This Week with David Rovics

Flashpoints

Food Not Bombs cofounder Keith McHenry and I were on the radio show, Flashpoints, on KPFA last Friday, talking about stopping the sweeps of tent encampments across the country, police torture, and other subjects.  Here's the show, archived for posterity.

New song: "There Is A Cage"

My friend Keith McHenry is one of many people around the world who has been held in a cage like the one he drew, of the secret black site where the San Francisco police tortures their prisoners, in such a way that leaves no mark.  They kept him in there for days on end, on multiple occasions.

I wrote the lyrics, and the brilliant Olympia folk punk phenomenon known as Virtual Bird set it to music, and that's Jane Reynolds delivering the vocals.

The song goes out to all the victims of torture, everywhere, who have been held in such cages.

Ezra Brain interviews David Rovics for Left Voice

Ezra Brain interviewed me on Monday (3/29/2021) for a piece he's writing for Left Voice. This is the unedited interview that we recorded. We covered a lot of ground, from popular education to the music industry to eviction defense, and I was mostly coherent, I think.

Discussion with Olusola Oyeleye, director of Paul Robeson's Love Song

We spend the hour with award-winning theater director, Olusola Oyeleye, talking about writing, directing, acting, and the state of theater in general. The radio play, Paul Robeson's Love Song, written by Tayo Aluko and directed by Olusola Oyeleye, drops worldwide on April 9th.

You can also find this as the latest episode of the podcast, This Week with David Rovics, wherever you get your podcasts.

Discussion with Mic Crenshaw, cohost of podcast, It Did Happen Here

We spend the hour with hip-hop artist and Anti-Racist Action cofounder Mic Crenshaw, author of an upcoming book about Black skinheads on PM Press, and cohost of a fantastic new podcast series about the early days of ARA and related networks in the struggle against the far right, It Did Happen Here.

Concert From My Living Room

It's the last Saturday of the month -- March, in this case -- so, it was time for another livestreamed concert from my living room, as the tradition has been going lately. Here it is for the archive.

Discussion with Saed Bannoura of the Independent Middle East Media Center

We spend the hour with Independent Middle East Media Center founder, Portland-based Palestinian-American journalist and veteran of the First Intifada, Saed Bannoura.

Discussion with Keith McHenry on Food Not Bombs 40th anniversary

An extra special, extended discussion with Food Not Bombs cofounder, Keith McHenry, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first meal served! A fascinating discussion, Keith shares a lot of entertaining, exciting, and terrifying stories about his experiences as an organizer and artist.

Fixing The Stream

Spotify's model of disaster capitalism is being challenged like never before. And for the sake of the welfare of artists around the world -- and our children -- Spotify changing their business model can not happen soon enough.

New song: "When the West Was Won"

In May, 1887, a gang of white men led by someone named Bruce Evans carried out a series of massacres of Chinese gold miners in northeastern Oregon, robbing miners of everything, and killing all of them, at each camp the gang found.  Although some of them confessed to their heinous crimes, a jury refused to convict them.  Instead, the name of mass murderer, Bruce Evans, is engraved in an arch to the memory of the Pioneers who settled the area, in the town of Enterprise, Oregon.