It’s a small gesture, we know. But if you have been laid off from a job in tech, life sciences, or tech investing we’d like to offer you some spirit-boosting—not to mention a chance to make connections that could lead to new job opportunities—at tomorrow night’s Xconomy Battle of the Tech Bands here in Cambridge. We’ve got 20 free tickets to the event set aside for the recently pink-slipped; they were donated by our friends at General Catalyst Partners, who bought a block to help out our two great causes—Science Club for Girls and Community Music Center of Boston—as well as those hit by the current downturn.

The gathering should be a great time, with lots of possibilities for networking. Last year’s inaugural battle drew more than 300 people from a host of companies and organizations from all areas of technology and life sciences, and this year’s event is on track to be even bigger. We’ve got five great bands battling it out (you can read about them and hear tracks here), door prizes that include Microsoft Zunes, Rock Band 2s from Harmonix, and iRobot Roombas, and plenty of food and drink. And, as a special treat, Honest Bob and the Factory to Dealer Incentives, whose bassist is our own Xconomy Seattle editor Greg Huang, will be closing out the show with a bonus set.

It all goes down tomorrow night at the Middle East Restaurant & Nightclub in Central Square. Doors open at 7, and the first band goes on at 7:30.

To claim a free ticket e-mail us at events@xconomy.com and give us the one-sentence version of your tale of tech-employment woe. And the still-employed are, of course, also welcome at the battle: tickets are available here for $20, or at the door for $25.

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It seems like a good day for some music, so we thought we’d give you a little preview of the tunes you’ll hear at our rapidly approaching second annual Battle of the Tech Bands. (Tickets are going fast—get yours now.) So behold MP3s from four of the six bands that are readying themselves to rock on January 22. The other two bands are fantastic as well, but they do covers and our attorneys made us a wee bit nervous about re-posting those. You can still play tracks from the ever-suave Seymore Willie (which represents AMAG Pharmaceuticals, LSI, and ARCON) on its own website, and you can see EneRock, the power rockers from EnerNOC, belt it out in this video from some other, assuredly less fun, band battle.

So with  that, I give you…

…the pleasing twang of The Dirty Truckers, doing American Well and Sophos proud with “Boston Wrangler”…

…the cool electronic stylings of Harmonix’s The Main Drag in “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter”…

…the edgy pulsations of “Angel Hair” by  Anomopoly of Nano-C and Tekscan…

…and the indescribably delightful “Tatooine” by our indescribably delightful special guest, Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives, featuring Xconomy’s own Greg Huang on bass.

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