Photo by Peter Miller of David Rovics during the First Indy Music Festival in the Back Room at the Urbana-Champaign IMC, 12 March 2002.
Hi folks,
Well, I've been meaning to write to my email list for a couple weeks now to announce that there are six new MP3's on my website to be downloaded by anyone interested. Go to http://www.davidrovics.com and click on "listen to songs." The new MP3's will be the first link you come to on that page. On that same page where you can get those MP3's you'll also find other new and newish links to various other MP3's, whole concerts on video and audio recorded by Maine Indymedia and others, and many more to come.
Otherwise, what else... I'm about to run off to a gig at the University of Rochester (New York), then I'm doing a couple of double-bills in Vermont and Maine with the greatest songwriter of our time (in my humble opinion), Jim Page, as well as with an extremely talented young songwriter from Maine named Ethan Miller. And there's also a gig at the Unitarian church in Kingston, NY, then I'm off to Denmark, England, Germany and the Netherlands for five weeks, before returning to North America and hopefully singing at Biodevastation in Toronto, the Conference of Mayors protest in Madison, and the G8 protests in Alberta. Info on all this can be found on www.davidrovics.com, then click on "gigs." The tour in Europe is gonna be great, with a May Day gig in Aarhus, Denmark, a whole bunch of double-bills with Attila the Stockbroker in England, and after that, back on the continent, I'll be singing at the protest in Berlin to greet GW, a squat in the Netherlands, and elsewhere.
Many people on my email list were at the protest in DC last weekend that I sang at, so for those of you who are still with me here... Oh, speaking of still being with me here, I'm swamped with email lists and gigs and everything else, and don't have enough time for just about anything. I've gotten into a bad habit of rushing through my email, and have most certainly accidentally deleted stuff I shouldn't have deleted. If you have ever written me and not received a response, that's probably what happened. If you write me an email, it'd be great if you'd put my name in the subject line, to make sure I read it.
OK, back to DC. For whatever it's worth, I just want to say, starting with the positive, that I had a great time there, the turnout was impressive (somewhere between 60-100,000 people, it seems), and many good things happened. The multi-ethnic aspect was great, people of all ages and walks of life, from all over the country and the world. There was a lot of puppetry and street theater, most of which I didn't get to see, because I was hanging out around the various stages I was singing on. So most of what I have to say would relate to the various planned events on stages.
The best one, hands down, that I saw or participated in, was the one organized by School of the Americas Watch and the Colombia Mobilization on Sunday. Why it was so cool, in my opnion, was because there was a roughly equal mix between artistic stuff -- musicians, puppetry -- and speakers. The musicians were of the highest calibre (though almost all acoustic-oriented -- I like that, but perhaps there should be more variety of styles, I don't know), and the speakers generally spoke with passion, and really tried to educate and inspire as well as to express their outrage at our government's military aid and training for the death squads of Colombia. Also, the sound system was good.
By contrast, here are my impressions of Saturday's rallies. I heard the morning ANSWER "Coalition" rally on C-SPAN Radio coming into DC, and I was at the afternoon rally, which I sang at. The one I heard on the radio was one boring slogan after another, one totally uninspired, angry speaker shouting something along the lines of "down with US imperialism." There was no music or art or anything remotely creative going on. It was one of the worst rallies I've ever heard, and totally representative of everything that's wrong with the sectarian left. I am impressed by the ANSWER "Coalition"'s ability to work hard and get a good turnout for their events, and that's all I'm impressed by as far as they go.
The afternoon rally seemed quite evidently to be an actual coalition effort between ANSWER and the real coalition (War Resistor's League, American Friends Service Committee, the student coalition against the war, etc., etc.), so it included a very limited amount of music (but at least some), no artistic expression other than music, no theater, and as for the speakers, it was an alternating thing between ANSWER's rhetoriticians and more reasonable people. The sound system was outrageously bad, really unbelievable. The speakers were not elevated. I have heard that the people who provided the sound system said that the turnout was bigger than expected, which is true, however, for a gathering of ANY size, speakers must be elevated in order to project. The people who provided the sound system, whoever they are, should have known this. This situation was embarrassing, really. But given the low quality of half of the speakers, perhaps it was for the best that only about 2% of the crowd could actually hear what was going on from the stage.
I'm very glad the weekend happened, especially the smaller events, and I'm glad the turnout was good. However, the ANSWER "Coalition" and other sectarian groups like them are definitely not the way forward, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I'd suggest they're a hindrance. Call me a red-baiter if you want to. I'm not anti-socialist, though, just anti-sectarian. I believe in grassroots democracy, not democratic centralism. I'm not an organizer, and I have no intentions of becoming one, but it seems to me that any organization like ANSWER would be best off ignored. The legitimate, grassroots movement we are building will be stifled by groups like this, and it must grow. If it is to grow it must be democratic, it must inspire and educate, not just express outrage, it must move beyond slogans, it must have imagination, it must provide a sense of community, of the future that is possible.
Big parts of our movement already are doing all of that, and I would hold up SOA Watch and others like them as a good example. Which is not to say that there is no room for improvement with SOA Watch, just that they are providing one of the best examples of how to put together a good protest. Of course, putting together a good protest is only a small part of the way forward, but it is significant, and moreover, it is indicative of the health of the movement or of the coalition putting on the protest.
I've probably said a bunch of things here I shouldn't be saying in public, and I welcome criticism. I don't want to be divisive, I want to win. But if we're going to win, we must do better. What does it mean to be united with sectarians if this will just mean more of the same? I don't have the answers, but maybe there's something to be said for raising the questions, and the criticisms. We can and must do better than this. We have to think outside of the box. As the situationists said, "Free the imagination!" Speaking of slogans, my favorite sign during the weekend said, "A terrorist is someone with a bomb, but no air force."
Hope to see you on the road and in the streets!
--David
P.S. Here's the lyrics to a new song, which someone out at the fabulous Free Radio Santa Cruz asked me to write, I don't remember who.
Pirate Radio Song
David Rovics
This is how it started
It's not hard to understand
From coast to coast they're lying
At a CEO's command
From Nationalist Public Radio
CNN and ABC
Big Brother's spewing propaganda
From the Disinformation Ministry
They say the economy is booming
We hear the homeless beggar's cries
They say we help poor countries
We see bombs falling from the skies
Reality doesn't exist
They're trying to say
But some of us decided
There is another way
(Chorus)
Seize the airwaves
Seize the time
Lying to the people
Is the real crime
When it's all owned by corporations
And theirs is the only word
We will seize the airwaves
Speak freely and be heard
Someone got a transmitter
Started up a station
Then the idea spread
Right across the nation
Like the land and water
The air must be free
So let us shout together
"Fuck the FCC"
(Chorus)
And we'll do it all together
In a grassroots style
Breaking down the fences
Throughout this whole square mile
It's the new Town Meeting
It's the way the news should be
The rulers call it chaos
We say it's democracy
So when you turn on the radio
And you've had it with this shit
From 88 to 107
Makes you want to have a fit
When you listen to the music
And it's all the same pop song
Start up a pirate station
'Cause that's where you belong
(Chorus)
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