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 34-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
Even though I frequently encouraged women in the audience to start bands with their friends, we had no idea that an identifiable social movement of young women would rise up and connect us to their activities. That Mecca Normal was far enough along in its evolution to be releasing a compilation album of singles (Jarred Up, 1993), added to the fact that Dave and I were 34 and 33, respectively, by this point, it seemed like our trajectory had already transpired in terms of success—something I spoke to Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile, Sex Stains and the new podcast I’m In The Band) about way back in 2009, when riot grrrl seemed totally off the radar, in the distant past.
“From The Surface” from Jarred Up (K, 1993) (download):
