In the second episode of Parallel Streams Owen Kelly introduces and contextualises a recent episode from the weekly podcasts made by David Rovics. This one, which we repost here by kind permission of David Rovics, contains his personal analysis of the relationships between music, jobs and AI, and provides some practical examples.
PARALLEL STREAMS
EPISODE 02 | FEBRUARY 13 | 2026
PARTICIPANTS
Owen Kelly | David Rovics
In the second episode of Parallel Streams Owen Kelly introduces and contextualises a recent episode from the weekly podcasts made by David Rovics. This one, which we repost here by kind permission of David Rovics, contains his personal analysis of the relationships between music, jobs and AI, and provides some practical examples.
PARALLEL STREAMS
EPISODE 02 | FEBRUARY 13 | 2026
PARTICIPANTS
Owen Kelly | David Rovics
COMMENTARY
Wikipedia describes David Rovics as "an American indie singer/songwriter”.
They also say that "his music concerns both topical subjects such as the Iraq War, anti-globalization, anarchism, and social justice issues, and also labor history."
We previously looked at some aspects of his work in the 25th edition of Miaaw on September 13, 2019, when we discussed his community-supported arts club, his crowdfunding activities (including the funding of his then-new album which he recorded that year in Ireland), and his fledgling A Penny A Play campaign.
Earlier this month YouTube deleted all his work from their servers because they claimed it is "supportive of unnamed criminal organizations". They offered him no possibility to remove the tracks they said violated their terms of service, and no possibility of appeal. He has written and broadcast about that, and there are links to this below.
In this podcast, though, he analyses the advent of AI and its relationship to music, musicians’ work, and jobs in general. He made a controversial personal decision to experiment rather than dismiss AI out of hand, and he discusses this. He finishes the episode with some music he has created and released with his imaginary friends in his imaginary band Ai Tsuno.
One of their songs, No Contract, No Coffee, written to support striking workers at Starbucks, won the Labor Grammys (organised by the Labor Heritage Foundation) a few weeks ago.
REFERENCES
David Rovics online headquarters: https://davidrovics.com
David Rovics on Substack: https://davidrovics.substack.com
Wikipedia: David Rovics’ entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rovics
The campaign against me: https://davidrovics.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-campaign-against-me.html
Meanwhile on Youtube: Discographies Wiped and Channels Deleted:
https://davidrovics.blogspot.com/2026/01/meanwhile-on-youtube-discographies.html
Miaaw 25: David Rovics’ strategies for survival: https://www.miaaw.net/e/david-rovics-strategies-for-production/
The Labor Heritage Foundation: https://www.laborheritage.org
