Normal History Vol. 35: The Art Of David Lester

Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 25-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.

David’s illustration is about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio — just down the road from Dayton, where Swearing At Motorists played a song-by-song run-through of Number 7 Uptown last night with original drummer Don Thrasher. dave doughman is back in the USA for one show only.

We met dave in Toronto, in 2001. He was Unwound’s excellent live sound man. Mecca Normal was joining the tour to open shows from there to Atlanta. This was a few days before 9/11 — we lost our Boston and Manhattan shows, but play on 9/13 in Hoboken, at Maxwell’s, where Unwound’s music is profoundly soothing. dave starts doing Mecca Normal’s sound too, because he likes us. He wants us to sound good.

In Philly, Mecca Normal stays the night at the huge space dave shares with his drummer Joseph. dave puts on a Swearing at Motorists CD, the incredible Number 7 Uptown. I love this album — the sound of it, the sound dave gets — and I know I want to work with him in some way. Mecca Normal leaves the tour in Atlanta, driving north to Toronto to fly home to Vancouver.

dave and I hatch a plan to record at Unwound’s studio outside Olympia. I rent a car and drive four hours south to hear what our voices will sound like together. At Farm No Heat I am given a room with a mattress on the floor, a room where they put all the stuff they took out of the basement — piled it in, worse than random. Going to sleep is a matter of putting on a jacket, hat and gloves, to lie in my sleeping bag, waiting for warmth. Come on warmth. Just enough to fall asleep.

dave sleeps in the living room, where tomatoes are ripening on a blue tarp over the bright green shag carpet. On day two, dave makes a geometric shape with the ripe tomatoes, to see if anyone notices. No one does, because none of the residents stay at Farm No Heat. They have gone to their girlfriends’ places in town where there is heat.

Tally of furniture in the living room — three big couches, two matching chairs, and an oddly stylized painting of Muhammad Ali. One of the chickens in the yard is called Cassius Clay.

In the basement, the recording studio control room eventually gets warm. We stay in there, inventing guitar tracks, passing my 1960-something Martin 0-18 between us, over-dubbing vocals, deciding to call our duo Transmarquee because we’d both owned 1980-something Grand Marquees as touring vehicles.

On day three, Justin, Vern and Brandt of Unwound come to see how we’re doing. Vern asks about the white powder laid out in the control room. It’s baby powder. I use it on my hands, for playing guitar. OK, so I made it look like a bunch of coke. Hey, I’m straight edge, man — gotta get my thrills somehow.

dave comes to Vancouver to record and produce the next Mecca Normal album — The Family Swan — the songs he mixed night after night on tour. Who better to record them? dave gets great guitar sounds and we love working with him. Finishing the album in three days, dave gets on a bus to the airport — LA, Dayton, everywhere — touring until we meet in San Francisco where Mecca Normal finally sees Swearing At Motorists play at the Bottom of the Hill. dave’s great warmth is matched by giant leaps in the air that look as necessary as barré chords, crucial to guitar playing.

Out of all this action and chaos, two gestures stick in my mind, describing dave. 1.) Standing outside at Farm No Heat, waiting for Unwound to do something in the studio, waiting to get back in there, dave’s cell phone rings. He puts a finger in his ear. It isn’t a good connection. A friend asks dave how to do something, how to set something up to record. dave is incredibly helpful and patient, giving her information and encouragement. 2.) After losing the show in Boston, Mecca Normal didn’t have a place to stay. dave hands me his Red Roof Inn guide from the window of their van. 9/11 crisis all around us, it’s more than a list of motels; he is extending the universal map of help.

“Give me ten minutes and we’ll be friends.” — Hex or No Hex, Transmarquee

“I have a plan. I’ll draw a map when I get to where I’ve been. For now, I’m not lost — I just don’t know what things mean.” — Don’t Be Another Double String of Fake Pearls, Transmarquee

I pick the place for the date: a radical bookstore to which Zack, a 47-year-old English student, has never been, even though it’s only two blocks from where he lives on the downtown eastside.

Question and answer, we tell our life stories over dinner at a pizza place and go for a walk on the pier where cruise ships dock and American tourists meander.

Zack’s a party guy. A skier. A waiter. His favorite place to work was a Greek restaurant where the staff was encouraged to drink—half price—upon arriving for work. The coke dealer showed up, and the day began.

He owned three Chevy Impalas in a row. A self-described waiter/ski bum until he was 39, when his parents died. He didn’t handle it very well. He didn’t handle death very well. He took a room in the creepiest of the crappy skid-row hotels and lost his belongings when he couldn’t pay the rent. He claims he moved down there because that’s where the services are. “You got your rehab, your detox and counseling. You got your 12-step and your food bank.”

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?

Standing on the pier half-watching the sun go down, a cloud of mist is giving great definition to the trees, which should have been flat and invisible. I am thinking of saying something about how the mist is making things clear, but I decide to keep that thought to myself.

I feel I am with a boy, a very young boy—he’s only been away from home 27 years, he’s only had 27 summers and 27 winters of partying and skiing. I guess that’s why he hasn’t got anything together yet. I don’t think he realizes it, but his life has gotten away from him.

After quitting school in grade 11, he bought a van so he could go on ski trips to Whistler. He didn’t leave home until he was 22.

I ask about his plans. He might like to go backpacking in Europe—skiing in Switzerland, but not while he’s still a student. I cannot make him a 47-year-old man. He remains a boy: tall, skinny, boyish features with a faded, worried look.

Fallen skier, waiter, party guy slips into an anxious silence. I feel the urge to ask, “What’s wrong?” Oh god! Let me not start with that! We may have run out of things to say. I told my Readers Digest version of my life story over dinner. He gave no indication of being attracted to me—no compliments, no lingering looks across the table intending to reveal interest. We didn’t talk about relationships or dating expectations. It was like being stuck with a visiting friend of a friend getting rooked into going out to dinner. Our conversation was only kind of OK.

Near the end, out on the pier, after the sun has gone down, he asks me about this music of mine. “Is it ever all-out punk?”

He seems concerned that it might be hardcore punk. I stand, a small middle-aged woman in a fantastically subtle silk jacket all the way from Japan. Hush Puppies. Long brown hair blowing in the wind, and this guy is fretting over the possibility that I’m actually Henry Rollins. I try to explain punk, myself, but fail at making an impact here. He never did ask the name of my band. Never tried to touch me.

I ask what sort of music he listens to. He says his taste is eclectic. My least favorite answer to a question meant to increase understanding. Eclectic in this case means that music isn’t really important to him. He says his taste varies and he’s never been into the live-music scene. After eclectic comes techno. I’m still trying to make him 47—he’s stuck in my mind as a boy. A boy who might backpack around Europe once he finishes school.

Carefully, I ask if he does anything you might call creative—perhaps he finds creative expression making an espresso, a cappuccino. I don’t know. He thinks a minute and says, “I don’t play music or paint, if that’s what you mean, but I do watch TV.”

Free cable in his creepy-freaky hotel room.

“And,” he adds. “I like to go to the movies.”

I can only half-think about being so grey and dispassionate to call watching TV and going to the movies creative. I guess, to him, art is a hobby, and his hobby is being entertained.

The sun is down, and I blurt out, “I have to get back to the other side of town. I get up early to write.”

He walks me to my bus stop. He seems sad again. I ask if I can give him a hug, I mean a hug good-bye. We hug, and he cheers up. He decides to wait with me for the bus. By the time I get home, he’s emailed to ask me out again. I should have skipped the hug. I go to bed rather than hit reply.

One reply on “Normal History Vol. 35: The Art Of David Lester”