy Mission evening is probably the closest thing in San Francisco to a night in old Havana. The festivities begin every Sunday with free salsa lessons at 3:15 p.m., then at 4 la orquestra de noche (Tito Garcia y Son de Cuba and Benny... More >>
• Best Trivia Night
  Tuesdays at the Bitter End 441 Clement (at Fifth Avenue), 221-9538, www.tomstrivia.com If you know where the Beatles performed their last concert and who played Rowdy Yates in Rawhide and how many times Willie Mays hit one out of the park and why Warren G. Harding didn't enjoy his visit... More >>
• Best New Nightlife Trend
  Supper Clubs Two-in-one combos are nice: peanut butter and chocolate, vodka and Red Bull, KFC and Taco Bell. But the best amalgam of two great things currently gaining momentum in San Francisco is the rise of the supper club, which unites food and dancing to fantastic effect. Popular in the... More >>
• Best Midnight Movie Screenings
  "Midnight Mass"
  Midnight movie screenings are a great place to catch films that were either panned by critics or ignored by audiences (such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Donnie Darko, respectively) on their first releases. With their long-running summer series "Midnight Mass," "Trannyshack" regular... More >>
• Best New Club
  Mighty
  This fun venue has sprouted up in the no man's land between South of Market and Potrero Hill. The respectably sized Mighty appears larger than it is, its high ceilings topping the perfect room in which to hoist a giant disco ball and really mean it. Its comfortable environment is in contrast... More >>
• Best 18-and-Over Club Night
  "The Crib"
  For lack of a better word, there's something precious about 18-and-over club nights. The crowds are more wide-eyed and happy, and tend to dance with such abandon and glee that it's clear that the bitterness of getting older and the fatigue of the club scene have yet to set in. One of the best... More >>
• Best Downtown Nightclub
  Rx Gallery
  In a trend that we hope will continue, downtown San Francisco is fast becoming a more resident-friendly place for clubbing. That is to say, the area is veering away from the oh-my-God-welcome-to-my-insufferable-bachelorette-party-let's-go-to-Polly-Esther's kids and moving toward a scene... More >>
• Best Dance to Attend If You Were Never Asked to the Prom
  The Black & White Ball Civic Center, Van Ness & Grove, More >>
• Best Chronicle Columnist
  Tim Goodman We used to like the Sporting Green's Ray Ratto, but he hasn't been the same since his lobotomy. Goodman, on the other hand, is a consistent voice of reason, ghettoized in the otherwise unreadable Datebook. As a lovably cranky television columnist in San Francisco, Goodman is miles... More >>
• Best Examiner Columnist
  P.J. Corkery He's a self-styled throwback, what with all the dot-dot-dotting, but Corkery writes about San Francisco without any of the noxious wistfulness you find in the city's many nostalgia fiends (and without the awful smirk you find on Herb Caen's kid's face). Sure, the city might be a... More >>
• Best Place to Escape the Unsavory Elements of the Tenderloin
  222 Club
  While one of the city's seedier neighborhoods slowly morphs into one of its more chic spots (affectionately nicknamed the "Trendyloin"), the Tenderloin remains, alas, a dirty petri dish compared to the sweeter-smelling surroundings of picturesque Hayes Valley or our stimulating downtown. But... More >>
• Best Psychedelic Band
  The Gris Gris In order to be a great psychedelic band, you need to be able to sound like the onrushing apocalypse and the sweetest kind of cotton candy, simultaneously. We're talking the aural equivalent of hard drugs, plain and simple. Officially, it's unclear whether the young sprouts in... More >>
• Best Free Acoustic Showcase
  Ace of Spades Showcase at Mama Buzz Cafe
  For the first "Ace of Spades" showcase in September 2004, no one came. Event organizer Liam Carey swears the performers had a great time anyway, playing and recording their songs and occasionally running outside for cigarettes. That casual spirit still remains in the acoustic event, which... More >>
• Best Music Promoter
  Will Linn Blasthaus, www.blasthaus.com In this entertainment-saturated world, in which you have 500 choices for your amusement dollar every day, it helps to have someone to guide you. Someone who will be a consistent source of quality; someone who will work hard to bring the known and... More >>
• Best Folktronica Artist
  n.Lannon (Nyles Lannon) www.nlannon.com Lannon's Chemical Friends (released last year on Badman) is kind of like those old Reese's peanut butter cup commercials -- you know, the ones where two people bump into each other while eating snacks, and one says, "Hey, you got your peanut butter... More >>
• Best Movie House
  Balboa Theater
  This classic theater, designed by architects James and Merritt Reid (who also did the Fairmont Hotel and the original Cliff House), has been a San Francisco favorite since it opened in 1926. Transformed into a twin-screen venue in 1978, the Balboa is the quintessential second-run theater,... More >>
• Best Underage Band
  $lot Ma¢hine www.slotmachineland.com Rock 'n' roll is a young person's game, but the local quartet $lot Ma¢hine takes that axiom to the extreme. The lead singer is only 8 years old, for bajeezus' sake. The wise old "man" of the group is the guitarist -- who's 12. Toss in the... More >>
• Best Book Group
  Gay Men's Book Group at Borderlands Books
  Book clubs rarely raise an eyebrow for having distinctive subjects or uncommon demographics. Some have obvious intellectual pursuits, but most appear to be women's groups gathered to read contemporary fiction. Then we learned of the Gay Men's Book Group, which meets monthly at Borderlands... More >>
• Best New Music Festival
  Love Parade www.loveparadesf.org Culturally active San Francisco didn't seem to need another parade clogging up its streets, but the Love Parade has filled a void we didn't know we had. This new free festival has given the normally fractured local electronic music scene an occasion to... More >>
• Best Karaoke
  The Mint
  If the thought of singing karaoke, whether drunk or sober, in front of a huge crowd is a terrifying proposition, the Mint might just be the most intimidating place to choose. That's because if ever there was a place where karaoke is taken seriously, it's here. A disproportionate number of... More >>
• Best Way to See the Stars Up Close
  SF Casting Network 84 First St. (at Mission), 346-CAST, ext. 3, www.sfcastingnetwork.com Making Hollywood movies isn't quite the glamour fiesta it's made out to be, especially if you don't warrant a 30-foot trailer and a personal assistant. But working as an extra (or "background," to... More >>
• Best Improv Group
  BATS www.improv.org Chicago has Second City, L.A. has the Groundlings, and San Francisco has BATS. BATS has been making Bay Area audiences laugh by making it up, à la Whose Line Is It Anyway?, for almost 20 years. From high-energy "Theatresports," featuring two competing improv... More >>
• Best Country/Americana Band
  Valerie Jay & the Americanos www.valerie4music.com Real country music in San Francisco? Sounded like "jumbo shrimp" until we heard this British chanteuse and her Americana band. Hailing from Yorkshire, England, the 5-foot-11-inch songbird landed on Bay Area shores in 2001, with her red... More >>
• Best Theater for Movie-Hopping
  Century 20 1901 Junipero Serra (at John Daly), Daly City, (650) 994-7469, www.centurytheatres.com It's important to have a plan when it comes to the summer's worth of rainy Sunday afternoons. When Scrabble doesn't cut it, Daly City's megaplex can provide hours and hours of enjoyment. A... More >>
• Best Drag Show
  Hot Boxxx Girls Just Wanna Have Fun at Aunt Charlie's Lounge
  It might seem a peculiar complaint to lodge against San Francisco drag shows, but too many gender-bending experiences in this town are kind of uptight. We like our drag a little rough around the edges, with equal parts glam and grit, swank and smut. A sweaty Saturday evening in the "Hot Boxxx"... More >>
• Best Movie Theater for Parents
  www.redvicmoviehouse.com
  For years Oakland's Parkway Theater showed this town up with its "Baby Brigade" screenings, a weekly infants-welcome movie night that proved so popular the theater drew crowds of parents from San Francisco and beyond. It took a while for city theaters to follow suit. The Metreon started doing... More >>
• Best Nouveau Noir Writer
  Peter Plate In novelist Plate's San Francisco, fog "murders" the streets, and the denizens of the Tenderloin and the Mission emerge from their residential hotels to commit crimes, take revenge, and talk to God. The writer, who developed his chops while squatting in the Mission, has created... More >>
• Best Free Bluegrass
  Amnesia 853 Valencia (at 20th Street), 970-0012, www.amnesiathebar.com Bluegrass: It's not just for old fogies anymore. At Amnesia on Monday nights the crowd is surprisingly youthful and completely berserk for fiddles, banjos, and four-part hillbilly vocal harmonies. From virtuoso... More >>
• Best Piano Bar
  Seasons Bar
  Opened in the autumn of 2001, the Seasons Bar filled the void created by the Redwood Room's descent into cacophonous hipsterism a few months earlier. Once again San Francisco had a piano bar in the grand tradition of Chicago's Pump Room or New York's King Cole Bar: elegant, intimately lit... More >>
• Best Pop Artist
  Butch Berry www.butchberry.com Bay Area native and dead ringer for Ben Stiller playing a rock star, Butch Berry knows a thing or 200 about hooks. This kid's Beatle-worthy songs about love won and lost are so damn catchy you'll find yourself singing them while showering, brushing your... More >>
• Best Crooner
  Spencer Day
  Utah-born singer/songwriter Spencer Day packs fans into any joint where he's tickling the keys, and not just because of his boyish good looks. What makes the twentysomething's vocal stylings special is Day's lack of affected cool, that Frank Sinatra/hepcat shtick that so many other male... More >>
• Best Parade
  Italian Heritage Parade Mid-October, www.sfcolumbusday.org Why do we love this Columbus Day parade? Let us count the ways: the giant Moretti Beer bottle; the S.F. Sanitary District Garbage Can Drill Team; the paisano rhythms of Frank, Dino, and Louis Prima blaring from every other sound... More >>
• Best Classic Music Venues
  "When the lights go down in the city/ And the sun shines on the bay/ I want to be there in my city/ Ohhh, ohhh." When Steve Perry sang those lines on Journey's "Lights," he wasn't fucking around: San Francisco is one of the greats, and its music scene is no different. From Jerry to Janis to... More >>
• Best Folkie
  Sean Hayes www.snailbluerecordings.com You can keep your Joanna Newsoms and your Devendra Banharts. When it comes to folk music, Sean Hayes is the man. While Newsom gets invited to appear on Jimmy Kimmel's TV show and Banhart gets written up in hip magazines like Arthur, their fame is... More >>
• Best Sing-Along
  Sea Chanteys on the Balclutha Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde (at Beach), 556-6435 On the first Saturday night of every month, wannabe old salts, sea dogs, jack-tars, and windjammers gather aboard the Balclutha and belt out salty old ditties about jolly boatswains and cups of grog and lofty... More >>
• Best Bar at Which to Nurse an Early-Morning Hangover
  Gold Dust Lounge
  The Gold Dust has long been a San Francisco institution, heralded by the late Herb Caen as "the last of the authentic nightcapperies" -- a rave that must have delighted owners Jimmy and Tasios Vovis, who've plastered it all over the walls. The décor is decidedly old-school -- imagine that... More >>
• Best Place to Sport a Mullet
  Pound-SF 100 Cargo (at Jennings), Pier 96, 826-5009, www.poundsf.com Are you nostalgic for the days when androgynous glam-rockers filled the airwaves with future strip-club staples like "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Unskinny Bop," and "Girls, Girls, Girls"? Then let your hair down -- so far... More >>