Friday, November 02, 2018

Dreaming of the Masters



If you ever wondered what the big deal with Archie Shepp was all about, he runs the voodoo down and explains it all in this cut, aptly named Frankenstein.  We recommend you play it loud.

The recent Halloween holiday probably reminded us of the title, but the urgency of the music convinced us that this was the Friday, the weekend before Election Day, to post this composition.

GET OUT THERE AND VOTE NEXT WEEK, PEOPLE!  Vote for the sake of 1968 Archie Shepp. Vote the hateful white patriarchy out of office, and replace your corrupt, bigoted Republican governors and senators and representatives with some of the beautiful, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual sisters and brothers running for office this year.  Let's elect Stacy Abrams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Andrew Gillum and Beto O'Rourke.  We won't last another two years under the current insane clown posse of an administration allegedly running the country now! 

In Frankenstein, Shepp channels all the rage and anger of 1968, the year that saw the assassinations of RFK and MLK, escalations of the Vietnam War, and the police riot at the Democratic National Convention, among many other horrors, and used his art to express his outrage and then to soothe the rawest of emotions, all while never giving up the righteous moral stance. It's a powerful performance, even these 50 years later, and if this doesn't make you want to go out and change the world, I don't know what to tell you - there may be no hope for you, my friend.

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