This Week with David Rovics

On the daily news and information show broadcast out of KPFA in Berkeley, California, every Friday host Dennis Bernstein is joined for the first half of Flashpoints by Sam Husseini to talk about the latest in Israel's genocide. Today journalist Robert Inlakesh and I joined Dennis and Sam to talk about our respective experiences getting blacklisted by YouTube, or in Robert's case, by Google altoget...

The latest David Rovics musical production, Ai Tsuno's eighth album, drops on all the streaming platforms later this month. In this podcast special, Ai Tsuno herself presents a guided tour of Rage Bait, and introduces you to songs such as Pogroms of the Occupied West Bank, Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, Let's Talk About Sex, They Deleted David Rovics, and the title track.

I had a conversation with Scott Harris on Counterpoint Radio earlier this week. The first half is about news of all my albums being deleted from YouTube Music, and the second half is about the double-edged sword of AI and AI music.

The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a weekly radio show on WPFW in Washington, DC, as well as a podcast. Most of the hour consists of Chris Garlock and I diving deep into the weeds of AI music generation and the future of humanity. It was a great interview to begin with, but then the way the songs were edited in for the final version makes it even better.

The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of David's journey down the corporate Memory Hole.

The Oxford English Dictionary announced yesterday that their word or phrase of the year for 2025 is "rage bait." Here's a song about it from Ai Tsuno.

It's a sunny forecast for the rest of the weekend in Portland, Oregon. Our weekly neighborhood vigil for Gaza is happening Sunday at noon, and I wrote a jingle for it.

When YouTube Music deleted all of my albums from their platform the other day because my very existence apparently violates their terms of service, Ai Tsuno wrote a fairly blistering song about 1984/2025.

Ai Tsuno presents a guided tour to our album, Class War Zone, which drops on music streaming platforms on December 4th. Class War Zone consists of very recently-penned and tremendously catchy songs about things like the ongoing Starbucks workers strike, the Jeffrey Epstein files, the cost-of-living crisis, the campaign to bring the killers of Hind Rajab and her family to the ICC, and the nonexiste...

A guided tour of Ai Tsuno's album, Gaza Riviera, which drops on all the music streaming platforms on Thanksgiving Day (November 27th).

I had another scintillating conversation with Gorilla Radio host Chris Cook today.  He interviews me for the last half of the hour.  Mostly we talked about AI...  (The first half of his show, interviewing another pro-Palestinian guy named David, was also very good.)

Kamala and I were guests for the better part of 2 hours on Graham Dean's Common Sense Songs show on Berkshire Community Radio a few days ago in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, along with our good friend, Massachusetts-based singer/songwriter Ben Grosscup. The live talk and music starts about 25 minutes in.

Sam and Amal are the hosts of a show on WUSB community radio in Stony Brook, New York called Unbound:  the arts & culture of Palestine.  They interviewed me for a very enjoyable hour the other day, in advance of the show we'll be doing on Long Island on October 26th!

Scott Harris interviewed me a few days ago for the Counterpoint public affairs radio show. We talked about the situation in Portland and other things.

My adopted home town of Portland, Oregon is once again in the international headlines, and this calls for a little primer.

Everything else happening in the world aside, we are at a fascinating juncture in the history of humanity.  Assuming we live long enough to witness it, many people would say we're on the cusp of a new reality, represented by the three words, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).  Ai Tsuno's fourth album gracefully explores this theme.  For this special edition of This Week with David Rovics I bri...

Chet Gardiner has delivered a remix of "Invisible Rulers" that sounds just like the collision of the rumor mill with the propaganda machine! And with that, the next album is coming. This'll be track #1.

When I heard on the news that the Global Sumud Flotilla was being attacked by drones and Abba music, I was struck by the muse.

As the Trump administration tries hard to capitalize on this latest instance of political violence in the USA, Chet Gardiner has for us a remix which vastly improves everything.

Renee DiResta's book, Invisible Rulers, does a brilliant job of introducing us to the modern online age -- an age which she characterizes as one during which the rumor mill and the propaganda machine have, in so many ways, collided.

He spent most of his short life feeding off of algorithms, and now the algorithms are feeding off of him.

We're at another one of those seismic moments in technological development as it applies to the arts and most other things.

With the addition of Amherst, Massachusetts, the Ministry of Culture's October tour of the northeastern US now includes 10 confirmed gigs! And I recorded a little musical October Tour PSA as well... Radio and other audio people please feel free to use!

Olympia's beloved Zahid Chaudhry remains in ICE detention in Tacoma. A wounded veteran of the US military, in his wheelchair, was detained by ICE. A cherished member of the community and a loving father, taken from his small children. Here's Chet Gardiner's lovely remix.

Most people in Olympia seem to know Zahid Chaudhry, and everyone who knows him loves him, including me.  He's the most effusively affectionate leftwing military veteran in a wheelchair you're ever likely to meet.  And now he's in ICE detention, being tortured in Tacoma. More info:  keepzahidhome.carrd.co