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 43-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
I’ve never really said this before, but while we had no specific ambition in terms of how to fit into any specific music scene when we started out, it isn’t always 100-percent excellent to be known as “an inspiration to the founders of riot grrrl.”
I had no idea I’d forever be summing up my life’s work in music in this way. Sure, it would have been great to be known more by our band name and for what we achieved on our own (as opposed to an inspiration to other people’s broader “success”), but I think the most useful thing is to accept that our individual acclaim is not as widely known in music, and to continue with the exact reason we started the band in the first place, which is to further the equality of women and address other social injustices in ways that both instigate change and/or inspire other artistic actions that consider the same ends: change itself and further inspiration of others.
inspiration + hope + action = change
Having said that, I could never have predicted the “success” we have had, the vitality of the communities we’ve engaged with, the inspiration we’ve taken from individuals we never would have known about, not to mention the friendships that survive long lapses in time and distance with almost no communication over many years.
Essentially, we got lucky to be regularly referred to as an inspiration. I’m very grateful for this. There’s every chance we would have met a worse fate without being included in this exact way. I feel heard, heeded, honored, included, valued and regarded in a historical sense. It doesn’t get any better than that. It likely increased our longevity by a huge amount.
“Will He Change?” from Calico Kills The Cat (K, 1988) (download):
