Giveaway: Five Pairs Of Tickets to Tomorrow Night’s Show From Nirvana Influences The Vaselines at The Loft

In this week’s print edition, Darryl Smyers talks up tomorrow night’s show at The Loft from The Vaselines, who, after bearing an influence over Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in the early ’90s, took a 17-year break after their 1992 compilation release, All the Stuff and More…, before Sub Pop released another compilation (see right) from the band last year and, this year, released only its second full-length album ever, Sex with an X.

Writes Smyers in his preview:

For grunge junkies and Nirvana biographers, Scotland’s The Vaselines are just another rock ‘n’ roll footnote, another band Kurt Cobain listened to as a (disturbed) youth and whom he’d later cover during his relatively quick rise and fall. And there are probably still a few tortured, unknowing souls who think Cobain wrote “Molly’s Lips” and “Jesus Don’t Want Me as a Sunbeam,” two cuts The Vaselines released way back in 1986. Simple, direct, nearly folksy, those songs, like many written by Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, were not meant for mass consumption. Much like the work of Daniel Johnston, the songs of The Vaselines came across as warped nursery rhymes set to music. Perhaps Cobain took some comfort in the simplicity and naivete of The Vaselines. Whatever the case, the band is forever linked with the grunge movement even though Kelly and McKee’s music is far removed from the flannel shirts and disheveled noise often associated with the genre. Continue reading…

Smyers goes on to laud Sex with an X for maintaining the same spirit that made the band such a touchstone in the late ’80s in the first place. And, really, it’s pretty solid stuff.

For those reasons and more, tomorrow night’s show from the Glasgow duo should prove quite the treat. And, thanks to the fine folks at The Loft, we’ve got a handful of free passes to hand out to the show. Want one of the pairs? Make the jump and find out how to win.

Be one of the first five people to email me, starting right now, with the words “She Don’t Use Jelly” in the subject line, and you’ll win a free pair of tickets. Good luck!

Update: Contest is over. Congrats to our winners!