Maybe they should have called it the Nebraska Dream Pop Festival. I’m listening to the 19-song sampler (download here) of bands that will be performing at the four-day event, which starts tonight at The Barley St. Half the songs reminded me of laidback pop from such ’80s and ’90s bands as The Lilac Time, The Trash Can Sinatras, Lightning Seeds, The Sundays, House of Love, Everything But the Girl, you know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, well, look them up on AMG. The other half felt homemade and simple, able attempts at low-fi. Most of the bands on the sampler have a lighter-as-air quality (which isn’t meant as a slam) combined with traditional modern-day indie and chamber folk that we’ve all become accustomed to living here in the former epicenter of indie music world.

So, the kick-off is being held at The Barley St. tonight starting at 7 p.m. The line-up, according to the Nebraska Pop Festival Myspace page, is:

Magic Crayon (Brighton & Hove, United Kingdom)
The Argyle Wishlist (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
The Sleepover (Lincoln, Nebraska)
Honey and Darling (Omaha, Nebraska)
The Tinycakes (Chicago, Illinois)
Pennyhawk (Ames, Iowa)

Tonight’s show is $5. The rest of the week is being hosted at The Waiting Room and costs $8 adv./$10 dos. The whole weekend is a benefit for UNO’s Mav Radio station, which just announced that it will soon be broadcasting over the air in HD. From this story in the UNO Gateway:

As university-based KVNO FM-1 gets set to transform into the metro’s home for UNO athletics in the fall, KVNO HD2, 90.7-2 on your dial, will become student-run Mav Radio. The dial’s digital channel will provide Mavericks fans a home for UNO men’s and women’s basketball games when UNO hockey is being aired on KVNO.

Mav Radio’s official launch is set for Sept. 9. The station’s production team plans to fill the broadcasts with satellite programming, likely jazz or blues music, during student holidays and other times where it will not be airing UNO athletics programming.

Conceivably, Mav Radio’s on-air content also will include local and indie music. I guess we’ll see, that is if any of us plunk down the cash to buy an HD receiver, which will be necessary to listen to the station.

This is an ambitious festival in that it 1) comes at the end of a long festival season in Omaha, 2) is four days long and 3) most of the (non-local) bands are virtually unknown in this market. It could be a hard sell, especially on Saturday when three other festivals are going on at the same time.

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A clarification on an item that ran in Lazy-i yesterday: Karl Houfek wrote to say that last night’s Boy Noise’s show at O’Leaver’s was the last show with Chris Rivera, who’s moving to Austin and joining a new band called Loxsly. Houfek also is leaving Boy Noises in the near future, but the remaining members “might want to keep things going, so I told them I’d help them with the transition,” Houfek said. Part of the transition will include the addition of Corey Broman (Dance Me Pregnant, ex-Art in Manila, ex-Little Brazil, ex-Kite Pilot), who will take over drums for the Sept. 12 Broken Spindles show at The Waiting Room.

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Finally, tonight, singer/songwriters Sam Martin of Capgun Coup and Landon Hedges of Little Brazil join Blankenship at The Sydney. $5, 8 p.m.

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