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 32-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
Dave and I were in our green room in Portland before the show. Kathleen came in and told us that she personally dealt with my vocal-mic issue during our set the night before at the Showbox in Seattle. The fact that it was cutting out was annoying, especially in a song like “Attraction Is Ephemeral,” which has a lot of words. I dealt with it by gripping the mic farther down where the cable meets the hardware, but it was uncomfortable and really distracting to have to think about while singing. I had no idea she’d gone over to the board and asked them if they were going to fix it. I was shocked! No wonder the sound tech guy arrived so fast and replaced the mic and cable so quickly!!
But before that bit of conversation, when Kathleen walked in I said, “You were totally lit in Seattle!” and without missing a beat, she pointed at me and said, “You were totally lit!!”
This was my inaugural use of the word “lit” so I was very happy with the occasion and the results. A high school teacher from Puyallup had taught me a few bits of current teen lingo the night before.
“Naked And Ticklish” from the album Empathy For The Evil (M’Lady’s, 2014) (download):
