MECCA NORMAL

FOR PRESS CONTACT: promo@krecs.com

Mecca Normal started in 1984 with the express purpose of changing the world. Writer Jean Smith turned her zine Smarten UP! – A How to Change the World Publication -- into a record label to release the first Mecca Normal LP in 1986.

"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 In April 2009, Mecca Normal celebrated its 25th anniversary with 25 shows in 25 days, including university and high school presentations of "How Art & Music Can Change the World" -- a lecture intending to inspire audiences to consider adding political content to their creative self-expression.

Mecca Normal is known as a fore-runner and inspiration to the riot grrrl movement in the 90s. As part of the regional D-I-Y scene at that time, Mecca Normal co-founded the Black Wedge -- anti-authoritarian poets and minimalist musicians "setting wild hearts free, spreading the damn difficult word of how to combine poetry with activist resistance culture". At the Black Wedge show in Olympia (1986) Jean and Calvin met and traded LPs – Mecca Normal's first album (later to be re-issued on K) for the first beat happening record.

In 2010 Smith and Lester launched The Black Dot Museum of Political Art with a four-person exhibit in Olympia. In the fall of 2010, K Records will release INTERNATIONAL POP UNDERGROUND CXXXII -- Malachi and Blue Sky & Branches. Check the website for lyrics and videos.

Guitar player David Lester is the author of "The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism" -- profit from sales have raised over $2000 for the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture. David is the publisher at Get To The Point Editions -- a small press publishing poetry, graphics and fiction by community activists. His ongoing series of Inspired Agitators posters are featured in both the lecture and the Black Dot Museum of Political Art.

Vocalist Jean Smith is a painter, filmmaker and the author of two published novels. She is the recipient of two Canada Council for the Arts Awards as a writer of creative fiction. She runs Smarten UP! Records, a D-I-Y label for poets and minimalist musicians.

Mecca Normal has released thirteen albums on Matador, Kill Rock Stars Records and K Records -- Calico Kills the Cat [KLP004], Dovetail [KLP014], Flood Plain [KLP022], Mecca Normal [KLP038], Jarred Up [KLP 18], Water Cuts My Hands.

K 7"s

Oh Yes You Can -- ep (IPU 4)
Cardboard Box House of Love (IPU 11)
This Is Different (IPU 28)
Rose (IPU 32)
Paris in April (IPU 68)

Artist's Website:http://mecca_normal.tripod.com/

K Discography

ipu068 1996-00-00	klp038 1995-00-00	klp022 1993-00-00	klp018 1993-00-00
ipu032 1992-00-00	klp014 1992-00-00	ipu028 1991-00-00	ipu011 1990-00-00
klp004 1988-00-00	ipu004 1987-00-00

Members of MECCA NORMAL also appears on these K Releases:
KLP055 KLP016 KLP014 KLP011