Giveaway Time: Brendan Benson (& The Posies) at Groundhall, This Saturday

Just in time for all the Thanksgiving madness, folks, we’ve got another very cool giveaway deal over here at SCR: we’ve got two tickets to go see Brendan Benson (and headliners The Posies and openers Aqueduct, too, obviously) this coming Saturday, November 27th, over at Groundhall (or The Argentum, or whatever they’re calling it this week; oldtimers may know it as The Engine Room).

Needless to say, this is going to be a ridiculously awesome show. I like The Posies a hell of a lot, for one, and am grinning like an idiot to be hearing ’em again after all this damn time; apparently they didn’t end up breaking up for long, just from 1998 to 2001 or so, but they’d effectively dropped off my personal radar, sadly.

At any rate, I’ve got their new album, Blood/Candy, on the headphones right now, and it sounds like they haven’t missed a step since Frosting On The Beater, honestly. Makes me want to head backwards and listen to “Earlier Than Expected” again, the song that was my initial introduction to the band back in college…

The real selling point for the show, though, at least for me, is Benson (who’ll be playing with Ken Stringfellow & Jon Auer of the aforementioned headliners as his backing band, btw). The guy’s like a freaking compilation of anything and everything that’s cool about pop music for the past twenty years, from the more electronics-tinged stuff to the baroque, precisely-arranged songs to the jangly, rootsier tracks, all of ’em graced by that effortlessly pure voice.

2002’s Lapalco is the bona-fide classic of the bunch, in my book — “You’re Quiet,” “Tiny Spark,” “Folk Singer,” and “I’m Easy,” in particular, are like the best of mid-’80s Brit-power-pop distilled down into its essence and downed with a shot of Jack Daniel’s. I’m betting, though, that Benson’s better-known for his work with The Raconteurs; I’d urge those folks to look backwards at Lapalco and One Mississippi.

Oh, and Benson’s got a new 7″ out as of early this month, Well & Goode, and what I’ve heard so far’s been pretty great. Keep an eye out for a review of it real soon.

But wait, what about the damn giveaway? Sorry, got a little carried away talking about the bands involved…

Anyway, we’ve got a pair of tickets for one lucky winner out there — all you need to do is send an email with the Subject line “I need a pickup, and I don’t mean truck” to “contests” at “spacecityrock dot com”. Do it quick-fast, ’cause the Thanksgiving holiday is fast approaching.