ARGENTINA’S RADIO GULP INTERVIEW

RADIO GULP in Argentina just posted a giant (print) interview with me. Google will translate. Here are my original answers and photos.

The Record / SOLD

“The Record” (24 x 24″ acrylic on canvas with 1 1/2″ profile) $1500 USD / SOLD

Rolling Stone

The 200 Best Songs of The 1980s

by Rob Sheffield, November 23, 2023

#189: Mecca Normal, ‘I Walk Alone’ 1987

“An early proto-riot-grrrl pipe bomb. The only sound is the voice of punk poet Jean Smith, with the guitar of David Lester, about a woman walking by herself in a city and feeling like a target everywhere she goes. Every time she sings “I walk alone,” it hits deeper. A song designed to change the way you saw the world around you, and for many who heard it, it did and still does.”

Bandcamp article

Considering recent news of layoffs after new ownership at Bandcamp, I scooped up this excellent piece with a lot of informative links relating to Mecca Normal as well as a solid reach into surrounding DIY, feminist and political music communities as they have unfolded since the mid-80s. By no means comprehensive, but pretty good for a piece this size.

Bandcamp Daily

By Allyson McCabe · April 06, 2021

photos: Sean Raggett

For nearly four decades, Mecca Normal has offered up fierce indictments of the status quo, and provided a model for using creative self-expression as a way to fight inequality and social injustice. They’ve largely succeeded because founders Jean Smith and David Lester never intended to become rich, famous, or even liked. 

Early on, the Vancouver-based duo shared bills with D.O.A., Fugazi, and Mudhoney. As pioneers of the Pacific Northwest indie scene, they released albums via K Records, Matador, and Kill Rock Stars. But Mecca Normal’s commitment to a pro-woman, anti-authoritarian stance has also kept them defiantly left of the left of the dial, where they’ve circulated quietly on mixtapes passed from artist to artist, generation to generation. Their rough-hewn authenticity served as the foundation for feminist punk bands such as Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney. Reverberations are still heard in politically-conscious bands such as Priests, Pill, and XETAS. 

From time to time Mecca Normal has also bubbled up to the mainstream. The band’s most famous song, “I Walk Alone,” recently surfaced on Pamela Adlon’s FX series Better Things. First appearing on Mecca Normal’s self-titled, self-released 1986 debut, “I Walk Alone” builds in its intensity, delivering a powerful affirmation of every woman’s right to freedom from street harassment, and general right to be left the fuck alone. 

1st LP

Another track, “Scare in the Hallway,” sounds a bit like Dead Moon meets Roky Erickson, while “Sha La La La La” is the perfect soundtrack song for a Super 8 film about young punks in their own version of love. Throughout their debut, Smith’s abrasive vocals pair so well with Lester’s minimalist guitar work, they don’t even need a rhythm section.

Dovetail from 1992 presents a very different side of Mecca Normal, this one proving they’re just as capable of crafting graceful, restrained melodies. The standout track is “Throw Silver,” a heartbreaking, multi-tracked ballad wrapped inside beautiful surf guitar stylings. “Cherry Flowers” is another stunner, an atmospheric lullaby that drifts by like a summer cloud. 

Dovetail (KLP014) LP/CD

Mecca Normal’s 2006 concept album The Observer rises to another level of sophistication; Lester’s jarring, discordant guitar is the bed for Smith’s wry observations and insights, drawn from her life as a single woman in her mid-40s. 

Smith’s droll pronouncements about dating may recall The Waitresses circa 1982, but come across as even more funny, sad, and true. The album’s 12-plus minute centerpiece is “Fallen Skier,” Smith’s missive about a date with a 47-year-old guy who had dropped out of school to be a ski bum, and is now returning years later with vague plans for his future. Over a repeating guitar riff, Smith alternates between rehearsing her date’s backstory and her pointed reactions to the flags he’s raising: “Warning-warning-warning—red flag/ No one moves to skid row to get clean/ Will I be playing the part of the woman helping him get his life back on track?” 

The Observer LP/CD

On “I’ll Call You,” a more conventionally straightforward rocker, Smith offers a frank translation of what men would say if they told the truth in their personal ads: “I want cold, impersonal sex/ During which I’ll be pretending I’m with someone else.” Sex is rendered in even darker but still humorous terms: “In bed he tries to put the condom on/ He curses/ I try to see what he’s doing, but I’m pinned under him/ I hear him stretching the condom like he’s making a balloon animal.” 

If Smith and Lester occasionally come across as biting, or even bitter, it’s because they believe in the possibility of change, and even the far greater ambition of changing the world. As an extension of their creative partnership, they’ve toured bookstores, classrooms, and community centers with a performance-based lecture addressing the motivations informing their art, their work process, and how they’ve managed to thrive while remaining committed to underground principles.

They’ve also followed this moral compass in their solo pursuits. Lester has carved out a successful career as a graphic designer and illustrator, addressing issues such as poverty, worker’s rights, and class struggle. Smith is a celebrated writer and visual artist who has sold more than a thousand portraits of women on Facebook over the past five years, earning enough money to make a living, and setting aside hundreds of thousands of dollars to establish a fellowship to support other independent creators. 

Smith and Lester’s most recent collaboration as Mecca Normal is 2014’s Empathy For the Evil. Based on material from two of Smith’s novels, the characters in these “stories as songs” often confront power imbalances, such as the daughter in “Odele’s Bath” who faces her abusive father in the aftermath of her mother’s death. But on “Art was the Great Leveler,” Smith and Lester reveal how art can provide a way out of the darkness: “Which side of town they were from wasn’t a big enough issue/ To keep them apart/ To keep them apart/ Art was the great leveler and an emotional connection formed.”

Empathy for the Evil LP/CD

Offering a way out of the darkness is what brought the band early superfans such as Kurt Cobain, Kathleen Hanna, and Tobi Vail, who once wrote in her zine Jigsaw: “To me, Mecca Normal is one of the only true punk bands around, in that way they are totally subversive. Maybe that is why so many of today’s young white males and their friends enjoy telling me how much they suck. I can’t think of anyone else who writes more powerful songs about what it feels like to be a woman in a world of violence against women.” 

This relentless spirit is also the key to their longevity. From Mecca Normal’s early cassette four-track recordings and fiery live shows to their surprisingly tender songs, and later, more literary-minded approach, they have always been provocative and thoroughly original. Smith and Lester are more than a band. As Melody Maker once put it, they’re “a two-person guerrilla campaign against apathy.”

Compelling Paintings on Paper

Recent Paintings on Paper

Buy an $800 USD painting (11 x 14″) and add Paintings on Paper for $100 USD each. No limit. Currently 24 Paintings on Paper.

Paintings on Paper only sell as ADD-ONS to purchases yet to ship.

“Paper #739”

“Paper #748”

“Paper #799”

“Paper #807”

“Paper #816”

“Paper #818”

“Paper #820”

“Paper #817”

“Paper #821”

All content on this page (c) Jean Smith, 2023

Indigo Girls / Suffragette Sessions Tour

Hey, I’m in this movie about The Indigo Girls! Perhaps I only utter a few words (on the tour bus, evidently) but I had to sign off on it.

SUNDANCE 2023 world premier – “It’s Only Life After All” 40 years of home movies, raw film archive, and intimate present-day vérité.

How’d I get on their tour bus? Well… in 1998, I went on tour with them, not as a separate “act”, but as part of an experiment called the Suffragette Sessions Tour. We played about 12 dates in large venues. Some very large… like arenas.

It’s the only touring I’ve done by proper tour bus. It left me feeling utterly gleeful that Mecca Normal has toured almost exclusively by car. We take so many side trips, stop at restaurants, go to museums etc.

The participants included Gail Ann Dorsey (bass for David Bowie), Lisa Germano, Lourdes Pérez, Kate Schellenbach (Luscious Jackson, the Beastie Boys), Jane Siberry, Jean Smith (Mecca Normal and 2 Foot Flame), Josephine Wiggs (the Breeders) and Thalia Zedek (Come).

Amy Ray / Indigo Girls: “The Suffragette Sessions Tour is a socialist experiment in rock and roll. Gather a bunch of musicians from different musical genres who are relatively unfamiliar with each other…throw them on a tour bus together…drop them off at a rock club, and see what happens. No hierarchy, no boundaries.”

Just found this audio artifact on YouTube: I opened the show with “Everwilling” (my other band 2 Foot Flame) in Minneapolis at the First Ave (1550 capacity). I’m very sure this is not what these Indigo Girls fans came to see. Oh well. Nice reaction from the audience though. Part of this must be as the others came on stage. Likely Thalia backing me up, although I was playing guitar on this tour, so maybe the accents are mine.

“Everwilling” is a 2 Foot Flame song from our second album “Ultra Drowning” (1997, Matador)

The YouTube poster calls me guesting on one of Emily’s songs a highlight of the show! Wow!

Oh, actually, I just sing parts of Mecca Normal songs in the middle of her song. The nerve!

“Soon be to Nothing” / “Her Ambition” “The Dogs”

In this photo, left to right. Bottom left: Thalia on electric guitar, Amy on acoustic guitar, Emily beside her, Josephine on bass in the striped top, I think that’s Lisa in front of her with Gail Ann Dorsey on acoustic guitar. Missing: I’d usually be farther left beside Thalia, but everyone didn’t play on every song. Jane was usually on the keys far right. Kate is on drums but you can’t really see her. Lourdes played acoustic guitar and hand drums up near Kate.

We did a few days of rehearsal at SIR in NYC before we hit the road. I’d just done a 2 Foot Flame tour in New Zealand and Australia on which I played electric guitar on every song (as the only guitar), so I was keen to play guitar. I think they thought they were getting a spoken word artist.

Tobi Vail on Twitter

I’m not sure what Tobi (Bikini Kill drummer) accidentally excluded us from, but here’s her follow-up tweet.

YouTube link:

Kathleen Hanna talking about Mecca Normal

NPR Music asked the question: Who taught you that music could be a vehicle for social change?

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“Mecca Normal … made me feel like I could make political music without compromising writing great songs,” Kathleen Hanna says. The feminist punk icon, known for playing in the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, says she first encountered the Canadian duo — made up of Jean Smith and David Lester — in the late 1980s, when she was running a gallery with some friends. Mecca Normal played there as part of its Black Wedge tour, for which Hanna still has the flier; it promises “five political dynamos, hardcore poems, wild vocals, shredding guitars, radical voices crushing militarism, smashing sexism.”

Hanna says that, at the time, she was used to seeing bands whose songs were about how “their girlfriends were jerks and didn’t do everything that they wanted” — but hearing Mecca Normal address real, serious issues in its music was inspiring. Hanna was just starting to make her own music at the time and knew she wanted her songs to confront sexism, but felt unsure of herself. Seeing Mecca Normal, she says, “gave me confidence that I was on the right road.”

“When I heard Jean get up there, totally unapologetic,” she says, “and I knew that they set up this amazing tour that was based around the combination of music and politics, I felt like: I can do this.”

CLASSIC 11 X 14″ $800 USD

The Classic $800 USD are for people who can’t wait  for a $100 USD painting and for those who want some choice.

“The Hat #199” (12 x 12” acrylic on canvas panel) $800 USD plus shipping

“On Stage #15” (12 x 12” acrylic on canvas panel) $800 USD plus shipping

“The Bath #10” (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) $800 USD plus shipping

Classic 11 X 14″ $800 USD

The Classic 11 x 14″ (daily painting size) $800 USD are for people who can’t wait  for a $100 USD painting and for those who want some choice. More here and on FaceBook.

set of 5 Classic 11 x 14″ $4000

meccanormal@hotmail.com

$800 USD plus shipping

“The Hat #194″ (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas) $800 USD plus shipping

“No Hat #1331” (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) $800 USD plus shipping

“The Hat #188” (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) $800 USD plus shipping

“Headphones #73” (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas panel) $800 USD plus shipping