Check out Live Music

San Francisco has a great local music scene, plus bands come through here all the time.

What's coming up? I'm signed up for Filter Magazine's weekly San Francisco newsletter (info@filter-mag.com), plus I go to SF Weekly, the Guardian, SF Gate, Live105's concert calendar, and Pollstar for information on upcoming gigs.

Here are the venues I find myself at more often than not. They are ranked roughly in size and should give you a sense of what type of band (local, indie-up-and-coming, has-a-hit-video-on-youtube, has-a-hit-video-on-MTV, up to well-known).

Very small venues - mainly local music
Boom Boom Room - small, blues joint across the street from the Fillmore
Hemlock - punk in the Tenderloin
Make Out Room - mainly local music (various types of rock and pop) in the Mission
Elbo Room - also in the Mission, bit more jazz and dub thrown in with the rock and pop

Small venues - mix of local, West Coast (LA, Portland, Seattle), and a smattering of national or international up-and-coming indie bands
330 Ritchie a/k/a Popscene gets some of the best up-and-coming bands from all over the world (they also have a weekly party called Leisure which focuses on all the UK music from the 90's)
Cafe Du Nord - feels like you're in somebody's basement living room in the Castro (bands seen: Cold War Kids, Dr. Dog)
Bottom of the Hill - in Potrero Hill, perhaps SF's most beloved live music venue?
The Independent - on Divis, you can catch a band on the rise or on the slide back into obscurity
Mezzanine - while it gets its share of rock bands, this place focuses on electronic and hip-hop
Slim's - on Folsom and 11th, features indie rock & pop and a bit of everything else (bands seen: Kid Beyond)

Bigger Venues - more well-known bands
Great American Music Hall - my favorite venue, in the Tenderloin - mainly indie rock & pop (bands seen: OK Go, Fiery Furnaces)
The Warfield - a classic theater where bands who are really breaking big play (bands seen: Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand)
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium - impersonal big box, unfortunately (bands seen: Beck, Franz Ferdinand)
The Greek Theater - a 100+-year old outdoor amphitheater on Berkeley's campus (bands seen: Manu Chao)
The Fillmore - the venerable place that has a great sense of its history (check out all the classic posters through the years) as much as it's a place for bands currently making a name for themselves (bands seen: Bloc Party, Mogwai, Wolf Parade)

Places I want to check out but have not been include Yoshi's (jazz in the East Bay) and the Rickshaw Stop (in Hayes Valley).