MAHA Watch: Somasphere added to local stage

MAHA Music Festival has five spots open on its local stage. Three were already chosen by MAHA and HearNebraska.org: The So-So Sailors, Machete Archive and Noah's Ark Was A Spaceship. Those three were narrowed down from a list of 15 provided by three venues: Duffy's Tavern in Lincoln, The Waiting Room and Slowdown.

The MAHA board also got to choose one band by itself and they went with Somasphere.

The instrumental rock/electronic band is a pretty cool choice. They certainly diversify the indie rock-heavy lineup, and I think they'll provide a pretty cool groove to move it to on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

It won't be the band's first festival appearance. They played Wakarusa in 2010 and are on the lineup there again this year as well as Sonic Boom in Colorado, which is pretty fantastic for any Lincoln/Omaha band.

I'm excited for the showcases that will be curated by the local stage bands, and I'm sure we'll see some interesting choices from the groups.

(Somasphere won't do a showcase like the others, I'm told, but will likely participate in some other Maha-related event.)

The local band portion of the festival has the organizers pretty jazzed about how the whole thing is shaping up.

"It reminds me on a different level just how cool our local indie scene is, and how great it would be to regain some of the regional national prominence the music once had," said Mike App.

Their approach, App said, is to choose accomplished local bands in order to "get our best and brightest prospects on the MAHA stage and maybe someday get them signed to a Sub Pop or Matador or Merge and have them be the next Cursive, Faint, Bright Eyes (or even Superchunk, Guided By Voices or Pavement!). Yeah, yeah, let me dream a little, will you? "

I sort of bashed the battle of the bands approach that Maha used the last two years (and that Red Sky Music Fesitval is using this year), so I'm happy they've gone with this route. Especially with the showcases that will highlight even more local talent than could fit at Maha.