A Hot Pot of Joy
There’s a long sitting tradition in the regions of China and East Asia called ‘hot pot’. A communal experience which often happens around times of special celebrations, family gatherings, large groups, in winter or just cold weather. A simmering pot of seasoned broth is placed at the centre of the table, placed on the side there can be an infinite amount of prepared raw ingredients, all of which can be cooked in the bubbling flavours by the surrounding friends. Sharing joy, smiles, warmth, full stomachs and most importantly time, with loved ones, or new folk who will become loved ones.
This event is also the perfect description of the relatively new band Chinese American Bear. Currently based in Seattle, but as in the greatest of folk, hailing from, or ingredients from all over the world, and in this particular situation, their name places this front and centre.
Comprised of wife and husband team Anne Tong and Bryce Barsten, Anne was born in Beijing, but moved to the US as a kid, where a few years down the line she would meet her husband to be, in high school through a mutual friend and their drummer Bryan Coats. Bryce has been a multi-instrumentalist musician/producer since a young age, while Anne grew up playing classical piano and of course an innate interest in her multicultural background, warmly embracing the Mandarin language and influences of Chinese popular culture. The hot pot was clearly being set up for many years prior.
Adding some ‘spice’ to the mix was a certain global pandemic that saw Bryce leaving New York with the desire to start working on a playful idea of mixing Anne’s broad spectrum of talents and background to create bilingual, universal pop songs, influenced by Chinese culture, K-pop and basically any kind of music that has ever brought a warm smile to your face. This giddy sense of play became their self titled and self (bedroom) produced debut in 2022.
All the key ingredients, seasoning, languages and flavours were self evident in Chinese American Bear, giving a wonderful taster to what was to come, but it is in their new album WAH!!! (2024) that the appetiser became the sonic equivalent of a dancing Michelin star mascot gourmet joy.
Hot!!!
Within seconds of the first track Kids Go Down CAB are sporting all their pins of influence with absolute pride, front and centre. Singing in Mandarin, the sound of hand claps, killer Nile Rodgers/Chicesque wah-wah bass riff, swagger, and unbridled and utterly contagious joy. This is only the start of the smiles and full spectrum of influence that is to come. Anne sings about the kids going down ‘on the merry-go-round’, but we are the kids, always will be, and we are willingly jumping on board.
Like the best of comedy, effectiveness and simplicity are incredibly deceptive. It takes a huge amount of skill to make someone smile, laugh and instil pure joy, or write an instant pop classic. It’s the filtering out of distracting noise, ultimately having great taste and influence, only using the best ingredients, sourced from the best suppliers. The pop merchants in the case of CAB come from an all you can eat rich kaleidoscopic buffet including Yo Gabba Gabba, The Monkees, Chic, B-52’s, Abba, Bowie, Bee Gees, The Flaming Lips, 60s French cinema, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, shoegaze, Sopia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides/Lost in Translation soundtracks amongst a vast amount of other colours, sounds, and most definitely from cultural icon and ‘Eternal Queen of Asian Pop’ Teresa Teng, who sold over 48 million albums over her career, recording at least 1,700 tracks in eight different languages. All resulting in a giddy popping candy recipe mix, and deftly cooking a glorious feast of sound.
With a can do, will play aesthetic, born from necessity, situation, and an actual ability to create their dreams, it is this sense of childish freedom, that is immediately endearing, but also universal. The somewhat innocent subject matter of the tracks is also steered by linguistic restriction, in that Anne’s Mandarin vocabulary might not be as big as she would like, but this only adds a very welcome purity, and again, instant global appeal by having to focus on everyday moments, with a common simple language. Meaning while the sounds can drift off into psychedelic existential space exploration, the bilingual words will not only keep one foot firmly grounded, but busily tapping and dancing away.
Tracks like Feelin’ Fuzzy, Yummy Yummy Yummy and Pink Strawberries clearly have a sugary pop about them, but again, some of the greatest pop songs ever, often had far deeper meanings. That’s not to say CAB isn’t being completely honest about the subject matter, they are, but you can hear decades of incredible song writing, whilst the entire life spam of pop music as a whole. It takes phenomenal skill to have this instant catchiness.
Wobbly space sounds, slinky toy vibe beats and French band Air gentle vocals are spread onto a delightful warm waffle of satisfaction that is Bear Day, seamlessly blending together like peanut butter and jelly. Where much like the sandwich, it’s over far too quickly, and you are instantly craving for more.
It has to be said that none of this is sickly sweet in any capacity. Again it is reflective of the quality of taste all involved have, the perfect smidgeon of influence, sprinkle of sugar to create salivation, a rush and a smile, but never saccharine nor artificial, this isn’t empty nutrient devoid candy floss, but deeply nutritious chef’s kiss pop. As catchy as the best ever ad jingles, but they aren’t trying to sell you anything at all, only wanting to bring a smile to your face and a skippy joy to your day. How could you not want Chinese American Bear in your life?
Pot!!!
After being introduced to and bingeing WAH!!! on endless rotation, we were somewhat excited to be seeing them live as part of their recent all too brief UK tour. The fact that the gig was happening in Jack White’s The Third Man record shop in Soho London only added to the excitement. The venue has just had its third birthday, but for no apparent reason, we had never ventured in, despite wandering by many’s a time, what a mistake that was.
Finally arriving and actually going in this time, the venue is phenomenally tiny, in the absolute greatest of ways possible. It feels like we’ve all been invited into a friend’s lounge at home, but smaller. By the time the band come on, it’s ‘packed’ with maybe 20 fans. This only adds to the excitement for all, including the band, and Bryce’s parents who we’ve just been talking to about all things music, and llama farming (which they did for years, and their farm can be seen in the Kids Go Down video).
After briefly meeting Bryce where it was instantly apparent none of this is an ‘act’, but an utterly sincere musical adventure, where their only manifesto is to bring genuine joy to all, inviting us kids to literally go down to see CAD do their thing.
From the very first key I was instantly blown away, in that moment, and for the entire set. Firstly the sound system in the venue is one of the best I’ve ever heard in London, or anywhere for that fact. No doubt due to the speakers taking up enormous space in an ultra tiny room, but all credit to the sound desk and Jack White, I immediately decided I will be coming back for many more sessions here.
CAB sounded in every single capacity, from Anne’s beautiful, joyous vocals and radiant warm personality, to Bryce’s guitar and Bryan’s drumming, basically life affirming.
As mentioned, their songs are instantly catchy, dancey, and even if you’ve never heard them before, you can immediately learn the lyrics (and handy Chinese phrases) to become part of this celebration. And that is what it is, a sonic oasis of unmitigated joy, transporting you on a magical mystery tour of colour, wonder, universal smiles and with the absolute necessity to dance, which is no mean feat considering the space, or lack of in the room.
The production on the album is already fantastic, but the band sound euphoric on The Third Man system, it’s like Dorothy seeing colour for the first time in The Wizard of Oz. My jaw was dropping, then instantly singing along.
It did actually feel like Anne, Bryce and Bryan had invited us all round to theirs, the ultimate hosts, Anne deftly chatting and engaging with the guests, making sure everyone was having a good time, teaching us some Mandarin, telling us very funny stories, and even throwing out toy dumpling figures, playful irreverent tokens to remember the night by.
Not that anyone had to be won over with gifts, the mutual love and appreciation was happening way before the first note was played.
All the tracks sounded stunning, bursting with vibrant energy that only enhanced basically everything. The addition of a cover of a Teresa Teng track only added to montage of global celebration, the quirky idiosyncratic sense of play that unifies the band, and directly leads to an incredibly cathartic experience.
We’ve always known music had this capacity, and it’s why Flush embraces and covers it so much, but you are not always guaranteed the magic will happen on the night. Chinese American Bear clearly are oblivious to this, or don’t care, as they are far too busy making sure you are having the best time ever, because spreading joy to others, is a sure fire way to experiencing it yourself.
CAB are heading off to tour China for the first time (further details at the end), like the country itself, we have zero doubt the band will be huge, it’s also the case that the world needs people like this, showing and celebrating that we share far more with each other, than media would have us think. See them live as soon as you possibly can.
Joy!!!
In celebration of WAH!!!! and the Chinese lucky number 8, Flush caught up with Chinese American Bear with a few questions.
1. The Chinese American part of the band’s name is self evident in the multicultural heritage, but where does Bear come from?
Anne: Bryce and I met in high school and very early on “Bear” became a cute pet name for each other. It’s stuck ever since so it felt appropriate.
2. You guys met in high school and ultimately got married before forming a band, what was the first song at your wedding, and why that particular song?
Anne: We walked down the aisle to Big Thief’s “Mary”. Beautiful song!
Bryce: And our first dance song was “Lua” by Bright Eyes. We both loved Bright Eyes in high school when we first met so it felt appropriate to dance to one of their songs.
3. The bilingual approach to your lyrics are both very playful, joyous and universal. Irish rappers Kneecap also share a similar celebration and promotion of their heritage, Irish language and the importance of acknowledging it. There’s an ever growing appreciation of embracing rich backgrounds to cultivate a more celebratory unified future, recognising how we all have more in common than not. What has the response been to CAB’s playful remix of language, broad influence of sounds and hopefully encouraging learning a new language.
Anne: The reception has been extremely positive! For non-Chinese speakers, it’s fun for them to listen to Chinese indie music and novel for them to attend a Chinese-speaking concert. For folks with a Chinese cultural background, it’s really meaningful for them to see Chinese represented at a western rock concert. Both Korean (K-pop, K-drama) and Japanese (anime, manga, Pokémon) culture have had a lot of influences in the west but there hasn’t been a lot of Chinese culture in western media. We’re starting to see it in film but not so much in music so it’s really special for our Chinese fans to hear Chinese indie rock music.
Bryce: Yeah, it’s been really special to see. It’s been interesting to hear all of these meaningful reasons come about, because we weren’t thinking about any of that when we started. We didn’t have any specific intentions. Fans coming up to us after shows and saying “It’s so special to have this music out there because of x, y, and z.” We didn’t really anticipate any of the cultural impacts it might have, and this has made the band even more meaningful for us.
4. The subject matter in the tracks are refreshingly grounded, celebrating the everyday simple moments, play, smiles and joy. A highly infectious sound that can be embraced by anyone. A very welcome antidote to turbulent times. Was there a theme or objective guiding the tracks on the album?
Anne: We didn’t think too hard or deep when we started this music project and wrote this album! Our relationship has always had a playful and silly nature so when we write music together, we approached it with our playful style. My Chinese vocabulary is also more limited so I can only write lyrics about everyday topics. I don’t have the proficiency to write about deep meaningful life philosophies.
5. The new album is called WAH!!! which is Chinese for WOW!!!. Who created the wonderful kaleidoscopic artwork for the album, and what’s the origin of it? And the delightful merchandise, which I hope will be expanding.
Bryce: The album art was a bit of a fun collaboration. Long story short – We worked with Qian Hui, this amazing artist from the UK who has this really light and fun illustrative style. We worked with her on a piece that was an illustrated version of the two of us, with strawberries, dumplings, boba tea, and other cute things floating around us. She’s brilliant with colours, and we loved what she made. But in a very “CAB” fashion, we wanted to muck it up a bit! I create a lot of our visuals and music videos myself, and use a lot of kaleidoscope effects. So I experimented putting her art under kaleidoscope effects. I made about 30 versions, and the final version is the one we chose. We were a little nervous at first because you know, we had messed with her art. But she was so nice about it, and into the collaborative effort, which we appreciated. As for the merch, our friends James Kwan & Emily Poulis designed the T-shirt/Sweater/Slide design. James is a dear friend of mine from art school, and his work is incredible. He’s a children’s book author and illustrator, so it felt fitting to have him work on something for our very kid friendly band.
6. You have an inspiring joyful punk DIY aesthetic to your recording and visuals. Who/what are key influences in both the wonderful sound production, and the ‘look’ of CAB?
Bryce: Sound-wise, it’s a huge mishmash of music I listened to through my 20’s. I try and not take too much from anyone these days because I think I’m finally coming into my own voice and feeling really excited about it. This band makes me feel fearless, and excited to experiment, which is a feeling I’ve never had. But to name some names, the Pond/GUM/Tame Impala ecosystem is very inspiring. Pond in particular, and Jay Watson’s productions are really inspiring to me. The Flaming Lips experimental attitude is inspiring. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards approach to making copious amounts of music is inspiring. The Beatles for their song writing and production (bless George Martin), ABBA for their melodies, Bee Gee’s for production, and The B’52’s/Plastic Mode/Monkees for their silliness. And Khruangbin for the wigs.
Anne: I’ve always been really into the 60’s Jackie O style. So leaning into that!
7. The band is primarily the married couple Anne & Bryce. Who else will be on tour with the band? I’ve seen dancing dumplings during previous live performances.
Bryce: Li Chen is our amazing dancing dumpling. She’s played a handful of out of town shows but we are still a little band with little money, so she mostly performs with us in Seattle. For drums, we’ve been rotating between our childhood best friend Bryan Coats, and Rex Liu, a drummer friend we’ve made in Seattle who we also love. For our current Fall/Winter tours, we’ve actually been inviting random fans to come onto stage and wear our cute dumpling mask. It’s been so fun and people are into it!
Anne: Bryce’s parents are also tagging along for the UK leg of our tour. They’re the best groupies! His mom is our merch lady and his dad is our cameraman/roadie haha.
8. What has the live response been like so far, and have there been any differences depending on region? You will be touring China soon, where I’m sure the response will be extremely positive.
Anne: The response has been amazing. It’s been so fun meeting fans from all over. I’ve had multiple people say to me afterwards that our “Take me to Beijing” song made them cry, especially if they’re from China and they haven’t been home in many years. We’re super excited to see what the reception will be like in the UK and in China especially! I write from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant growing up in the west. I’m curious if that will resonate with native Chinese people.
Bryce: We didn’t really know what to expect, and even though we’re playing in small clubs, there are real fans coming out. People who know the lyrics, have merch, love the record. It’s really inspiring and makes us hungry to make more music. I’ve honestly felt more thankful than anything. We’re just about to wrap up the UK tour and head to China.
WAH!!! is out now via Moshi Moshi. More information can be found at chineseamericanbear.com