David Rovics and Chet Gardiner
Albums 2023 - 2024 (And Beyond)
All the songs on this album were written between October 13th and December 31st, 2023. I wrote them to bear witness to the genocide of the Palestinian people that continues by the hour as I publish this album. There are various videos, many more songs, essays, as well as an album songbook that can be found at davidrovics.com/palestine.
Released January 11, 2024
Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/notes-from-a-holocaust
(FYI: This album has been censored by Spotify among others)
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When the genocide of the people of Gaza began in October, 2023, and I began to write a series of urgent songs on the subject, Chet Gardiner shared that sense of urgency, and started taking the songs I was putting out there and making great improvements upon them from his home studio in Hawai'i.
In January we put out a 20-song album together called Notes From A Holocaust.
This album is a continuation of those efforts, but with a somewhat expanded scope. Roughly half the album consists of songs about the Gaza genocide that I've written since we put out Notes From A Holocaust. The other half of the album are songs I've written and recorded in the past few years, that either Chet or I thought would be good candidates for enhancement -- plus the much older songs, "St Patrick Battalion" and "In One World" for good measure.
For my part, I'm either playing a guitar, an Irish bouzouki, or a mandola. Everything else you hear is Chet, which includes electric and acoustic instruments of all descriptions, including guitars, basses, banjos, synth, percussion, vocal harmonies, and more.
The cover photo was taken at a gig in France by Isabelle Souriment, who also designed the album cover.
Released April 19, 2024
Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/bearing-witness
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This is an album in three parts.
First, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, songs that were written in the past few months.
Second, mostly songs related to the class struggle, some very recent and some slightly less so.
The third part relates to the album title.
To paraphrase Renée DiResta, we live in an era especially characterized by the collision of the rumor mill and the propaganda machine. A collection of the songs I've written over recent years on that subject, such as the album's title track, make up the third part.
The songs were all written by David Rovics. Depending on the song, you'll also hear David's guitar, bouzouki, or mandola. If you hear female vocals, that's Kamala Emanuel. Anything else you're hearing -- bass, drums, synth, banjo, electric guitar, and various other odds and ends -- is Chet Gardiner."
Cover graphics by the brilliant Kalindi Jackson.
Released July 16, 2024
Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/i-heard-a-rumor
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As the genocide of the Palestinian people carried out by the Israeli military accelerates, I haven't written as much as I did during the first several months of the Israeli horrors. Every murdered child deserves many songs, but at the same time, what more is there to say? How many different ways are there to rephrase "stop killing the children"?
But I did write nine songs, and one poem, between August and October, 2024, and they're all on this album, along with a new recording of a song I wrote in 2016 (guess which one).
credits
If you hear vocal harmonies, that's my singing and touring partner, Kamala Emanuel, from Brisbane, Australia -- the other half of the Ministry of Culture.
Otherwise everything other than the voices and whichever instrument I'm playing (usually guitar, sometimes mandola) is Chet Gardiner, who improved the tone and added instrumentation to everything from his home studio in Hawai'i.
Released October 26, 2024
Download Album Here: https://soundcloud.com/davidrovics/sets/jabaliya-the-album
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From the Ashes is an album consisting of 10 songs I wrote between November, 2024, and January, 2025.
One of the songs is about a historical event -- the burglary of the FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania in 1971 conducted by the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI that revealed Cointelpro to the world.
The rest of the songs are about recent, or ongoing, events, including Israel's genocide in Gaza, riots in Amsterdam, fires in LA, an assassination in Manhattan, the death of Cornelius Taylor, Antony Blinken's last press conference, and Trump's second inauguration.
The woman singing with me on many of the tracks is Kamala Emanuel. Other than the guitar or mandola I'm playing, all the other instruments are from Chet Gardiner in his studio in Hawai'i. The process is I record at home, or if on the road with Kamala, in a random location with a smartphone, and then send that recording to Chet, to work his magic.
Cover photo also taken with a smartphone, by Jeffrey St Clair.
Download Album here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-ashes
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Eight songs written in February and March, 2025, ending with two remixed versions of songs I first recorded in 2013. So basically another album of songs very directly related to Trump 2.0.
Released March 18, 2025
Songs all written and sung by David Rovics, who also plays guitar and mandola, depending. Everything else you hear is by Chet Gardiner (chetgardiner.com) from his home studio in Hawai'i. David's parts for the first eight songs were recorded in his living room. The guitar and vocals for the last two songs were recorded in 2013 at Big Red Studio in Corbett, Oregon.
Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/deport-the-billionaires
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"Chet Gardiner began taking songs I'd record in my living room and fashioning a band around them back in the fall of 2023, in his home studio in Hawai'i. He needed to do something about Gaza, and helping me improve the music I was putting out about it seemed like one thing he could do.
"Chet and I have recorded scores of songs this way, with this being our seventh album project collaboration.
"Another brilliant musician, Laura Love from the state of Washington, made the same sort of offer Chet had made, for the same sort of reason. I took her up on her offer, and her vocals all over this album are the consequences.
"The result of the collaboration of Chet and Laura is certainly one of the best albums I've ever put my name to.
"As to the songs on it, all but one are songs I wrote between March and June, 2025, about current events, with a particular focus on Gaza, Mexico, and the US. The only exception is "In the Name of God," which I originally wrote in 2009."
June 21, 2025
Download Album Here: https://soundcloud.com/davidrovics/sets/in-our-dreams
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Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/from-auschwitz-to-gaza
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credits
Everything else my vocals and guitar were recorded in my living room, and songs written by me. Kamala Emanuel is the other voice you hear, if there are vocal harmonies. Chet Gardiner is the man in Hawai'i playing everything else!
The cover photo is of Zahid Chaudhry and child, taken by Melissa Chaudhry. Kalindi Jackson used the photo to make the album cover.
Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/songs-for-zahid
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THEN Chet Gardiner, David's longtime musical collaborator from Hawai'i, laid down all sorts of other instrumentation to these formerly acoustic tracks, and voila, we have Insurrection Act REMIX.
To hear the "original" versions of the songs, check out Ai Tsuno at davidrovics.com/ai-tsuno or look up Ai Tsuno on the music streaming platform of your choice.
credits
released March 31, 2026
David Rovics: vocals, lyrics, guitar, prompt engineering
Kamala Emanuel: singer
Chet Gardiner: Everything Else
Download Album Here: https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/insurrection-act-remix
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Liner notes from Chet Gardiner:
Please enjoy this latest “album” of David Rovics' excellent songs.
For me the SONG is the thing. I try to lend my experience as musician and recording engineer/producer to support the song to the best of my ability.
I was a “Radical Lefty” Activist, Musician (Freedom Song Network, etc), Recording Producer/Engineer and Computer Systems Designer in the 1990s when I first heard David Rovics featured on KPFA Radio and Democracy Now!
He wrote songs that were brave, to the point and timely. He still does.
In June of 2022, David wrote and released a solo version of At The End Of World War Three. I heard that song as a response to USA intransigence and provocations from 2014 on (and earlier) that finally triggered Putin's Great Error, his February 2022 invasion of the eastern 10% of Ukraine and the nuclear holocaust that threatened us as a result.I was so blown away by that song that I recorded solo and “band” versions of it and sent them unsolicited to David. He graciously posted them at his music sites. Late that year David contacted me and we arranged a recording session here on my farm in Hawai'i in January of 2023 that included Kamala Emanuel from Australia and Lorna McKinnon from Scotland. The result was our 1st album collaboration, Killing the Messenger released on March 19, 2023.
After Israel's Holocaust against the People of Gaza commenced, fueled by USA money and arms, David contacted me again in Dec of 2023 to work on "Baby Jesus Lying in the Rubble." This resulted in our 2nd album of 20 songs, Notes From A Holocaust.
Here we are in mid-2026 with 11 albums containing 174 songs. This 11th album highlights some of David's strongest themes: opposition to Israeli genocide and USA global wars of terror, support for movements expressing opposition and other popular resistance, and normally well-hidden labor and activist history.
The album also features the excellent voices of Kamala Emanuel and Laura Love to sweeten the pot even further.
I am driven by what I think is a similar optimism as David's, that our spoonfuls of sand can help fill the bucket on the positive side of the balance and “suddenly” there will be global change in the correct direction.
Chet Gardiner – Aug 10, 2026
Honomalino, Hawai'i
At The End Of World War Three – Live concert on the Big Island
https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/track/at-the-end-of-world-war-three
David, Kamala, Lorna, me on bass, Steve Kida on Drums.
My 2022 “Band” version was released on our 9th album, Songs for Zahid (above) and includes World War Three being played out under the long break. Solomon Choo on Harmonica.
The Seesaw and the Spoons.
“Imagine that on a beach of sparkling sand, several yards in from the oceanfront, there is a seesaw. On each end of the seesaw is a very large bucket. One bucket is full of rocks. The other bucket is empty except for a few grains of sand blown in by the wind. The bucket with the rocks, being so much heavier than the empty bucket, rests on the beach. The empty bucket hangs at the other end of the seesaw about four feet above the ground.
“One day, somebody decides that the balance of the seesaw needs to be reversed. So he grabs the rim of the empty bucket and pulls down with all of his might. But he is unable to budge it. His attempt to change the balance all by himself is futile.
“But there’s a whole group of people who would also like to change the balance. They gather together from all corners of the beach with spoons. Each person fills their spoon with sand and dumps it into the raised bucket. They all know that one hundred spoons full of sand will not change the balance. Nor will one thousand. But maybe ten thousand will. Or maybe it will take a hundred thousand spoons full. Or a million. Who knows?
“But they also know that if they work together and more and more people join their efforts, eventually the balance will shift. One day, somebody will pour a spoonful of sand into the formerly empty bucket and it will become heavier than the bucket of rocks. It will then drop down to the surface of the beach and create a new balance.”
Tale told by Pete Seeger as Spook Handy recalls it.