IRONICALLY, it is often the music industry where unsung heroes are born. A generation of voices are lost in the abyss, drowned out by pressures of commercialism atop of the shifting sands of vogue.

More often than not, those voices are of women – women who shattered boundaries, defied expectations and paved the way for others to follow in their footsteps.

Their struggles, and their sacrifices, may be relegated to the realm of mere trivia, but recognition their impact on the direction of the music industry should never be allowed to die out.

Over the last 50-60 years or so, Scottish all-female bands laid siege to the music industry, re-shaping it in their own image and forging new opportunities for female artists to emerge.

This month, a group of filmmakers are campaigning to ensure their efforts are immortalised for decades to come.

They tracked down some iconic names – including Strawberry Switchblade, The McKinleys, The Twinsets, The Ettes, Lungleg, Sophisticated Boom Boom, His Latest Flame, The Hedrons, TeenCanteen and KT Tunstall – to capture their stories. The result is the feature documentary Since Yesterday.

At the forefront of the project is Carla J Easton, Blair Young and Miranda Stern: A dedicated team who have spent years putting the work together.

Easton, a member of TeenCanteen and SAY Award nominee, continues to write and release music today. Young, who founded the production company The Forest of Black, is a documentary filmmaker who was captivated by the struggles faced by women in the music industry. Stern is a producer and filmmaker, known for her work with the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5, who has researched the project tirelessly.

Together they shot Since Yesterday to ensure that women – especially those of all-female bands – were not written out of Scotland's music history.

Key themes of the documentary is not only to highlight the talented artists of previous generations and their influence on the industry, but also the discrimination and, in some cases, abuse they received simply due to their gender.

Challenging those notions is a battle that continues to rage across the country today.

Easton tells The Weekender: "I've always hated the questions 'what's it like to be in an all girl band?' 'are all your songs about women's issues'. I've hated turning up for shows and sound engineers scanning the room asking 'where are the band, are they here yet?' when you are standing in front of them with all your instruments. Or being told how to set up drum kits, amps, plug in DIs – it's assumed you don't know, even though you've been doing it for so long it's second nature.

"I quickly noticed TeenCanteen would be the only 'all girl band' on line-ups. In February 2020, I attended a gig to see a band where a lot of 'industry' people were in attendance and someone asked me what had happened to TeenCanteen. I said we were all pursuing individual projects and Debs had wanted a break to start a family. 'That's the problem with all girl-bands', a high up industry person said to me. In 2020. I've spoken to women from bands as far back as the sixties and heard stories throughout the decades relating to this. I couldn't believe it was still being said to me in 2020."

Easton continues: "I don't have all the answers but I have a tonne of questions and I think those are important questions we should be asking: why do we not have an equivalent of The Beatles or The Who or, to go more recently Coldplay, that are female? That are worldwide selling, stadium filling with long careers and multi-platinum-record sales? In pop it succeeds – Spice Girls, Little Mix, Destiny's Child – and certainly seems to work for solo pop singers – Madonna, Lady Gaga, Arianna Grande, Taylor Swift – but why not a collective group of musicians who are female and play instruments?

"When I started making music and performing in bands it was brilliant. And it still is. I'm part of a very supportive community (both when I lived in Edinburgh and now living in Glasgow). I think local scenes are supportive and nurturing but there is a failure somewhere along the line for when it goes beyond local.

"My perspective on the treatment of women in the music industry is varied. It's a loaded and complex question. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not. What I can say is that no matter what I've come up against I've continued to be creative.

"I think, for myself – and the people we've interviewed – we all start out as musicians and bands and then end up adopting the terms 'female musician and girl band' because those are the terms used to describe us. The industry seems to need to attach how we identify as a means to market us."

In recent years, there has been a greater appreciation for the hurdles face in the music industry – but it is by no means a thing of the past. Progress may be slowly integrating, but there is arguably still a long way to equality.

Filmmaker Young wants men to play their role but is working to amplify female voices through Since Yesterday.

In shooting, however, the extent of the problem became all too clear for him.

He said: "From my male perspective, there's two things I want to say. On a personal level, I think only women can really appreciate just how bad it is.

"I think it's hard enough for anyone to be an artist or in a band, fighting a tide of difficulties that means it can all fall apart for you at any point. But then women also have to deal with this infinite list of sexist behaviour on top of it, from the perpetual threat of assault, to long-standing social conditioning in society, attitudes and projections about how women want to make music and why they want to do it. Especially as a band.

"Men should be trying to understand just how bad it can be, really absorbing it, and really believing it.

"The second thing, for me, is how horrible it is to hear that most women have had bad experience in one form or another – not a minority. That started to come through in early interviews, then the Me Too movement happened and underlined it.

"We weren't even really trying to focus on it in interviews, but it's just so omni-present that it invariably comes in to the conversation. It becomes apparent it's a huge part of the barrier that women bands face in getting anywhere, which is one of the themes of the documentary.

"In a way it's not surprising at all, women have been saying all of it for years."

Since Yesterday is in the very late stages of production. The interviews have been shot and the stories recorded.

But the filmmakers felt a duty to spread the message as far and as wide as they could and also to make sure viewers could be drawn into the world's these woman had lived in. For that, they need archive material... Lots of archive material.

Young adds: "Documentaries take forever to make – five to ten years seems the norm. One of the things that hold it back is finance, which in the business world, of course, is always going to correlate to how much money can be made back at the end.

Another part of this equation is how expensive it is to buy in archive. So, whilst we were up for making a film that could creatively work around not needing archive at all, I think it would feel odd without it – it's always going to help illustrate the story, help paint portraits.

"So the kickstarter was really about plugging the gap for stuff we can't afford out of our own pocket, and also can't just get on with doing anyway, with our own resources. We've now had some support from Screen Scotland for research and development, which in turn helps attract more investment for production (the actual shooting and editing of the film). Organisations like Screen Scotland weigh in on projects which they see are strong, or culturally significant, but the truth is making even a low-budget film is expensive, and I think, rightly, only so much money can go in to a film's production from organisations like that.

"Then archive sits in this expensive little island of its own, disproportionately high rates for footage use. It's not uncommon for the bill to be over £100,000 for this type of documentary. I don't think we have any interest in making a film that has to pay that out. But we do want to get the key stuff that really shows to audiences how great these bands were – beyond the music; as artists, as performers, as icons and role models.

"And yes, definitely, the better the product, the wider an audience it can reach. It doesn't need to be shiny and glossy, but it can transcend its natural audience of music fans if you can make something that is great visual storytelling too.

"There's no point in it being a film if it doesn't tell the story in a different, more visual way than a radio programme could, or a book."

The team's ambitions were clear – Since Yesterday must be given every chance of success. They turned to the public in the hopes of bridging the gap between what they could afford themselves and what they needed to land the archive material that would propel the work to a higher level. They knew there was an appetite for such a documentary but the response was overwhelming.

An initial £10,000 target was blown to pieces in just 36 hours. Their ambitions would be realised. Since Yesterday would come to life in a big way.

They have since set some "stretch targets" which will include much more archive material, as well as a few more songs, which in turn would help the artists. A further goal of hiring an animator is also on the horizon – should the crowdfunder hit the £30,000 mark before Wednesday, June 16.

As well as financial backing, the film has attracted swathes of goodwill across social media. The outpouring only served to underline the importance of the project.

Young recalls: "It seems like such a cliché but we've been totally surprised, moved and blown away by the support. I thought we would hit the target, but I thought it would take a month of pushing. The first two days...I'm not sure any of us got any work done, it felt like being in a state of suspended animation as this thing – this unbelievable thing – unfolded.

"So, yeah, I must say I felt some validation, feeling the public really believe in this documentary which I've believed in for five years. I went from thinking: 'I think this can be a really good doc, and I want to help present these artists to the world' to also feeling 'now we have an audience that believe in us, I can't wait to make something that blows them away'."

Easton adds: "It's been wonderful! It's so great for all the bands and that's 100 per cent the focus. It's brilliant that the Kickstarter model has demonstrated that these stories, the music and the women behind it all – people want to know more about it and celebrate it.

She continues: I'd love this documentary to reach as wide an audience as possible. I wish a documentary had existed like this when I was an awkward teenager. I'd maybe have started a band sooner than I did! I think people are going to love the bands, the stories and the music. Exciting and inspirational. Uncovering hidden gems. I keep telling everyone it's the best compilation album they could want to have."

To support the ongoing crowdfunder, visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/sinceyesterday/since-yesterday-music-documentary