#mecca normal

- 1991 -

The Bags: “Survive” (1978)

The Bags emerged among the O.G. wave of ’77 punk in Los Angeles; they're proof that women built its slashing sounds. Fronted by Alice Bag—who was born Alicia Armendariz into a traditional Mexican household in East L.A.—and bassist Patricia Morrison, the band only ripped through one single, “Survive,” during their lifetime, but it contained considerable power and cemented their legacy. (That’s Alice Bag in the definitive punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization alongside Germs, Fear, X, and Black Flag.)

“Survive” was resilient, hardboiled, and utterly cool. Its noirish finger snaps and jazzy drum fills evoked a detective's theme song with its magnifying glass pressed up against the entire world. Its titular sentiment cut to the most irreducible truth of all this: That feminist art can save you. —Jenn Pelly

Crass: “Walls (Fun in the Oven)” (1979)

In their seven years together, the British anarcho-punk collective Crass sang about several conflicting ideologies, from militaristic fascism to vegetarian pacifism. However, while their messages were mixed, the band remained staunch in their allegiance towards feminism. “Walls (Fun in the Oven),” off 1979’s Stations of the Crass, was a sing-song mantra of feminine autonomy.

Singer Joy De Vivre’s hypnotic delivery—claustrophobic, falsetto yet monotone—was as hollow as the reproductive course she described. “Desire, deny, deny, desire/Have a child to justify/Images that you apply/I won't bow my head in shame,” she chanted, sounding dispassionate to the point of lobotomization. “Walls (Fun in the Oven)” was a strict refusal to accept the familiar path of matrimony and the nuclear family: “I won’t play the game…without your walls, I am alive.” –Quinn Moreland

Bush Tetras: “Too Many Creeps” (1980)

Gestated in dark clubs and cramped DIY spaces, New York’s no wave movement wasn’t just an oddball response to the macho energy of the previous decade’s punk scene. It marked a palpable shift in rock circles in the city and beyond, and became a hotbed for the musical expression of feminist ideals. Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch are frequently credited with pushing its postmodernism into the spotlight, but due is also owed to Bush Tetras, the freak-funk outfit formed by guitarist Pat Place (a founding member of the no wave icons the Contortions).

Neo Boys: “Rich Man’s Dream” (1980)

Neo Boys were young and frighteningly smart when they began rising through Portland’s early punk scene in the late 1970s, when singer Kim Kincaid was just 14. Their oblique yet succinct lyrics expertly captured the hypocrisies of Reagan-era cultural politics; “Rich Man’s Dream,” from their self-titled 7”, poked and prodded the listener, asking questions that actually merited reflection. “Will you stand when they come for the rich man?” Kincaid slurred over chiming guitar and restless yet focused percussion. “Are you an answer to the rich man’s prayers?”

“Rich Man’s Dream,” released on Greg Sage of Wipers’ Trap Records, best defined Neo Boys’ particular charisma. These four young women made music that seemed to veer toward unhinged, but really followed deliberate patterns; their instrumentation was expansive and preternaturally balanced, each part pushing and pulling without drowning out another. Well ahead of their time, Neo Boys started a map they were never supposed to draw. K Records’ Calvin Johnson cites them as a key inspiration. –Jes Skolnik

White Lung: “I Believe You” (2014)

According to the Department of Justice, two-thirds of sexual assault cases go unreported, and for every 1,000 incidents of rape, only 13 cases will ever be prosecuted. And in those few instances, it’s often not the actions of the perpetrator that are put on trial, but the victim’s credibility: What was she wearing? How much did she drink? Why didn’t she just run away? Why didn’t she call the cops right after? Why did she maintain a relationship with the accused? What’s her motive?

International Pop Underground Convention Various Artists 1992, K Records

My entrée to basically every art scene I’ve ever been involved in was basically just going to whatever extremely DIY festival that scene threw in my city and hoping. You see what seems like an unfathomable number of artists good and terrible (and very occasionally great), hit most of the venues, bars, and spaces worth knowing about, and sometimes even strike up some conversations with people who eventually become your friends. 1991’s International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia, organized by Candice Pedersen and Calvin Johnson of K Records, was the indie model for these fests as I’ve known them, and so it’s as directly responsible for a lot of the good stuff in my life as any musical event I can think of. Everything I’ve heard about it sounds like absolute paradise—the platonic ideal of all the times I’ve picked through mountains of sick screenprinted t-shirts by bands I’ve never heard of, eaten some weird and great food by a tattooed baker, and then ridden my bike on shrooms to catch bits of four shows on the same night, all on a dime.

The lineup on this double-live compilation is all over the place musically, but it does a beautiful job of summarizing the thing indie/alternative music of the era shared despite its sonic diversity: a sense that the music you liked and what it represented could be a space of legitimate opposition to corporatism; that there was something worthwhile in wearing that belief on your sleeveless t-shirt; that the notion of “selling out” had some real conceptual worth; that we’re in this thing together. So, the International Pop Underground Convention LP serves up first-wave riot grrl (Mecca Normal, Bratmobile); DC post-hardcore (Nation of Ulysses, Fugazi); twee indie pop (Beat Happening; Spinanes); noise rock (Melvins; Unwound); grunge-y stuff, primitive singer-songwriter folk, surf rock, plunderphonic DJ sets, and more and more besides, all recorded live and kinda badly but “real.” As individual performances, few are essential, but collectively they are a powerful document of the alternative scene as it existed in the moment right before Nevermind changed everything.

I always think about how crazy it must be for someone like Nikki McClure, an Olympia visual artist who designed a bunch of early K Records sleeves and released a handful of EPs on the label, to have a performance preserved on the same disc as all these icons. On the one hand, it's not like she sits around in awe of like Beat Happening in the same way a fan would—they were friends and part of the same community, and probably still are to this day. But on the other hand, I’m sure when she comes across a copy of this LP there’s sometimes a dazed moment when it seems like that young Nikki singing her funny little a cappella song must be someone else entirely, the record itself an object manifested from a dream. But the International Pop Underground Conventional was real, and in its way, it carries on to this day.

1/9/20.

I associate the label Tenth Court with The Wireheads.  I guess I need to amend that to include Ostraaly (Melbourne, Australia). 

Ostraaly combines literally everything I like about music.  The instrumentation is country/rock.  The vocals...?  Hard to pinpoint.  Mecca Normal, Francisca Griffin Judy Dyble, La Dee Da, and Eleanor Friedberger (The Fiery Furnaces) come immediately to mind. 

“Given the infinitely limited tools that Canuck duo Mecca Normal work with (Jean Smith’s voice and David Lester’s electric guitar) it’s a testament to their faculty to keep Mecca Normal invigorating after numerous releases.” 

MECCA NORMAL review by TOM SCHARPLING, Editor

EIGHTEEN WEELER #4 (page 35) 1991

REBECCA ODES reviewed the same MECCA NORMAL record on page 95 of FORCED EXPOSURE #17 in 1991 and wrote,  “Remember - Jean Smith doesn’t want to come to your house and cut off your dick, she just wants to let you know what life can be like without one.”