Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 31-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
David and I needed to write a scary song for the Halloween 2009 edition of Fuse at the Vancouver Art Gallery. While it was a thrill to play at the art gallery, I was happy when the song evolved into site-specific performances relating to incidents of cops shooting civilians in a couple of the cities we were playing on tour in 2011.
“Shot By A Cop In Seattle” (March 23, 2011) refers to the shooting of a Native carver wearing earbuds while crossing the road with a knife. The dash-cam footage shows the entire thing.
“Shot By A Cop In Montreal“(June 11, 2011) refers to the shootings of a mentally unstable, homeless man using a knife to rip open bags of garbage on the street and a bystander. CBC news story.
“Only Heat” from the album Sitting On Snaps (Matador, 1995) (download):
