Cold Lunch Recordings is many things; it’s a record label, a show promoter, festival organizer and non-profit relief refund. They’ve put out releases from Sad Baxter, Heaven Honey, TTotals, Fever Blush, Hari, Bleary, Nosediver and loads more in just the past few years. Those releases are fueled by undertakings such as Spewfest, Brown Bag Fest, Halloweird, Under the Sun Fest, Bob Fest and countless individual shows that the hard working trio books and exhaustively promotes.
In short, it’s a well-oiled machine that leverages income from live events to put out new music into the world; all while keeping a mindful eye on donating proceeds back into the community through their Heartstrings organization. Unfortunately, that machine comes to a grinding halt when you remove live events from the equation; a situation that the Cold Lunch Crew has found themselves facing because of COVID-19 precautions.
In order to keep their operation going, they’ve sold off some of their equipment and reduced their debts as much as possible. Unfortunately, those efforts have proven to be insufficient to actually have enough funds to continue actively putting music out into the world. With that in mind, they’ve turned to the community and started a GoFundMe campaign to help them restart their operations in this new era.
At publishing time, they’ve already raised $3,600 of their $7,500 goal. This means that they’ll survive to see the light of day next year but need to raise a minimum of $5,000 to actually start releasing new music. If they hit the top tier goal of $7,500, they’ll be able to release new music and press a sampler of their favorite local and regional bands.
It’s clear that many operations are hurting right now. Independent venues are struggling to find lifelines, restaurants and bars are in a similar boat and thousands of musicians are out of pocket for any sort of touring income. The Cold Lunch Crew is mindful of this and only asks that you donate if you can afford to, there’s no guilt being applied here.
Cold Lunch has always been a WOTT favorite and done an impeccable job of stretching themselves as thin as possible to support the local scene. There’s no doubt that they’ve got a backlog of amazing music ready to deliver to the world if they can reach their goals. Hopefully they can get there with our support.