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.
First: I’m 100% sure Dave only meant for the word “key” to have a single meaning, so I was going to suggest he maybe make the “y” a bit less like a “g” until I realized that progressive social change, in my opinion, is also related to alcohol consumption.
Unintentional nuances and a total lack of control over what people take away from art (including music) are subjects we’ve talked about over the years, and then there’s the wilful recycling of work that may or may not bring work into or out of focus.
“When You Build A House Without Doors” from The Eagle And The Poodle (Matador, 1996) (download):
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.
Rigid Man In An Ice Age
From a sun-bleached chair
with missing rungs
on a porch of weathered boards
a book is dropped on its broken spine
rigid man walks inside
The pages arch up turning
paper’s torn and grey
and he still doesn’t know what it means
and he still doesn’t know what it means
He lives in strange desolation
stopped by a thought caught in time
he’s decided the book has the answer
its extraction is long overdue
He’ll return to the porch
and sit down in his chair
and start again with obsession
fingers smooth-tipped from ritual turning
fingers smooth-tipped from ritual turning
every day he thinks about stopping
humiliated by a failure to learn
the method outlasting the tool
“Rigid Man In An Ice Age”” from The Eagle And The Poodle (Matador, 1996) (download):
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.
The Revival Of Cruelty
Half hostage
half victim
blackmail shifts around
there is a closing up
and drawing in
Spectacle is the reward
in a catalytic cycle
the universe behaves
a crowd chants out at ringside
calling out for the revival of cruelty
calling out for more
When a direction is taken
it starts justifying itself
beginning by imposing a dismissal
on all that’s unexplored
all that’s unexplored
Direction becomes a window
in the semi-dark of night
we are peering in
or we are gazing out
We are peering in
or we are gazing out
we are gazing
we are gazing
out
and the crowd calls out for more
calling
calling for the revival of cruelty
the revival of cruelty
“The Revival Of Cruelty” from The Eagle And The Poodle (Matador, 1996) (download):
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.
There’s something about these two songs together. “Her Ambition” and a song by Spider And The Webs called “Leaving Lawrence (To His Waves)” about feminist Sheila Rowbotham, who, as Tobi Vail sings, had a surfer boyfriend “she left behind to start the women’s liberation movement.”
I first heard it when Tobi dedicated it to me at a show in Portland. It’s kind of like where “Her Ambition” was going, but I neglected to give my character the exit door. Perhaps she found it on her own. Let’s say she did.
Her Ambition
She used to work days at the counter
he sunken cheeks
paint flecks on his clothes
rubbed the dust from his hair
and went down to meet her
together they drove home
Her ambition faded
Her ambition slipped away
After that she used to work part time in an office
he built things that other people wanted
he couldn’t keep them for himself
he paid exactly half their bills
She began to move like him
and picked up all his habits
He developed a fondness for rare wood from mainland China
any extra time he had he spent sharpening his tools
Her ambition faded
Her ambition slipped away
She can’t stop the dullness
something slowly rotting in her box of souvenirs
she finds a token of her ambition
and rolls it in her hands
she rolls it in her hands
and like her plans like her desire—it disappears
it disappears
Her ambition faded
Her ambition slipped away
“Her Ambition” from The Eagle And The Poodle (Matador, 1996) (download):
Lauren Housley has had a passion for singing and songwriting since she was just 14. In the past two years, the U.K.-based “Americana” artist has released two albums and is getting ready to issue a new EP. But for right now, there’s great new single “My Sleeping Heart,” a song inspired by a trip to Nashville last year. Collaborating with Thomas Dibb, Housley wrote the track after meeting and talking to a broken-hearted man in a bar while in Music City for the Americana Music Festival. Stream and/or download “My Sleeping Heart” now.
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.
Listening to this, transcribing the lyrics (for a book of all my lyrics), I’m in awe of Peter Jefferies’ drums and David Lester’s guitar.
The song is about community borne out of necessity, working together unexpectedly on projects of great magnitude and staggering importance. Individuals organizing themselves, like ants in convoluted mazes, breathing in the dark. A unified force against tyranny.
I sometimes wish I hadn’t opted for ambiguity at the height of our powers, but …. one thing about a poetic sensibility is that it makes it easy to re-frame the meaning at a later date. Like today for instance.
The song even references “listening to another world’s future” in which we say as loud and clear as ever: Unity Defeats Tyrants
Breathing In The Dark
Have you ever tried to dig straight through
to the other side of the world
lost before I knew it
passing the ones who stopped at the oddest times
others stopped halfway
Listening to another world’s future
breathing in the dark
Who is behind you
on the way?
Who is behind you
on the way?
Translators aren’t sure they understand this language
listening to another world’s future
breathing in the dark
Who is behind you
on the way?
Breathing in the dark
“Breathing In The Dark” from The Eagle And The Poodle (Matador, 1996) (download):
“Hey!”—Summer Magic’s new single—will have you imagining yourself driving down a coastal highway in California, feeling the, well, summer magic. The St. Louis-based “band” is basically Kevin Bachmann (Lapush, Troubadour Dali, Jon Hardy & The Public), who worked on his debut album with David Beeman (Pokey Lafarge, Tristen) and David Vandervelde (Father John Misty). Sharks And Other Dangers isn’t out until August 31, but you can get a sneak peak of it by listening to opener “Hey!” now.
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.
Gravity Believes
The crows are flying back from the sun
like an answer
stated every day
I’m not sure if it’s an answer
to a question or a problem
The directions are half-written disappointments
again
Some things can be left without solution
The sun smells sweet without emotion
The slow days will take us together
I’ll pay you what I want to owe
I expect you to give me what I want
Sick of land faith on mile
Sick of gravity’s sheen
Sunday at noon believing we can’t fly
Sheer pink in a thousand summer’s eyes grey edges
Some things can be left without solution
without solution
“Gravity Believes” from Sitting On Snaps (Matador, 1995) (download):
The Black Watch just released Witches! (Atom), its 16th album, produced by Scott Campbell (Stevie Nicks, Shelby Lynne, Acetone). Clearly, the band has already released a ton of music over the past 21 years, but John Andrew Fredrick, the Blacks Watch’s frontman and only constant member, says he just “cannot stop making things.” And as longtime fans, we’re certainly not complaining! Stream and/or download the LP’s first single, “Georgette, Georgette,” right here, right now.
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.
“Cyclone” was written on the spot in a studio in Germany after the utterly fantastic Fast Forward Festival in Holland in 1994. I definitely recall feeling on the spot, which is not usually the case when I write lyrics while tape is rolling, but here, I remember feeling like I was falling short while I was singing “This is the day,” and now years later, I’d like to acknowledge that any time a song of mine has the word “day” in it is a sign of struggling with lyrics. At least I resisted adding “say” and “way” … Cripes, we even have a song called “Days” … God only knows what that’s about.
Yet, this is a fine enough song without me fulfilling the urge to whip it into a full-frenzied anthem about the plight of the world. It’s a buncha people in the studio fumbling through the infrastructure of the thing that we all love, aiming for a brilliant song that didn’t materialize, but could have. Always worth the risk.
“Cyclone” from Sitting On Snaps (Matador, 1995) (download):
