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 39-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
I shot this footage the day after our Turners Falls, Mass., show (2009) making us late for our RISD (Rhode Island School of Art and Design) classroom event. I was mortified. Totally my fault. Sorry, Dave! Sorry former RISD students who may have been otherwise otherly shaped as political artists!
We were nearing the end of a long tour (for us) 25 shows in 25 days to mark 25 years as Mecca Normal. As I’ve said many times, I do all the driving (including time management), while Dave does the navigating and lifting. Fortunately, we didn’t have too many terribly exciting times on the road, and being late was highly unusual. OK, so my excuses are now longer than my apology. We did the event at RISD. Maybe there would have been more people if we’d been on time.
“This Is Different” from Jarred Up (K, 1995) (download):
