Every week, 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 41-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.

Mecca Normal’s second tour was the Black Wedge, Vancouver to L.A. in 1986. We made Gary Floyd’s our HQ for part of the time in San Francisco, which meant the eight of us traipsing into his place to use the bathroom while he was on the phone or whatever, trying to ignore us, basically. But this is the story of Bob Dylan’s old pal Dave Whitaker, who took such a shine to us all that he came up to Vancouver quite soon after we got back to continue hanging out.

Let me rephrase that. The Black Wedge set out to inspire people, “to set some wild hearts free,” and Whitaker was inspired! We were exactly his cup of tea with beat-inspired poetry, music and politics rolling from town to town on an old bus.

“Ribbon” from Flood Plain (K, 1993) (download):