“It has a sort of negative connotation — of amateur bar bands,” says the leader of Virginia indie-rock troupe The Beanstalk Library. He doesn’t think the term represents the high-quality music coming out of the D.C. region.

So when Walker talks about the Magnificent Intentions Music Festival — a two-day concert he and bandmate Brian Pagels host in Arlington and D.C. this weekend — he calls the lineup “D.C.-area,” not “local.” He contends that people here shouldn’t care about these performers because they’re local — they should care because they’re good.

“We realized that there were a lot of bands and acts in the D.C. area that were making really good-quality, original music that’s largely not known outside of the area,” says Walker, 36. “We wanted to put on a festival that puts a spotlight on all that.” 

Now in its second year, the Magnificent Intentions festival takes its name from Charles Dickens’ famous quip that D.C. is a “city of magnificent intentions.” Walker says the moniker refers to something he considers scarce in the regional music scene: big dreams.

“One of the things I noticed growing up… is it didn’t seem very much of a hallmark for [D.C.-area] bands to have ambition,” says Walker, who lives in Arlington. “There are a few exceptions, but I’ve noticed a lot of bands… start to get some buzz outside the area, and then they break up.”

Or local artists who want to go national — like dream-pop duo GEMS and rappers Logic and GoldLink — simply move elsewhere.

When it kicks off Friday evening at IOTA Club & Cafe in Arlington, the Magnificent Intentions festival will host about five hours of music that Walker considers not just local-good, but all-around good. Fairfax singer-songwriter Jacqueline Pie Francis opens the bill, followed by several rock bands with promise, including rough-edged groups Short Lives and Spirit Plots and pop rockers Lighting Fires.

Saturday’s lineup at DC9 skews even poppier, with sets from producer Louis Weeks, the jaunty Title Tracks and polished rockers Middle Distance Runner, among others. (The El Mansouris had to cancel.)

“If you’re into what’s going on on a national level musically, these are things that are not of lesser quality than that,” Walker says. “In some cases, these are acts for whom ambition is not a bad word.”

The Magnificent Intentions Music Festival takes place Dec. 4 at IOTA Club & Cafe and Dec. 5 at DC9. Photo by Flickr user John Athayde used under a Creative Commons license.