Emily's Sassy Lime

Emily's Sassy Lime (a palindrome) was an all-Asian American teenage riot grrrl trio from Southern California, formed in 1993 by Wendy and Amy Yao, and Emily Ryan. According to Experience Music Project, they formed after sneaking 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] 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.[2] 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." 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. They broke up in 1997, not long after they graduated from high school and attended separate colleges. 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,[4] and in 2003, Emily Ryan starred in one of Jon Moritsugu's critically acclaimed[5] no budget guerrilla underground punk films called Scumrock. Amy Yao has been involved over the years with several different bands, frequently collaborating with Tobi Vail, co-founded China Art Objects Galleries,[6] and completed her MFA in sculpture at the Yale School of Art. Wendy Yao currently owns and runs a shop and DIY indie-punk artist space in Los Angeles's downtown Chinatown neighborhood called Ooga Booga.[7] The Yao sisters later played in a band with Layla Gibbon of Skinned Teen named Shady Ladies.