"Martin Luther King Junior was a great, great man . . . ."
AND OMAHA'S MLK AND THE DREAMERS is a pretty decent little -- OK, big at eight members -- band, sayeth an international panel of judges for the BBC World Service's The Next Big Thing contest.
The teens, students at three local high schools, didn't win the whole thing (the winner hailed from Armenia). Or finish second (a tie between acts from England and Malawi). Or third (Brazil).
But if you ask your Mighty Favog, reaching the top seven from more than 1,000 entries from around the globe, then getting a trip to London, then playing live on the radio for 160 million listeners and having nice things said about you by a panel of music-industry luminaries . . . well, that sounds like a winner to me.
"We're going to have the party right here, right now," judge Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records said after the Dreamers' performance. "I love it."
See the BBC story here. And here.
After listening to the band's "Great Man" for the first time a week or so ago, I found myself -- in a manner of speaking -- back at WLSU, Louisiana State University's then-carrier current radio station. It was the fall of 1979, and the B-52s' "Dance This Mess Around" was on the turntable.
My reaction was rather simple, and heartfelt.
"What the @#&! is THAT?!?"
HATED, ABSOLUTELY HATED, the song the first nine times I heard it. No. 10 was the charm.
Twenty-seven years later, I needed no ear adjustment with MLK and the Dreamers. I heard the rough outlines of a B-52s-type thang going on in "Great Man." Not a B-52s copycat, by any means, just a similar kind of "Oh, what the hell. Let's party!" aesthetic.
I liked.
Hey, kids! Send me a CD, will 'ya? The addy is at the bottom of the Revolution 21 homepage.
BTW, the Omaha World-Herald did a nice article (free registration required) before the Dreamers left for the UK.
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