Every week, 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 37-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
The rock show, on the verge of spectacle, the audience intensity. Backstage the band waits. So much waiting. For a man to draw women musicians in the band room is political full stop. It doesn’t go unnoticed that the man is in the foreground, stretched out on the couch while the women are in the background, sharing the same amount of space. Women musicians occupying the mythological space defined by male antics. The image engenders a sense of bearing witness to past transgressions simply by being female musicians and not fans. Taking space in that very same room where men behaved in advance of and after their shows, their self-expression, their attention-seeking self-aggrandizement. Suck my left one indeed.
“Ancient Fire” from Calico Kills The Cat (K, 1988) (download):
