Unwound and Mecca Normal cover Sex Pistols “Bodies” in Atlanta, 2001.
Mecca Normal
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Category Archives: covers
cover: Family Swan
Califone covered Family Swan in 2021.
reviewed by JASMINE ALBERTSON, KEXP, 2021
On the whole, Califone and Mecca Normal could not be more disparate. The Chicago-born former dabbles in roots-rock with enough experimental electronic flourishes to keep them just outside the fringes of mainstream indie. Led by Tim Rutili in the wake of his prior band Red Red Meat, the band has an expansive catalog dating back to 1998, with their latest, Echo Mine, released in early 2020. Albums like 2006’s Roots & Crowns and 2009’s All My Friends Are Funeral Singers have made them critical darlings and Rutili a sought-after collaborator.
Vancouver’s Mecca Normal, on the other hand, have a bit of a love/hate with critics. Their sparse instrumentation consisting of just guitar and sing-speak vocals plus Jean Smith’s humorous and yet pointedly feministic lyrics make them a tough pill to swallow for those who prefer more conventional song structures. And yet, their influence is undeniable, with both Kathleen Hanna and Calvin Johnson citing the band as an inspirational source.
The song “Family Swan” is the quasi-title track from Mecca Normal’s 2002 record on Kill Rock Stars. At eight minutes and twenty-four seconds and with no chorus to be found, the song takes patience but rewards in spades. Through it, Smith paints a story from adolescence through middle age of a complicated mother/daughter relationship compounded by a vocally abusive father through the analogy of swans mating for life.
Califone’s take on “Family Swan” is a shimmering guitar-strummer that keeps true to Mecca Normal by cutting out a full drum set, but that’s about where the similarities end. With a softly twinkling shaker keeping beat, Rutili cuts the song down by about 25 seconds by breezing through Smith’s block text stream-of-consciousness lyrics in a warbly croon. In the hands of Rutili, “Family Swan” is given more color without replacing the emotional punch of the original. Rutili had this to say about the cover:
“I first saw Mecca Normal with the Go Team and Some Velvet Sidewalk in Chicago many years ago. I had my little mind blown and spent all the money I had on 7inch records at the merch table.
That show was one of those experiences that changed the way I looked at music and everything – It was microscopic, personal and massive all at the same time.
There is truth and heart, existential frustration and self-acceptance in this music that made me feel like I wasn’t so alone in the world.
It made me want to move to the Northwest. I still want to move to the Northwest… Maybe someday.
Anyway… This song is a classic movie that is beautiful, sad, funny and bleak all at the same time.
This song is a really good book that breaks your heart with unwanted truth, but you can’t stop reading it and you can’t help but see the good and horrible sides of yourself and everyone you know and love in the world it creates.
This song is undeniable humanness. Thank you Mecca Normal. Happy Birthday KRS.”
Kill Rock Stars founder Slim Moon also shares his thoughts:
“Mecca Normal are important for multiple reasons. One is where they fit in the struggle for change. Another is that they show us the way to be committed to art and politics as a lifelong devotion. And especially they should be held as the shining example of how expansive a statement a minimalist approach can yield. Never has a band done so much with so little, artistically. Tim seems to get all of this and he also has emerged as a master of less-is-more, craftily done. He is perfect as a student of MN and this cover is perfect.”
INDIGO GIRLS / SUFFRAGETTE SESSIONS TOUR
Hey, I’m in this movie about The Indigo Girls! Perhaps I only utter a few words (on the tour bus, evidently) but I had to sign off on it.
SUNDANCE 2023 world premier – “It’s Only Life After All” 40 years of home movies, raw film archive, and intimate present-day vérité.
How’d I get on their tour bus? Well… in 1998, I went on tour with them, not as a separate “act”, but as part of an experiment 
called the Suffragette Sessions Tour. We played about 12 dates in large venues. Some very large… like arenas.
It’s the only touring I’ve done by proper tour bus. It left me feeling utterly gleeful that Mecca Normal has toured almost exclusively by car. We take so many side trips, stop at restaurants, go to museums etc.
The participants included Gail Ann Dorsey (bass for David Bowie), Lisa Germano, Lourdes Pérez, Kate Schellenbach (Luscious Jackson, the Beastie Boys), Jane Siberry, Jean Smith, Josephine Wiggs (the Breeders) and Thalia Zedek (Come).
Amy Ray / Indigo Girls: “The Suffragette Sessions Tour is a socialist experiment in rock and roll. Gather a bunch of musicians from different musical genres who are relatively unfamiliar with each other…throw them on a tour bus together…drop them off at a rock club, and see what happens. No hierarchy, no boundaries.”
The YouTube poster calls me guesting on one of Emily’s songs a highlight of the show! Wow! Oh, actually, I just sing parts of Mecca Normal songs in the middle of her song. The nerve!
“Soon be to Nothing” / “Her Ambition” “The Dogs”
I opened the show with “Everwilling” in Minneapolis at the First Ave (1550 capacity). I’m very sure this is not what these Indigo Girls fans came to see. Oh well. Nice reaction from the audience though. Part of this must be as the others came on stage. Likely Thalia backing me up, although I was playing guitar on this tour, so maybe the accents are mine.
“Everwilling” is a 2 Foot Flame song from our second album “Ultra Drowning” (1997, Matador)
We did a few days of rehearsal at SIR in NYC before we hit the road. I’d just done a 2 Foot Flame tour in New Zealand and Australia on which I played electric guitar on every song (as the only guitar), so I was keen to play guitar. I think the Indigo Girls thought they were getting a spoken word artist.
Cover: Strong White Male
Late last year I got a FaceBook notification that someone had mentioned Mecca Normal. It was very early in the morning, and when I clicked on the link, I really did have a sense that I was still in dreamland. The video snippet (Instagram) showed London band Best Praxis rehearsing Strong White Male “a cover by the amazing Mecca Normal” for a fundraising show two days hence. The band description: “non-binary and female people of colour taking up space. We make DIY punk music.”
Very timely with the Man Thinks Woman / Strong White Male / I Walk Alone medley on Mecca Normal’s new album: Live in Montreal, 1996!
Best Praxis rehearsing Strong White Male before the show (below)
The show!
Mecca Normal opening for The Julie Ruin in Portland, 2016
Mecca Normal 