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www.hemlocktavern.com

DILATED PEOPLES

Kicking it old-school, the Los Angeles underground hip-hoppers unleash The Release Party DVD in July. Thurs/26, 9 p.m. doors, $20 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

GRAND ARCHIVES

Kicking it Vivaldi styley, if the composer wore Converse. The ethereal Sub Pop indie-rockers get with their folk label mate Sera Cahoone. Sat/28, 9 p.m., $13. Slim's, 333 11th., SF. www.slims-sf.com

MUTE SOCIALITE

Kicking it free-noise mode — with such Oakland exploratory musical surgeons as Moe! Staiano, Ava Mendoza, and Liz Allbee. Sun/29, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

ALL THAT GLITTERS: LADY GAGA

It takes a lot of g-g-guts to name your act after the Queen tune "Radio Gaga," 'fess up to the fact that you attended Catholic school alongside Nicky Hilton, and make it your personal mission to make pop cool once more. Lady Gaga, 22, has the moxie to undertake all of the above, having gone from setting hairspray afire on fringy NYC stages and attending Tisch School of the Arts at NYU to hammering out songs for Britney Spears, and making her own brazen dance-pop à la "Beautiful Dirty Rich." Why did she name her debut, The Fame (Streamline/Interscope)? "The concept is that it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you have, as long as you can embody a sense of inner fame and value of your own ideas, you can really be whoever you want," Lady Gaga opined huskily on her way to a Raging Waters gig in San Dimas. "I was nobody, and I've been jerking people for years into thinking I'm somebody I'm not. I used to get into clubs like when I was 16. I'd usually just walk right in because of the way I carried myself, the way I dressed, the way I spoke to people."

Sat/28, 8 p.m., $45. Temple, 540 Howard, SF; www.templesf.com. Sun/29, 6:10 p.m., Pride Festival, Civic Center, SF; www.sfpride.org