Joan Wasser

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Joan Wasser, playing at the Summer Sundae festival, Leicester, 2006
Joan Wasser, playing at the Summer Sundae festival, Leicester, 2006

Joan Wasser (born July 26, 1970, in Biddeford, Maine) is a violinist and singer/songwriter in the indie rock world. Her best known album is Real Life, released in 2006 with the band Joan As Police Woman. In addition to her stint with the Dambuilders, Wasser's resume includes live performances and studio work with Lou Reed, Tanya Donelly, Sheryl Crow, Dave Gahan, Elton John, the Scissor Sisters, Antony and the Johnsons, Joseph Arthur and Rufus Wainwright.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Wasser was raised in Norwalk, Connecticut, with a younger brother, Dan. She began piano lessons at age six, before starting her first violin lessons at age eight. Wasser played violin in school and community orchestras before leaving Norwalk for her college studies.

Wasser began her career during her studies at Boston University where she was an early admittance student studying with the renowned Yuri Mazurkevich, who himself had studied under Russian violin virtuoso David Oistrakh. She played with the Boston University Symphony Orchestra before joining local bands the Lotus Eaters, Hot Trix with Mary Timony, and the Dambuilders.

Ben Perowsky, Joan Wasser, and Rainy OrtecaPhoto: Murray Hill
Ben Perowsky, Joan Wasser, and Rainy Orteca
Photo: Murray Hill

During her time in the Dambuilders, Wasser first began to make a name for herself in the indie rock world and where she developed her aggressive style of playing, which led to work outside of the group. In the late 1990s, Wasser began to explore more musical paths than those limited only to violin playing, adding guitar and keyboard parts to the Dambuilders recordings, singing vocals, as well as co-writing several songs. Examples of these new explorations can be heard on the Dambuiders' Against the Stars; on both Luster and Itch It, Wasser wrote the lyrics and handled the lead vocals. Due to disillusionment, creative malaise, and a need to expand their respective musical horizons, the Dambuilders disbanded in October 1997.

In May of the same year, her lover and one-time bandmate, Jeff Buckley, drowned accidentally, in Memphis, Tennessee. Reeling in the wake of these events, Wasser sought comfort in the company of old friends, Dave Shouse and Michael Tighe and their band, Those Bastard Souls. Her comfort was short lived as Those Bastard Souls, as well as Black Beetle, another band she formed with Tighe, broke up within two years. (In 1996, Wasser also contributed to an eponymous album by the group Mind Science of the Mind.)

The end of Black Beetle brought the beginning of Wasser's work as a solo artist and the creation of a new band, Joan as Police Woman. Wasser formed the group in New York City in 2002. The group includes songwriter/vocalist Wasser on violin, keyboard, and guitar; Ben Perowsky on drums, percussion, backing vocals, and sound production; and Rainy Orteca on bass, and backing vocals. Other musicians working with the group have included Maxim Moston and Charlie Burnham. The group self-released an eponymous EP in 2004.

In December 2005, Wasser signed a distribution deal with Reveal Records, a British indie label, and subsequently released a 7" single as well as re-released Wasser's debut EP. Joan As Police Woman's full-length debut, Real Life, was released in the UK on June 12, 2006. It is set to be released in the USA on June 12, 2007.

[edit] Releases

[edit] Full-Lengths

[edit] EPs

  • Joan as Police Woman - (2004 - CD)
  • Joan as Police Woman - (February 27, 2006 - Expanded CD & LP)

[edit] Singles

[edit] Compilations

  • Jane Magazine complilation — 2003

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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