Vue

Stop me, oh, oh, oh, stop me, stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: Band (Vue) jumps from indie label (Sub Pop) to a major label (RCA) that’s trying to cash in on a hot music trend (garage rock), submits full-length album (Down for Whatever) that keeps getting postponed on the release schedule (three months, six months…), then is unceremoniously shitcanned (this past February) by the label without the album ever seeing the light of day (d’oh!). Ah, well, the sleazy, swaggery, trash-blooze quintet from San Francisco may have gotten a bit scorched from its shotgun boogie with ol’ Beelzebub, but is it giving up? Hell no! Still shopping Whatever around to prospective suitors, Vue is in the midst of a monthlong U.S. tour, and you can bet it’ll fire up its usual raucous set with some of that righteous indignation (besides, there might be some A&R folks in the crowd who need to be impressed).

Get there early: Openers Black Cat Music and evening are two excellent Bay Area bands signed to Lookout Records. Both are helping that label branch out from its pop-punk foundations; the former with disheveled roots-punk á la Gun Club, the latter with glammy, Brit-poppish art-rock.