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.

Pamela Make Waves – live 1994

August 19, 1994
San Francisco
Thirsty Swede

Back when we were headliners and clubs regularly sold out. People in the audience actually call out our names at various points between songs. Pretty sure I can hear Kenny Mellman (The Julie Ruin) out there!

Not great sound, but it’s got other attributes.

“Pamela Makes Waves” features me on guitar including my (TM) yarding on the headstock instead of using a whammy bar. I kept the neck loose to enable a wider range of notes in the yarding.

I also play it on my back — in a dress! I broke a neck once in Pomona. Probably during the bashing it on the stage part of the program. I remember KSPC Nathan driving me somewhere to buy another neck.

Playing with my feet worked fairly well. At one point I carved tread into the bottom of otherwise smooth, right Hush Puppy so I could pick the strings. Leaving the left shoe smooth for sliding on the neck.

After the guitar finally cans out, I go in for a few strums on Dave’s guitar.

During that era, I had a buncha spare parts and tools on tour including a soldering iron.

The guy sitting on the side of the stage had his mouth closed for the previous songs.

Video: Jabberjaw LA mid 90s

Montreal, 1996

Peter Jefferies, Jean Smith, Patti Schmidt (host of CBC Radio’s seminal music program Brave New Waves) and David Lester.

This must have been 1996, when we were in Montreal for the show that’s being released as a live album in the Brave New Waves series. Mecca Normal with Peter Jefferies on drums.

Oh, this is also 2 Foot Flame, who will also have a live album in the same series. Dave played guitar with us on that tour.

 

 

 

 

Live album out March 22, 2019

Mecca Normal live in Montreal (1996) album (LP, CD, extra tracks on BandCamp) will be released in early 2019.

2017: Dave found the tape last week and we took it into a studio yesterday to listen to it. Finally, a live album from that era, and it sounds incredible. Until now, not releasing a mid-90s Mecca Normal performance has been one of my biggest regrets.

LP tracks

1. Water Cuts My Hands
2. Prize Arm
3. Don’t Shoot
4. Tower Island
5. Revival of Cruelty
6. The Dogs
7. Drive At / Peach-a-Vanilla
8. Ribbon
9. Man Thinks Woman / Strong White Male / I Walk Alone
10. Armchairs Fit through Doorways
11. Are You Hungry Joe?

Rough mix

 

The Black Wedge 1986 & 87

West coast line-up, 1986

Canadian tour, 1987

David Lester’s Super 8 footage of a stop along the way in the middle of Canada in a Mecca Normal music video.

Video: Held

Jean Smith vocals. David Lester guitar at Chicago’s Lounge Ax in the mid-1990s. “Held” is from “Dovetail” (K Records, 1992).

Held

You’d be surprised alright
where you could be held
there
pinned in an updraft
back against the clouds

Holding sirens’ rage
on a tangle pain
you didn’t know was there
you didn’t know it was there

Gridwork set up for your wing on rise
to place
where you will be held
back against the light

Hammer on, hammer on
towards never getting back
never getting back
hammer on
hammer on

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music That I Like – Everett True

Song of the day (the old and the new) – 11. Little Mix and Mecca Normal

“I love the passion, the intent of Mecca Normal. The searing literacy. The relentless beauty. The admittance that most all relationships are always power struggles, especially when you least expect it. Crudely, three of my favourite artists remind me of Mecca Normal (not the other way round). That’s a recommendation in itself. The dialogue present in every Mecca Normal song I have heard is worth experiencing again and again. It does not infantilise the listener, much as the listener may want to be infantalised. It does not cause the listener to cast aside the class struggle that is central to day-to-day life, whether individuals are aware of it or not.” – Evertt True

 

Beaten Down LIVE

It might just be that the guitar is too loud because of the proximity of the amp to the camera, but, over the years, I think more than a few soundguys have made a point of turning down my vocals because they don’t like how I sound and what I’m saying.

Dave and I recently spoke about the idea of bolstering live vocal recordings after the fact. Just as an idea. Might be something I will try with this video.

 

 

 

Opening for The Julie Ruin

Just as we were about to start the show in Portland, David said he didn’t see Pat Maley in the audience. I spotted him front and center and handed him Dave’s Sony (consumer) video camera as one does when in such situations. No advance warning or anything civilized like asking with a “please” attached to it. Doh. I haven’t seen Pat for a couple of years. He smiled and took the camera. What a guy! Next time I looked at him he was shooting with the Sony on one eye and an iPhone on the other, like some kind of weird binoculars. I had to look away. It was kind of comical, but mostly just slightly disturbing.

It’s a bit clunky for the transition from Sony to iPhone at 4:09 , but it looks and sounds great after that!

 New and unrecorded songs are marked *

* 1. Anguish/Misogyny 2:45
* 2. Invisible Girl 8:24
3. Attraction is Ephemeral 12:07
4. Strong White Male 20:29
* 5. I Am Here 23:47
6. Throw Silver 27:23
7. I Walk Alone 30:35
8. Beaten Down 34:17
* 9. The Ferry to the Launch 38:19

VIDEO: four individual songs

Kenny Mellman and Kathleen Hanna talking about Mecca Normal between songs in Portland at the Wonder Ballroom, October 9, 2016. Thanks to Pat Maley for capturing this! After Kenny says Mecca Normal is his favorite band, Kathleen tells the audience to but my paintings! She also does a brief imitation of me working at Home Depot! I was standing at the back of the venue feeling like this was part of a dream!

The Jean Smith painting Kenny Mellman bought. “No Hat #46 (11 x 14” acrylic on canvas). $100 paintings currently available.

Mecca Normal (Jean Smith and David Lester) opening for The Julie Ruin at the Showbox in Seattle , October, 2016. Video by Connie Ostrowski

Vancouver

Mecca Normal and Kathleen Hanna at soundcheck in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver. Photo by Erik Iversen Photography

David Lester of Mecca Normal pre-show in Seattle at the Showbox. Photo by Jean Smith

Portland. Photo by Mary Sharp

Portland. Photo by Mary Sharp

Portland. Photo by Mary Sharp

Portland

The crowd (approx. 700 – 800?) from the balcony in Portland, waiting for The Julie Ruin to take the stage at the Wonder Ballroom.

I was spontaneously gifted with a necklace by the mother of one of the two girls on the right after I signed their copy of Mecca Normal’s 7″ 1990-something EP Paris in April (K Records). Later, when I thought about the lyrics, I was happy they ended up with that one. The song is about a young woman who doesn’t want to be conventional; she wants to see travel, to see Europe in springtime.

Photos with fans!! Always a thrill! It was fun to get Pat Maley to sign the back of Calico Kills the Cat (K Records, 1989) since he recorded it! I think it’s the one we recorded in a (renovated) chicken coop in Olympia.

Portland Motel 6