Mmm Bop Grows Up and Gives Back

I really should read the Sunday paper on Sunday. When I don't, I miss out on good stuff. Like this:

Hanson - that teeny bopper boy band of three blond-haired brothers from the 1990s - was in Minneapolis yesterday and performing at First Avenue.

FIRST AVENUE!!!

If you're not a Twin Cities person, this might not mean anything to you. Let me fill me you in. First Avenue is where Prince got his start. It's the setting for the movie Purple Rain. The building occupies a downtown Minneapolis corner and is painted pitch black -- inside and out.

The outside walls are studded with silver stars boasting the names of musicians that have played there, names like U2, the Ramones, Soul Aslymn and Cake. The interior walls, again, are black. The focus is not the decor, which is quite lacking, but the stage.

It's hardly the sort of place where a one-hit-wonder boy band makes a come back. Or is it?

Turns out the Hanson brothers have grown up. So have their politics. And so has their music.

The brothers had been spending time in Africa, doing philanthropic deeds, and decided to record a song with a South African child choir.

Proceeds from the download of the resulting song, Great Divide, support relief work in Africa. Check out the video...