Mike Mogis promises that you can wear the underpants.

With a banjo, mandolin, glockenspiel, and a pair of tiger-print bikini briefs hanging from the rearview mirror, Lullaby for the Working Class is looking to comfort an introspective, slightly bitter crowd Saturday at the Maintenance Shop.

Lullaby’s show is composed of “light and kind of soft acoustic music for someone who’s bitter and drunken,” said Mogis, string magician for the Nebraska band.

Resisting the term alternative country, Mogis prefers the label “sadgrass” to describe the band’s sound.

“Our music’s like a classic bluegrass band, but played very slowly,” he said. The combination of soft, instrument-rich melodies and cynical, slightly bitter lyrics of singer/songwriter Ted Stevens, is almost a contradiction. But the effect is a comforting sound with lyrics for which you actually listen.

The band’s unique blend of non-traditional instruments makes it stand out from other college bands.

“[Instrumentation] makes the sound more dense, gives it more tension,” Mogis said.” It really opens new doors for expressing yourself.”

Finishing a tour that spanned as far as New York City to as near as the Memorial Union, the four members of Lullaby, all students at University of Nebraska at Lincoln, have missed only three days of school this semester promoting their current album Blanket Warm.

“We plan it strategically. We tour over vacations,” Mogis said. “We try to maintain a balance of rock ‘n’ roll and school.”

The balance will tip in favor of rock ‘n’ roll next fall when the band will take off school to promote its new album.

Lullaby is part of network of Nebraska bands including Commander Venus, Cursive, Norman Baylor and We’d Rather Be Flying.

While these bands could be viewed as rivals for the same college audience, they work together in an almost “communist fashion,” Mogis said. The bands play instruments in each other’s bands, write songs about each other and record on the same label with proceeds from one band’s album going into the production of another band’s album.

“It is a very nurturing musical environment,” Mogis said.

Lullaby, also consisting of A.J. Mogis on bass and Shane Aspegren on drums, formed in the winter of 1994 and began working on music for Blanket Warm, the band’s first recording effort.

The Mogis brothers and crew will join Celtic-rock entrepreneurs The Drovers on Saturday for 8 and 11 p.m. performances. Tickets are $7, $6 for students.