Folks in Xconomy’s Boston office are gathering our business cards and dancing shoes for tonight’s second annual Battle of the Tech Bands. Tickets are dwindling fast, but you can still get yours before 4:00 pm online here, or at the door at the Middle East Restaurant & Nightclub.  Doors open at 7:00 pm—hope to see you there!

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Xconomy will be quiet today so that we and our readers can celebrate the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and participate in the King Day of Service.

Tomorrow, on the other hand, Xconomy will be very, very loud. That’s when we (by which I mean emcee extraordinaire Wade) and a few dozen of our newest friends (by which I mean the members of six wicked-good local* bands representing seven New England technology companies) take the stage at the Middle East in Cambridge’s Central Square for the Battle of the Tech Bands.

We’re ridiculously excited about the event. One of the ideas that drove the formation of Xconomy in the first place was the idea that, as vibrant and important as the local innovation ecosystem is, it can be weirdly isolating as well. We heard time and again from our advisers, our investors, and, eventually, our readers that the stakeholders in the tech economy—scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, students, and others—are hungry for new opportunities to connect with one another. And when you said “new,” we heard, “more fun.” And when we heard “more fun,” we thought, “more music, more beer, more snack food, fewer ties.”

Flash forward several months of planning, and we’ve got all of that accounted for, plus a metric ton of prizes—for the bands and for the audience. Our hope is you’ll walk into the Middle East tomorrow night at 7:00 with a few business cards (you’ll need one to enter the raffle) and your cell phone (you’ll need it to vote for the bands) and stagger out a few hours later under a load of new ideas and acquaintances, enough good music to last you to spring, and maybe a Zune or a Rock Band bundle. (If you win one of the two Rock Band packages you really will be staggering; Harmonix Music Systems puts 20 pounds or so of gear in the box. Microsoft’s portable music player, of which five are now up for grabs, is clearly a bit more, you know, portable.)

So serve up and rest up today, and join us at the Middle East tomorrow.

Tickets are on sale here or at the door. My write-up about the bands and the tech companies they represent is here—with links to their sites in case you want to start learning the lyrics and picking your favorites—and the Boston Herald‘s account is here. Hope to see you soon!

* by which I mean based in the Boston area or willing to schlep here for the Battle

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The Xconomy offices have been rocking for the last few weeks, as our neighbors in the next office can surely attest. We had a bumper crop of fantastic entries for our January 22 Battle of the Tech Bands, and so (with the help of judges who have actual musical expertise—-more on that later) we did a lot of toe tapping, head bobbing, and narrowing of the field to the six bands that will compete at the Middle East in a week and a half.

So without further ado (and in reverse alphabetical order because I have a Z name and lingering elementary-school trauma), allow me to introduce:

The Souled Out SuperBand (representing Bose)
This 9-piece funk and soul band boasts a killer horn section, a vast repertoire of Tower Of Power, Earth Wind & Fire, Chicago, and classic Motown, and some super-fancy gizmos for amplifying and recording their stuff. (Well, what do you expect from a bunch of PhDs, engineers, and the like who have all put in their time at Bose?)

Sad Marvin (representing Smiths Medical)
This five-member, alt/indie/groove rock group grew out of the New Hampshire hometown partnership of bassist Corey Schofield and guitarist (and Smiths Medical employee) Filthy Rich Savoie. (I doubt he goes by “Filthy” at work, but one never knows.) Sad Marvin debuted its new singer, Amanda ZW, back in November and boy that girl can belt it out.

One Hand Free (representing IBM)
According to the Portsmouth Herald, this New Hampshire band’s latest CD “brings the listener back to the days of Pontiac Firebirds, tight jeans, tie-dye, and long hair.” We beg of you not to bring any of the aforementioned to the show (well, maybe the hair’s ok), but we think you’ll groove to these guys as much as we did during judging.

McAlister Drive (representing Linedata Services)
I haven’t decided yet who I’m going to cheer for at the Middle East, but this four-man indie pop group wins the prize for getting a song stuck in my head during judging. In case you’re wondering about the name (which some of us here were), it comes from a street on Tulane’s campus; previously called Crown, the band adopted the name after Hurricane Katrina. We’ll see if they can kick up a storm on January 22.

The Knuckledusters (representing Bioprocessors Corp. and Veritas Medicine)
On its website, this Somerville, MA-based swing-a-billy band promises “bar-room rockers about hot rods, racin,’ out-runnin’ the cops, drinkin’, gamblin,’ fightin,’ lyin,’ cheatin,’ pin-up chicks, dancin’ chicks, regular chicks, more hot rods, jail, all-around sinnin,’ and…oh yeah, a few about ghosts (‘cause ghosts are cool!)” We’re hopin’ they aren’t lyin’ about the ghosts because, well, the idea of it is crackin’ us up.

Deadbeat Darling (representing Akamai)
Deadbeat Darling invites listeners to “imagine the early Police, Manu Chao and The Cure collaborating to write a Quentin Tarantino movie soundtrack” and then “sprinkle in the energy of a late 60′s feel good anthem [and] some modern day indie-rock soundscapism.” It’s a mouthful, but it’s an eerily apt description of the unique, infectious sound produced by this five-member group, which is schlepping to Boston all the way from Brooklyn for the battle.

We set out to put this event together because we had the suspicion that a surprising number of folks in the local tech and life science scene had secret musical alter egos. What’s more surprising, at least if the bands who entered the competition are any indication, is that so many of the bands these folks play in are so damn good. That’s why we’re grateful to the judges who helped us make the tough calls necessary to narrow down the competition: Art Technology Group co-founder Jeet Singh, who goes by the name Miki when he fronts the band Dragonfly, and Patrick Faucher, a Berklee College of Music grad, lifelong musician and technologist, and co-founder of Nimbit. Thanks guys!

All we need now is you. The final winner of the Xconomy Battle of the Tech Bands will be chosen by the audience, using a nifty cell-phone voting system, so be sure to bring your cell phone along. Tickets for the event, (which will go down at the Middle East Restaurant and Nightclub at 472-480 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge) are $20 in advance at www.xconomybands.eventbrite.com—actually only $15 if you buy in blocks of 10—and $25 at the door. That gets you not only admission, but also a little something to eat and drink.

But wait, there’s more! Everyone who attends will be eligible to win one of our fantastic door prizes, including two Rock Band bundles from Harmonix Music Systems and three Microsoft Zune music players.

So come and cheer for your favorite band—or maybe find yourself a new one—and help us celebrate the Boston technology community’s propensity for rocking out.

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