performers:

Mecca Normal

I wasn’t expecting to be impacted by the economic downturn when I was laid off from my retail job at an eco-friendly clothing store. The company decided to close the much-loved, quaint, creaky-old-floorboard store to concentrate on their wholesale and online business. As an almost fifty-year-old (single, debt-free) musician, novelist and painter, I am perhaps better equipped to deal with variations on the theme of employment and income, better than people who felt they had security. Rather than look for a new part time job, I’m hitting the road with Mecca Normal to present “How Art & Music Can Change the World”—an art exhibit, lecture and performance event in university and high school classrooms, bookstores, art galleries and music venues.

Mecca Normal 25th Anniversary Tour

“Arguably the greatest rock band without a rhythm section ever, the duo of acid-voiced singer Jean Smith and guitar hero David Lester must be seen to be believed.”—Douglas Wolk

How Art & Music Can Change the World —Jean Smith and David Lester of the literary underground rock duo Mecca Normal intend to inspire audiences to consider adding political content to their creative self-expression, to fortify a new optimism that cultural activists can impact progressive social change.

“Who cares if there’s underground culture or not? Gap-Coke-Sony-Time-Warner satisfies our needs… don’t they?”

The focus of the art exhibit is David Lester’s Inspired Agitators Poster Series.

How Art & Music Can Change the World —9 minute film

Smarten UP! Records re-releases two Mecca Normal albums in iTunes—Who Shot Elvis? (Matador, 1997) and Sitting on Snaps (Matador, 1995).

Jean Smith is the author of two published novels and the recipient of two Canada Council for the Arts Awards as a professional writer of creative fiction. David Lester is a small press publisher of fiction and award-winning poetry and the author of The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism. Together, as the legendary rock duo Mecca Normal, they’ve released 13 CDs (Kill Rock Stars, K Records, Matador).

The Observer was our last CD (Kill Rock Stars, 2006). I made a video for our song Attraction is Ephemeral.

Attraction is Ephemeral (Kill Rock Stars, 2006). A self-portrait film by Jean Smith.

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thanks,
Jean Smith
Mecca Normal