David Rovics sings at the A16 rally in Washington DC in early 2005.

David Rovics (born April 10, 1967) is an indie singer/songwriter and outspoken grassroots political protestor from the United States. His music is most accurately described as protest-folk and concerns topical subjects such as the 2003 Iraq war, anti-globalisation and social justice issues. Rovics is an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, but also of John Kerry. He is vocal on these subjects on stage, radio shows and in press releases. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1704x2272, 1840 KB) David Rovics sings his Operation Iraqi Liberation song at the A16 rally in Washington DC protesting the World Bank. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1704x2272, 1840 KB) David Rovics sings his Operation Iraqi Liberation song at the A16 rally in Washington DC protesting the World Bank. ... April 10 is the 100th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (101st in leap years). ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... In popular music, indie music (from independent) is any of a number of genres, scenes, subcultures and stylistic and cultural attributes, characterised by perceived independence from commercial pop music and mainstream culture and an autonomous, do-it-yourself (DIY) approach. ... Grassroots is a political movement for individual constituents of a community to voice their ideas and opinions. ... Combatants Coalition Forces (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Poland) Iraq Commanders Tommy Franks Saddam Hussein Strength 263,000 375,000 The 2003 invasion of Iraq, termed Operation Iraqi Freedom by the US administration, began on March 20. ... Anti-globalization (anti-globalisation) is a political stance of opposition to the perceived negative aspects of globalization. ... Social justice is a philosophical definition of justice, that is, giving individuals or groups their due within society as a whole. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States and a former governor of Texas. ... John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. ...

Although most of Rovics' work is fully-copyrighted and commercially-distributed, Rovics has made all of his recorded music freely available on downloadable mp3 files from his website. He encourages the free distribution of his work by all non-profit means to promote his work and spread political messages, and speaks out against websites or programs like iTunes that charge money for downloading his songs, deeming a price of 99 cents per song as "too expensive". Rovics has also advocated the performing of his songs at protests and demonstrations and has made his sheet music and lyrics available for download to this end. It is worth noting that this means of promotion contains elements of the copyleft licensing scheme. The copyright symbol is used to give notice that a work is covered by copyright. ... MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format, designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners. ... A non-profit organization (often called non-profit org or simply non-profit or not-for-profit) can be seen as an organization that doesnt have a goal to make a profit. ... iTunes iTunes is a proprietary digital media player application, launched by Apple Computer on January 9, 2001, for playing and organizing digital music and video files. ... Promotion is one of the four aspects of marketing. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Although Rovics is not strongly associated with any particular political or ideological movement, his lyrics and recorded interviews encompass a wide range of left-wing, humanitarian interests. He has suggested a commonality or synthesis between these varied ideologies in several of his radio interviews, and cites his music as a means to disseminate these ideas. His provocative and catchy lyrics bring to mind a modern-day Woody Guthrie or Phil Ochs. In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... Humanitarianism is the view that all people should be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve as human beings, and that advancing the well-being of humanity is a noble goal. ... Synthesis (from the Greek words syn = plus and thesis = position) is commonly understood to be an integration of two or more pre-existing elements which results in a new creation. ... Woody Guthrie with Guitar Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (July 14, 1912–October 3, 1967), known as Woody Guthrie was an influential and prolific American folk musician noted for his identification with the common man, the poor and the downtrodden, and for his abhorrence of fascism and exploitation. ... Phil Ochs in concert, May 25, 1973 in Ann Arbor, Michigan Philip David Ochs (December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was a U.S. protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) popular during the 1960s. ...

Rovics' For The Moment Album

Image File history File links Rovics_for_the_moment. ... Image File history File links Rovics_for_the_moment. ...

Biography

David Rovics was born in New York City. His family moved to Wilton, Connecticut when he was young. Rovics was politically inspired during his adolescence by his experiences with the conservative-oriented, fundamentalist Christian milieu of his home town. His parents, both skilled musicians and educators, were liberal in their outlook. Perhaps for this reason, Rovics was to become a hippie in his teens and acquired interests in nuclear disarmament, vegetarianism and other counterculture issues. Rovics, an ethnic Jew, is an atheist. Flag Seal Nickname: The Big Apple, The Capital of the World[1], Gotham Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area    - City 1,214. ... Wilton is a town located in Fairfield County, Connecticut. ... Conservatism or political conservatism is any of several historically related political philosophies or political ideologies. ... A singer dresses in a stereotypical hippie outfit. ... Nuclear disarmament is the proposed undeployment and dismantling of nuclear weapons particularly those the United States and the Soviet Union (later Russia) targeted on each other. ... Vegetarianism is the practice of not eating meat, including beef, poultry, fish, and their by-products, with or without the use of dairy products or eggs. ... In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms are at odds with those of the social mainstream, a cultural equivalent of a political opposition. ... For information about the band, see Atheist (band). ...

In his early twenties, Rovics dropped out of college and moved to Berkeley, California. He worked in varied occupations, including as a cook, barista, secretary and typist, while pursuing his musical interests as a street and subway performer and in small clubs and bars. He immersed himself in the popular leftist counterculture and made contact with other songwriters and performers on the underground circuit. He is a Wobbly. Berkeley as seen from the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve. ... The term barista (the Italian word for bartender - masculine or feminine; plural: baristi (masculine) or bariste (feminine)) has been used in English to denote a maker of espresso based beverages. ... In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... Underground as an adjective commonly refers to something that is either below the ground or outside of public consciousness. ... The IWW Label A Wobbly membership card The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, having much in common with anarcho-syndicalist unions, but also many differences. ...

On May 1st, 1993, Rovics was involved in a traumatic incident in which a close friend was shot dead after intervening in a gang shoot-out. This was a turning point in his life, forcing him to concentrate on his songwriting career, initially as a means of dealing with the grief over his friend’s death. He had already amassed a fair collection of lyrics and songs by that time, but his own admission, his compositions prior to this time were inferior and ‘preachy’, and none were used in his later albums.

From around the mid 1990s, Rovics has spent most of his time on concert tours around the world. In 1996 he self-released his first album, Make It So, which consisted mostly of covers of other artists’ songs. He released his second cover album in 1998. He produced a series of five original song albums between 1998 and 2003 as self-release titles. The album Who Would Jesus Bomb? is notable for being entirely distributed in mp3 format over the internet and having no commercial release, although it was included in a later ‘best of’ album. Image File history File links Davidrovics+makeitso. ... The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive. ...

In 2003 Rovics signed up to Ever Reviled Records and produced a studio album, Return. Later that year, he released Behind The Barricades: The Best Of David Rovics in association with AK Press, including titles from his earlier self-releases which met with minimal commercial success. He has since released the Songs for Mahmud album as a self-release in association with Ever Reviled Records. Despite being the sole performer in most of his work, he usually describes himself only as a songwriter. Ever Reviled Records is a worker-owned and run record label, founded by Darren Deicide, that releases music with politically leftist and anarchist themes. ... AK Press is a collectively owned and operated independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical and anarchist literature. ... Ever Reviled Records is a worker-owned and run record label, founded by Darren Deicide, that releases music with politically leftist and anarchist themes. ...

Although Rovics' work has never met with great commercial success, it has been critically-acclaimed in the press and continues to be popular with a small yet widespread base of fans with similar political interests, as well as supporters of internet file sharing. Due to his outspoken political views, Rovics has been accused by extreme right-wingers and fundamentalists as anti-Christian and anti-American^{[citation needed]} but he has been embraced by various left wing, anti-war, environmentalist, social justice groups and youth groups. While it is fair to say that his work is only enduringly popular with a limited fan base, this has nonetheless occurred with little promotion. File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... Anti-American sentiment is a hostility towards or disapproval of the government, culture, history, and/or people of the United States of America. ...

Discography

self-release unless noted otherwise

• Make It So (1996)
• Pay Day at Coal Creek (1998)
• We Just Want the World (1998)
• Live at Club Passim (2000)
• Living In These Times (2001)
• Hang A Flag In The Window (2002)
• Who Would Jesus Bomb (2001)
• Return (Ever Reviled Records, 2003)
• Behind the Barricades, the Best of David Rovics (AK Press/Daemon Records 2003)
• Songs for Mahmud (2004)
• Beyond The Mall (2004)
• For the Moment (Yoyo Records 2005)
• Waiting For The Fall (2005)
• Haliburton Board Room Massacre (2006)

Ever Reviled Records is a worker-owned and run record label, founded by Darren Deicide, that releases music with politically leftist and anarchist themes. ... AK Press is a collectively owned and operated independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical and anarchist literature. ... Daemon Records is a not-for-profit independent record label started by musician Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. ... This page may meet Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...

See also

Boxcar Betty This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

External link

• Official website. Additional information, huge collection of free mp3s, sheet music and links.