Emily's Sassy Lime | |
---|---|
Origin | Calabasas, Pasadena, Irvine, California, United States |
Genres | Garage punk • riot grrrl • noise rock • indie rock |
Years active | 1993–1997 |
Labels | Kill Rock Stars |
Members | Wendy Yao Emily Ryan Amy Yao |
Website | MySpace profile |
Emily's Sassy Lime (a palindrome) was an American punk rock group from Southern California. The group was formed in 1993 by three Asian American teenagers: sisters Wendy Yao and Amy Yao, and their friend Emily Ryan.
Emily's Sassy Lime formed in 1993 after the teen girls sneaked out of their homes one night to see a Bikini Kill and Bratmobile show, striking up a correspondence with Molly Neuman, the drummer of the latter band. [1] [2] As first generation Asian American girls in a punk band, they faced contradictions in expectations. [3] They did not live very close to each other and did not own cars, so they often had to write their songs over the phone, sometimes leaving seminal ideas for tunes, jingles, and melodies on each other's answering machines. [4] When they finally did have a chance to record, they did so on a 'singalodeon', a cheap off-the-shelf lo-fi tape recorder. They barely ever practiced (often forbidden from doing so by their parents who considered their studies a bigger priority), making their sound a random, spontaneous indie garage punk-noise collage of "Whatever, just play." [3] They didn't have their own instruments for years, so with every show they played, they had to borrow someone else's in the DIY punk spirit of sharing, often swapping with each other carelessly and making every show sound totally different. [3]
In 1995, they all appeared as dancers in the Kathi Wilcox-directed "Mad Doctor" video for The PeeChees. Emily's Sassy Lime broke up in 1997, not long after they graduated from high school and attended separate colleges. Amy Yao went to Art Center College of Design, Wendy Yao headed off to Stanford University, and Emily Ryan attended University of Southern California. [3] The group are often considered an essential early riot grrrl band. [2] [5]
In 2000, they all participated in the very first Ladyfest in Olympia, the Yao sisters collaborating with Sharon Cheslow in the experimental sound installation performance art project of Coterie Exchange, during an art exhibit curated by Audrey Marrs. [6] In 2003, Emily Ryan starred in one of Jon Moritsugu's critically acclaimed no budget guerrilla underground punk films called Scumrock. [7] Amy Yao has been involved over the years with several different bands, frequently collaborating with Tobi Vail, co-founded China Art Objects Galleries, [8] and completed her MFA in sculpture at the Yale School of Art. Wendy Yao owned and ran a shop and DIY indie-punk artist space in Los Angeles's downtown Chinatown neighborhood called Ooga Booga for 15 years. [9] [10] The Yao sisters later played in a band with Layla Gibbon of Skinned Teen named Shady Ladies.
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in February 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally known for its commitment to underground punk rock bands and the Olympia area music scene.
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group originally consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail.
Queercore is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically society's disapproval of the LGBT community. Queercore expresses itself in a DIY style through magazines, music, writing and film.
Kathleen Hanna is an American singer, musician and pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer. In the early-to-mid-1990s, she was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill, and then fronted the electronic rock band Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2010, she has recorded as The Julie Ruin.
Tobi Celeste Vail is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zine Jigsaw. A drummer, guitarist and singer, she was a founding member of the band Bikini Kill. Vail has collaborated in several other bands figuring in the Olympia music scene. Vail writes for eMusic.
The port city of Olympia, Washington, has been a center of post-hardcore, anti-folk, and other youth-oriented musical genres since the late 1970s. Before this period, Olympia's The Fleetwoods had several Billboard chart successes between 1959 and 1963. Olympia saw a rise in feminism in the music industry, where artists commonly addressed rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism, and female empowerment in their songs. It was a center for the riot grrrl movement of the early 1990s, which featured Bikini Kill and Bratmobile.
Heavens to Betsy was an American punk band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1991 with vocalist and guitarist Corin Tucker and drummer Tracy Sawyer. The duo were part of the DIY riot grrrl, punk rock underground, and were Tucker's first band before she co-formed Sleater-Kinney.
Ladyfest is a community-based, not-for-profit global music and arts festival for feminist and women artists. Individual Ladyfests differ, but usually feature a combination of bands, musical groups, performance artists, authors, spoken word and visual artists, films, lectures, art exhibitions and workshops; it is organized by volunteers.
Jon Moritsugu is an American cult-underground filmmaker and musician. His movies are satiric, protopunk deconstructions of popular genres and formats with scabrous and pointedly garish results. The New York Times describes them as "funny, anarchic, provocative and exhilarating". Influenced by the nihilism of Jean-Luc Godard and Guy Debord, Moritsugu's films are often defined by their "lo-fi" aesthetic and were initially shot on 16mm film for a gritty, visceral quality. He states that he often "pay(s) less attention to narrative flow and storyline and put(s) more emphasis on sight, sound and spectacle" to create a movie that is "like a live punk/hardcore show." The works themselves are often absurdist comedies that feature actress, co-writer, stylist, and wife, Amy Davis. Perhaps best known for his cult film Mod Fuck Explosion, Moritsugu's films have been screened at Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Rotterdam, Venice, USA Film Festival, New York Underground, Chicago Underground, MoMA, Guggenheim, Whitney and numerous other festivals and museums. In 2001 he received the Moving Image award from Creative Capital.
Excuse 17 was a punk rock band from Olympia, Washington, US, that performed and recorded from 1993 to 1995. The band consisted of Becca Albee, Carrie Brownstein, and Curtis James (drums). The band recorded two full-length albums and a single, and contributed to several compilation albums.
Allison Wolfe is a Los Angeles–based singer, songwriter, writer, and podcaster. As a founding member and lead singer of the punk rock band Bratmobile, she became one of the leading voices of the riot grrl movement.
Slant 6 was an American punk rock trio based in Washington, D.C. affiliated with early riot grrrl.
Sharon Ann Cheslow is an American musician, composer, artist, writer, photographer, educator, and archivist. In 1981, she formed Chalk Circle, Washington, D.C.'s first all-female punk band. She has since become an accomplished artist who works between different mediums, mostly sound-based.
Skinned Teen was a riot grrrl band from London, England, active in the early 1990s. They have been cited as an inspiration by Beth Ditto, Kathleen Hanna, Gina Birch and Josephine Olausson of Love Is All.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington, and the greater Pacific Northwest, and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. A subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics, it is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less commonly for women.
Linus was an indie band from London, England, formed in 1992. They were integral to the early UK riot grrrl scene and considered an essential early riot grrl band.
Women have made significant contributions to punk rock music and its subculture since its inception in the 1970s. In contrast to the rock music and heavy metal scenes of the 1970s, which were dominated by men, the anarchic, counter-cultural mindset of the punk scene in mid-and-late 1970s encouraged women to participate. This participation played a role in the historical development of punk music, especially in the US and UK at that time, and continues to influence and enable future generations. Women have participated in the punk scene as lead singers, instrumentalists, as all-female bands, zine contributors and fashion designers.
Amy Yao is a musician, curator, and contemporary visual artist making work in many different mediums informed by ideas of waste, consumption, and identity. She is represented by 47 Canal in New York City. Yao is a lecturer in visual arts at Princeton University in New Jersey. Her sister Wendy Yao was proprietor of Ooga Booga art boutique and bookstore in Los Angeles.
Wendy Yao is an American musician and curator.