tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49108332224745076032024-03-07T18:55:39.468-08:00Songwriter's NotebookStories from the road, ruminations on life, exciting announcements, and more...David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.comBlogger211125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-81304097237466399012023-11-19T16:17:00.000-08:002023-11-19T16:17:00.741-08:00From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean SeaPeople have been living there as long as anybody knows
Inventing math and science and how to sail where the wind blows
Poetry, philosophy, religions had their start
Lots of different people made up the beating heart
Of the land of Falasteen, from Safad to Beersheba
From Jerusalem to Jaffa, from Acre to RafahWhere they dream of the day when Palestine is freeFrom the Jordan River to the David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-90849294997703372592023-08-30T17:31:00.004-07:002023-08-30T17:35:48.923-07:00Bandcamp Support Responds!Twelve days later and I got a short response from Bandcamp Support to my query about why, with no notification, my name, albums, and tracks from any of those albums stopped showing up in search on the platform sometime in mid-August.It looks like your account was flagged for review for a possible Terms of Service violation. I've cleared that flag now, so you should show up in searches again.For David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-45908526907090254522023-07-08T10:33:00.001-07:002023-07-08T10:33:44.544-07:00Shane Burley, Spencer Sunshine, and Alexander Reid Ross turn down debate with David RovicsOn Wednesday, July 12th, at 8 am, I'll be on Paul Roland's show on KBOO community radio here in Portland, Oregon. Paul wanted specifically to discuss the constantly regurgitated and patently ridiculous allegations made about me regularly on social media and elsewhere by "antifascists" Shane Burley, Alexander Reid Ross, and Spencer Sunshine, who are all apologists for apartheid Israel and stooges David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-60576311206454042722023-05-14T09:15:00.000-07:002023-05-14T09:15:07.848-07:00Dreaming of a Guest Room in AstoriaI know nice people with guest rooms all over the world. Why not Astoria?One of the best things about being a traveling musician is meeting cool people everywhere I go. Another of the best things is that even though playing music in small venues may not be the ideal way to support a family, I almost never have to spend money on hotels, because I have friends with guest rooms everywhere. David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-62006546217203498312023-01-12T11:44:00.003-08:002023-01-12T11:44:52.692-08:00 Winter 2023: Hawai'i and the WestTomorrow I'll be picking up the brilliant Lorna McKinnon at the Portland airport, then on Monday she and I fly to Kona, Hawai'i and meet up with an amazing cast of musical colleagues whose names will at this point also be familiar to the more hardcore fans of my music, at least, including Billy Oskay, Chet Gardner, and Kamala Emanuel. The bunch of us will be spending the last half of January David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-29581823610631862862023-01-09T09:52:00.003-08:002023-01-09T20:04:32.200-08:00Touring in 2023And now for some shameless self-promotion.For those looking for incisive political commentary, you can skip this one. This post is all about what the disturbed commentariat on Reddit like to call "self-promotion." For those of you who aren't on Reddit (which is most of you), whichever forum on the platform you may be posting on, whether it's one directly related to the type of music David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-72960783976411103782022-12-04T07:36:00.001-08:002022-12-04T07:36:24.718-08:00Adventures with Guitar, Mandola, Cello and BouzoukiIf you're one of those people who have asked me questions like what is that instrument you're playing and how are you tuning it, this should provide some, all, or perhaps more of an explanation than you may have been looking for. Included within are playlists that provide lots of examples of some of the things I'm talking about here. The last playlist is a very new one!I was raised byDavid Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-52963709153218813692022-09-20T07:25:00.003-07:002022-09-24T08:25:10.938-07:00October in Scandinavia RIDE BOARDFrom October 2-24 I'll be driving all over Scandinavia. Anyone want a ride?I'm doing another fine tour of Scandinavia for most of October, 2022. I'm based out of Copenhagen for the tour, but I'm doing it all by rental car, and I have room for passengers. If you can help pay for petrol, that's especially welcome.The main drives I'll be doing that might be of interest:October5:&David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-79354663265203560992022-09-07T14:17:00.003-07:002022-09-07T14:22:47.218-07:00Weekday Morning Music?Seeking folks who play music, live in the area of Portland, Oregon, and have free time during school hours!As of September, 2022, my kids are all in school, leaving me with a bit more time free. I'm a dedicated musician, away on tour now and then, but I'm home most of the time. I have no day job, so I particularly have time to play with during the morning and early afternoon on many David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-90773569351072616632022-09-01T15:32:00.008-07:002022-09-18T11:12:58.705-07:00The Search For A Fretted CelloI love this cello, but now they make one with frets, and I would love to make music with one of those...
Goal: $2,509
Raised so far: $220
This is a video of me and the brilliant Lorna McKinnon from a gig in England in 2016. I share it here specifically to highlight how cool the cello can be as an instrument to sing with. It was around this time that I recorded an album David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-25872089245444621132022-08-19T08:53:00.005-07:002022-08-19T08:59:20.877-07:00Pacific Island Sessions album project
Donate: Pacific Island Sessions
There used to be a big thing called the corporate music industry. The big three labels still exist, but they're much smaller than they once were, and they've mostly been supplanted by Big Tech. There also used to be a thing called the independent music industry. There were independent record labels that made money for themselves and their David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-59018538308387974852022-07-17T13:07:00.001-07:002022-07-17T13:07:48.130-07:00Some Thoughts on Antifawatch.netA few days ago I got a message from someone who wanted to let me know about some bad news: that I had a listing on an apparently infamous rightwing website called Antifawatch.net. This is bad news presumably because being featured on this website means you're on some kind of hit list.Not to dismiss the inherent threat of violence we're talking about here -- it's real enough. ButDavid Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-26193239983486005852022-06-20T17:11:00.002-07:002022-06-21T08:45:19.551-07:00A Place Called SvartlamonIf I were to write a guide book for travelers, the neighborhood of Svartlamon, in Trondheim, Norway, would be on the short list of places to visit in Europe, for all kinds of reasons. Not that I would necessarily want to write a guide book, or at least one that might become popular enough to cause any major destabilization of Svartlamon's magical equilibrium.Part of the reason, though, thatDavid Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-35630358115270641562022-05-14T07:55:00.008-07:002022-05-15T07:37:10.512-07:00Reflections on a Tour: Springtime in Europe 2022The tour did not involve a visit to Ukraine or even any countries bordering Ukraine, but it was most definitely a war-time tour of Europe.In late February and early March I had a very busy tour throughout Scandinavia, mostly Denmark, playing for socialist parties, leftwing youth groups, squatted social centers, unions, and a birthday party. The timing of the tour was fairly perfect. David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-46337031347033261942022-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:002022-05-01T11:31:17.718-07:00Reactions to a Cancellation CampaignEvery time I publicly react to attacks made against me on public forums by cancellation campaigners such as those made recently by fraudulent and widely discredited "antifascist researcher" Shane Burley on various relatively popular anarchist platforms, I get a variety of responses from friends, allies, acquaintances, critics, and others.Responses are generally as complex as the left is. David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-29551351404237938942022-03-31T13:48:00.005-07:002022-04-13T18:24:43.745-07:00And My Friends Respond to the AttacksAs most of my friends and many of my fans are aware of by now, there is an ongoing campaign to cancel me, led by an anarcho-puritan cult based in Portland, Oregon, whose non-anonymous luminaries include Shane Burley, Spencer Sunshine, and Alexander Reid Ross, all of whom subscribe to a fake version of antifascism, in which you can be supportive of Israeli apartheid and US imperialism, but still David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-17271732382301195762022-03-08T07:23:00.002-08:002022-03-08T07:24:17.581-08:00Ballad of a Cluster BombPropaganda by omission is powerful stuff. I've heard the words "cluster munitions" more on National Pentagon Radio in the past few days than I have in the past few decades. If they are indeed being used by the Russian Army, this is, of course, completely appalling. But I keep waiting for them to mention that although it is true they are now banned, this ban only came about in 2008. I've David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-27351963635066747852022-01-15T12:01:00.004-08:002022-01-15T12:10:46.881-08:00A Week in the Life of a Gig Economy Worker The tour is on... The tour is off... The tour is on again!Today is January 15th. Always a notable day because it's Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, but today it's also the first 15th of the month in half a year that millions of parents around the US awoke to find their bank accounts had not gotten another pandemic-inspired infusion of cash from the IRS, including this David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-83554483788090171492022-01-05T18:05:00.005-08:002022-01-06T09:05:04.207-08:00Stumbling Into 2022Looking back on a year in a life, from the vantage point of January 6th.The concept of the anniversary can be pretty random. Things don't generally wrap themselves up neatly after 365 days, with some kind of beginning and end. Other times there are reasons why an anniversary might seem familiar -- like when it's winter and there's a highly infectious respiratory virus circulating.In the case ofDavid Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-962091474093263252021-11-29T18:35:00.003-08:002021-11-29T18:48:30.228-08:00Omicron and the Dismal State of the ArtsTo recap: even for those of us who weren't on a record label and never got commercial airplay, for several decades millions of musicians made a pretty good living from making their own recordings and selling them on concert tours. Even if the gigs might not all pay well, a decent turnout pretty much guaranteed hundreds of dollars of CD sales at every show.By 2013, when Spotify startedDavid Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-80790123915308712222021-11-24T17:10:00.006-08:002021-11-25T04:52:52.747-08:00Road Report: Fall 2021 Pandemic TravelsI spent a bit more than five weeks on tour, from mid-October til late November. The whole thing involved a wide variety of unique experiences, with a lot of common threads between them. The tour began and ended with a bit of travel chaos. If you're ever traveling during a global pandemic on someone else's frequent flier miles, don't do what I did, and assume the ticket booked for you still David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-12978191244086414292021-10-12T13:20:00.006-07:002021-10-12T13:21:42.994-07:00May Day! Crowdsourced Tour PromotionIf I'm going to have crowds, they need to be sourced!From October 19th through November 19th I'll be on tour in Europe, and then northern California just after. Your help getting the word out will mean the difference between audiences, and crickets!Booking a tour is one part of the equation in this line of work. That involves communicating with a whole bunch of really high-quality David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-45408321933365573792021-10-11T14:56:00.008-07:002021-10-11T14:58:19.875-07:00Antifascist PlaylistUnderstanding fascism through the lens of the songs of, um, David Rovics.I woke up one morning once again thinking about how to stop fascism, and a Google Alert mentioned a song I wrote that I had forgotten about, about people who went on trial for defending themselves against being attacked by Nazis, and I thought, I should compile a playlist. In the process of doing that, and putting it David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-4491189767933572812021-10-01T09:55:00.007-07:002021-10-01T10:56:53.591-07:00Wandering Minstrel Accosted by Bluegrass Purist at Kenilworth ParkJust by way of introduction, I'm a musician, among other things. I was raised by musicians, and I've been playing things with strings on them for a very long time. I even travel around the world and play music for a living. I'm 54 years old, and I've been doing this for most of my adult life. Intro done.Recently I got a mandola. For those who don't know, a mandola isDavid Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4910833222474507603.post-74130148599863129822021-09-27T18:18:00.008-07:002021-09-27T20:32:39.518-07:00Music TherapyMy latest online concert begins with a little improvisational instrumental music, and me talking about the joy of music a bit. I thought I'd expand on that theme a little.As most anyone who hasn't been on Mars for the past couple years knows, rates of anxiety and depression have skyrocketed. They're pretty bad in "normal" times as well. There are a lot of good tricks to make David Rovicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824363072665133467noreply@blogger.com1