CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Bear Hands

American post-punk and indie rock band

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2025
Entity authorityQ15052989
Source-derived summary

Bear Hands is an American post-punk and indie rock band, consisting of Dylan Rau (vocals and guitar), Val Loper (bass), and TJ Orscher (drums). Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, United States, and formed in 2006, with Ted Feldman (guitar) the band signed with Cantora Records in 2010 upon the release of its single "What a Drag".

After releasing their debut LP Burning Bush Supper Club in 2010, Bear Hands toured as the opening act for Passion Pit, GZA, and We Were Promised Jetpacks. Their single "Giants" became a top-ten hit on the Alternative Songs chart in mid-2014.

History

Dylan Rau met Ted Feldman while the two attended Wesleyan University, and were later joined by Loper and Orscher through their previous band (In Pieces), who were involved in the local Connecticut ska & hardcore punk scene.

During an interview at SXSW 2010, Orscher was quoted saying "Dylan had some material he wanted to put with a band, and a project Val and I were working on for the last half decade just ended. He said he knew the perfect guitarist and when we met up and played for the first time, as cliche as it may be, everything just clicked. We started writing material together, fleshing songs out and started playing some local shows around NYC."

A few months after forming, the band released their first EP, Golden, and became a "New York buzz band" due to popular blog features. Three years later, the group released their 11-track album, Burning Bush Supper Club.

In 2019 they released the single "Blue Lips".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bear Hands” is american post-punk and indie rock band. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bear, Hands and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006, 2010, 2014, 2019—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2006. For this dossier, Bear, Hands and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american post-punk and indie rock band” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15052989. VIAF identifies the subject as 311195749. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2019.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bear Hands”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bear Hands primary sources, Bear Hands archive and Bear research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bear Hands”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Bear Hands” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.