B-Sides: Jump-start Queer Record Label Punk Start My Heart!

Punk Start My Heart began as a punk booking agency run by Sheana Corbridge and Marlena Chavez dedicated to promoting musicians of color and queer artists for shows around Portland, Oregon. Inundated with requests from superb bands on the Internet, they came up with a DIY innovation: Not Enough!, a festival designed for queer artists to get together, collaborate, and come up with new art and music projects. Now they're taking things a step further and starting a record label for some of the acts they've booked and worked with in Not Enough!—some bands you've even heard on Bitchtapes and B-Sides past. To get their record label off the ground they've made a Kickstarter video (Flash video below, download video description in .doc form here):

"Wait—I don't live in Portland," you might be thinking. "I'm never going to see Not Enough! or any of these bands!" As someone who grew up in The Middle (of the USA, that is), I always felt like all the big stuff was always happening in cities far away and on a coast. But that's why I think it's all the more important for this feminist record label to exist. Recording the artists, pressing records, and formalizing marketing and distribution is a great way to put queer punk in the hands of people outside of Portland. As Jaimie Montoya and Jennifer Nigg of Fucking Lesbian Bitches say in the video, listening to queer bands growing up can mean everything when you're young and gay. (But for those of you queer artists who do live in the Pacific Northwest, you gotta check out Not Enough! which is happening this September.)

The awesome Homoground, the free, queer music audio program, put together a podcast featuring Punk Start My Heart artists you can listen to below (Flash player below, view track list here):

Anyway, you know the Kickstarter rules—if they don't meet their goal, they don't get the money! So check them out today! Plus, depending on what you donate, you get a tote bag, mixtape, and records! Total win situation. As Punk Start My Heart put it, when it comes to queer and feminist bands, there will never be enough!

Previously: Sacha Sacket, Björk’s Crystalline, Biophilia