Oakland's Port O'Brien may have been collectively suffering from sore throats, as Neil Young-sounding frontman (and part-time Alaskan fisherman) Van Pierszalowski revealed, but luckily a little extra scratchiness goes a long way for the Americana quintet, who played the SFxSXSW showcase at Bourbon Rocks on Saturday.

The real-life Christopher Guest Musical, otherwise known as the Magnetic Fields, mounted their Brechtian salon at SF's Herbst Theater on February 29, for the second of a two-night sold out engagement. Why the hot ticket? For fans of hyper-literate (to-the-point-of-needing-Ritalin) pop, Mag Fields equals best date night ever.

The sixteenth annual Noise Pop music fest kicked off last night with a rather muffled bang at the Independent for a sold-out show where the Walkmen and the Broken West traded live staples for amorphous, nameless new tracks.

We may already be gearing up for SXSW here at SPIN HQ, but that doesn't mean we're oblivious to another festival that's starting right now in San Francisco -- Noise Pop. Lucky for us (and you), we've got it covered, thanks to the beautiful minds at our sister magazine, 7x7. Arts + Culture Editor Melissa Goldstein and 7x7.com Assistant Editor Hayley Kaufman are teaming up with our fave Bay Area photogs, Stefanie Michejda and Misha Vladimirskiy, to file daily recaps of the Noise Pop action. Here's a preview: