The Posies sneak into town for unconventional concert

There are a lot of secrets in the tour section of posies.net, the website of alt rock veterans The Posies.

Secrets like the location of many of the shows on their current U.S. tour. Take Dallas, for instance. Click through for ticket information and one learns that the site of the gig will be emailed to ticket buyers 24 hours before showtime.

"We've been doing shows off the grid. Generally, we don't play music venues whatsoever," says Posies singer/guitarist Ken Stringfellow from his home in Tours, France, where he lives with his wife and daughter. "We look for places that aren't music venues and convert them for the night."

For tonight's Little Rock stop, the band -- Stringfellow, Jon Auer and new drummer Frankie Siragusa -- has dropped the secrecy and will perform at Capitol View Studio, the recording facility and art space owned by local musician Bryan Frazier.

Opening the show (and possibly performing with The Posies) will be Little Rock's Sarah Stricklin, who currently fronts the band Bad Match.

"We've created this whole alternative touring circuit. We've played in private homes, recording studios, outdoor spaces, retail spaces, a brewery," Stringfellow says of the band's pop-up concert approach.

It's a conscious effort made over the years not only for Posies fans, but also for the group.

"For our audience, I think they like to see that we've made the effort to make the evening something more than a night at a sports bar with monitors showing a football game. We also get to control the message, and the message of our show is not to sell ... beer. The message of our show is to play music for people and to deliver emotion."

Frazier is stoked to have the band christen Capitol View, which will celebrate its grand opening later this year.

"Having The Posies play our venue was just something we couldn't pass up," says Frazier, who is also the assistant station manager at public radio station KABF-FM, 88.3, in Little Rock. And that's Stringfellow playing keyboards, singing background and handling mixing duties on Follow the Ghost, the 2012 album from Frazier's band The Alpha Ray.

Tickets range from $17.50 to $100. Frazier says the higher-end tickets come with swag like a signed tour poster as well as dinner with The Posies.

This tour finds the group out in support of its latest, Solid States, which leans toward keyboards and electronic textures and is the follow-up to 2010's Blood/Candy. It's also the first album the band has made since the deaths of longtime drummer Darius Minwalla in 2015 and bassist Joe Skyward earlier this year.

The new feel of Solid States does reflect the loss of Minwalla and Skyward, Stringfellow says, but sonic change-ups have also been a constant over The Posies' nearly 30-year, eight-album existence.

"Each one of our albums should be a unique and fully realized statement," Stringfellow says. "I think our audience has come to expect that and to appreciate that. With us, you know what you're getting, but you know that what you're getting is not what you're expecting."

Along with their Posies output, production work and various solo endeavors, Stringfellow and Auer served as half of the re-formed Big Star, the influential Memphis early '70s power pop outfit, with original members Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens, touring extensively and appearing on 1993's Columbia: Live at Missouri University and the 2005 studio album In Space.

Weekend on 09/29/2016