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.
Sometimes the creative process bursts into new territory, beyond the patterns we’ve built to make the ride more comfortable. This would be the case for both this week’s Mecca Normal song and David’s drawing, which appears to be an evil character releasing helium-filled balloons while staring us dead in the eye! The audacity!
“Only Heat” was me on guitar listening to David’s guitar track through headphones, while a highly sensitive Boeing microphone picked up creaking floors and street noise that we couldn’t even hear in the studio. In the final mix, we removed David’s track to achieve this strange, pulsating contraption speared with only the pointiest pieces of guitar tempered with something about slender leaves moving in the heat.
“Only Heat” from Sitting On Snaps (Matador, 1995) (download):