Mecca Normal

Mecca Normal (Jean Smith, David Lester) started in 1984 with the express purpose of changing the world.

Mecca Normal is known as a fore-runner and inspiration to the riot grrrl movement in the 90s. As part of the regional D-I-Y scene at that time, Mecca Normal co-founded the Black Wedge – anti-authoritarian poets and minimalist musicians "setting wild hearts free, spreading the damn difficult word of how to combine poetry with activist resistance culture". At the Black Wedge show in Olympia (1986) Jean and Calvin Johnson met and traded LPs – Mecca Normal's first album (later to be re-issued on K) for the first Beat Happening record.

Mecca Normal has released thirteen albums on assorted labels including Matador and K.