Queer Tales To Tell: Your Heart Breaks – “Late Nights In The Lab”

Your Heart Breaks

“Late Nights In The Lab”

Drone Butch Blues

I know we can all identify with song.  It is so hard to grow up queer in any society, but small towns are the rest.  This is also great music.  As the bio states:

 “A concept album centered on the writings of LGBTQI authors spanning history,  Your Heart Breaks explores an array of stories surrounding the queer community. These themes include but are not limited to forbidden love, historic events, the impact of AIDS, and rebellion interwoven with Petersen’s own chronicle.”

Drone Butch Blues is a queer concept album based on the writings of historic and contemporary GLBTQI authors. With a focus on stories surrounding queer community, Drone Butch Blues touches on topics of secret and forbidden love, sex with strangers, the lives of hustlers, the impact of AIDS on homosexuals, historic events and rebellion all interwoven with the personal narrative of Clyde Petersen. Striving to examine the contemporary gap between generations of queers and their elders, Petersen turns to written materials to find buried remnants of gay culture and creative vibrant humans, lost to the plague of AIDS. What emerges from this exploration is Drone Butch Blues, the 9th full-length album from a twenty-year career as Your Heart Breaks.

There is not only an ambitious project, but, as “Late Nights In The Lab” proves, it is also absolutely tremendous music.  I love the 80’s pop song off of this single, especially since that was the period in which I struggled my own sexually.  What a great coming-out song.  Below is a list of the artists involved in this brave project:

Led by transgender artist Clyde Petersen (guitar and vocals), Your Heart Breaks formed in Bellingham, Washington in 1999, Your Heart Breaks has toured the world for 20 years. Though the lineup varies from show to show, current contributors include Karl Blau (Guitar/Drums/Vocals), Lori Goldston (Cello) (Nirvana, Black Cat Orchestra), Kimya Dawson (Vocals) (Juno), Kyle Field (Guitar/Vocals) (Little Wings), Dylan Carlson (Guitar)(Earth) and Adrienne Davies (Percussion)(Earth) and a wealth of amazing Northwest musicians who drop in from time to time.