As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t write much about current events on this blog. I don’t feel as qualified as some of the great political bloggers I read.
But every four years I get swept up heavily in politics and it’s almost impossible for it not to creep into my writing. Back in 2000, I was writing about the election on my website. In 2004, I was offline, launching my blog the following summer. This year, I’m totally sucked in, reading everything I can and occasionally blogging or tweeting about events.
I’m an Obama supporter. There, I said it straight out. I wasn’t originally, but I was won over during the course of the primaries and now I’m a big supporter of his. I watched the convention this week from Denver and, while it started slowly, it finished with a bang.
I’m not going to go on about this any more, and the big news today is keeping everyone else from doing so as well, but it was a pretty remarkable show from Mile High Stadium.
Although the Obama campaign didn’t play it up a lot, last night also marked the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In 1988, there were two separate dance records that sampled that speech, with differing effects.
Greater Than One was made up of Lee Newman & Michael Wells. They were later on the Wax Trax! label, but they released the “Now is the Time” 12″ on their own. It’s not really techno, but it’s in the cut-and-paste style popularized by Coldcut and Steinksi. It jumps all over the map, with choirs and exercise records and Dr. King, but I love it. The cover notes “Featuring Dragoslav Aksentijevic Pavle from the forthcoming ‘Narodna‘,” but I’m not sure what parts qualify.
A more serious rendition of the speech can be found on the compilation The House Sound of London. I was always looking for good House records at the time and this collection was kind of disappointing, but it did have the sort of interesting track credited to The Speech, which appears to be an early collaboration between Rob Davis and Paul Oakenfold (misspelled on the cover as “Ockenfold”). The music is reminiscent of Paul Hardcastle, kind of soft tempo R&B. Not what I would call “House” at all.
So, one version is all serious ‘n’ stuff and the other plunders Dr. King without regard for propriety. But which one is the more compelling record?
UPDATE: A couple of MLK-related blog posts from this week, drawn from the political side of the blogosphere: King’s last great speech before he was murdered & the radicalness of his non-violent approach.
Greater Than One – Now is the Time — BUY