Le Femme Joan is back in the van and back over seas until Christmas!

a recent review


Goofy Joan grins and bears it
By André Paine, Evening Standard 17.10.06

"Yet another song about obsession," quipped New Yorker Joan Wasser last night. But despite the intense emotions in her music, Wasser was actually a lot of fun.

Hence the silly stage name, inspired by the time she dressed up as a Seventies TV cop played by Angie Dickinson.

The outfit for this occasion was a sparkly gold backless dress, although the glamour was vitiated by her mug of tea and general goofiness.

She certainly needed her good humour to cope with this new venue. It is essentially a foyer adjoining a cafeteria, so her opening piano ballad had to compete with a cash register at the bar.

But Wasser, who's performed with Antony and the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright, took control with the help of a drummer and bassist. Immediately, her modern torch song The Ride proved that she's an accomplished artist in her own right.

Eternal Flame (not the Bangles song) is one of the best singles of 2006 and her performance of it was intoxicating, while the guitar-driven Christobel added a punky dynamic to her soulful voice.

"Strange and interesting," was Wasser's giggly verdict on the venue. It fits her funny, emotional performance on the South Bank rather well too.



- - - - - - -

The NEW DATES
November

3rd – Green Space – Valencia – Spain
4th – Teatro Circo – Jazz festival Cartagena – Spain

8th - Festival Inrockuptibles – Maison Folies Lille – France
9th – Festival Inrockuptibles – La Boule Noire Paris – France

10th – La Laiterie – Strasbourg – France
12th – Le Ciel – Grenoble – France

14th – PTR L’Usine – Geneva – Switzerland
15th – Moods – Zurich – Switzerland

18th – Haarlem Patronaat – Holland
19th – Kunst – Hamburg – Germany

20th – Lido – Berlin – Germany
21st – Prime Club – Koln – Germany

22nd – Botanique – Brussels – Belgium
23rd – Nachtleben – Frankfurt – Germany

25th – Atomic Café –Munich –Germany
26th –Flex – Vienna – Austria

28th – Arena Del Sole – Bologna – Italy
29th – Hiroshima Mon Amour –Turin – Italy



December
2nd – Fuori Orario – Emilia Regio – Italy

3rd – Teatro Studio – Rome – Italy
9th – Village – Dublin – Ireland

10th – Spring and Airbrake – Belfast – Ireland
11th – Roisin Dubh – Galway – Ireland

12th – Cyprus Avenue – Cork – Ireland
16th –Laika Club – Athens - Greece




-- - - new single out


[Edited 10/29/06 11:49am]
[Edited 10/29/06 11:50am]

during the show


hanging out after the show.












taken by amaya
[Edited 11/8/06 13:52pm]

a few new promo shots.





[Edited 11/30/06 9:17am]

I love these photos!

But how come someone from NYC can't get a gig in her hometown?

sextonseven said:

bcos her label is based overseas and that's also where her largest fanbase is, thanks to loads of touring with rufus wainwright and antony. the strategy is to milk that base for all they can and by doing so create more of a buzz,which seems to be working. basically tour where you're selling the most records. i'd love to see her again, too. it's been 2 years since i've seen her do her own work.

here are a few links to her work.

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/3v...s=29699575

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/ar...t/28752652

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/.../A13530782

wavesofbliss said:

Well yeah, that's how it usually works. It wouldn't be cool to play here in the U.S. and then tell your audience that your album isn't available, haha.

you're right about that. but she usually carries copies with her for he merch table.

wavesofbliss said:

Do you think she has enough friends/fans in NY to do just one show here in a small intimate venue--like Joe's Pub?

yeah that'd be great. she sold out the tonic club in in octber of this year- her only us date. she usually plays joe's pub, tonic and the living room when she's in town.

she's been focusing on recording her new record when she's back in town tho. my guess is that she'll sleep and record once the holiday is here.


have you been to joe's pub? i haven't but it looks like acool space to play.

wavesofbliss said:

Last month? Damn, I got her album a month too late. I would have totally gone to that show in October. Joe's Pub is a great place to see people because it's so small and classy. I've seen a few acts there like The Bellrays and Nellie McKay.

heres a link to a brief documentary w/joan.

there are a couple of performance bits as well as interview.

http://www.vpro.nl/progra...28821240/#

"THE RIDE is re- released JAN 15th due
to it being featured again on BBC radio in UK

JAPW are on the cover mount cd of WORD mag
JAPW are on the cover mount cd of UNCUT mag
JAPW are in the TOP albums of 2006 in UNCUT
JAPW will feature in new gay magazine FUCK in feb 07"

from Tom at Reveal Records

Joan As Policewoman
Audio, Brighton, Thurs, Dec 14
By Bella Todd

With her trademark ballgowns and glitter-covered violin, Joan Wasser has been a highly visible member of Rufus Wainwright and Mercury Prize-winning Anthony And The Johnsons' backing bands.

She has played with countless other big names, from Lou Reed and Nick Cave to Elton John and The Scissor Sisters, and was first introduced to Brighton audiences at the Dome's 2004 Leonard Cohen tribute.

She was also the lover of Jeff Buckley when, in 1997, the American singersongwriter went for a night swim in the Mississippi River and accidentally drowned. No wonder her debut album is such an enthralling mix of musical sophistication and naked emotion.

Talking in a smoky Brooklyn drawl, the 36-year-old takes so long over her answers that you assume she's either taken offence or passed out. She was, she says, as unhurried when it came to recording her own material, and took "a long time to decide what I wanted to put out there". Recording as a trio under the moniker Joan As Policewoman (in homage to the Seventies TV show), she eventually settled on writing about real life with as much honesty as possible, starting off "a chain reaction in me about who I was and dealing with some hideous bouts of anger - in other words growing up."

A six-track EP arrived in February, but it did nothing to dim the exclamations of wonder from the critics when the full-length Real Life followed this summer. "Stunning" and "devastating"

were popular responses, while The Times suspected it would be the debut album of the year.

"It's been a little bit of an epiphany for me that I can communicate emotions that really everyone feels,"

comments Wasser. "It's like, you live your life inside your body and your mind and it feels like sometimes no one else has felt the way I do right now. It's very dramatic, but if you're exceptionally messed up it can sometimes feel this way. When I released my record, and other people reacted to it, I felt a little bit less lonely, a little bit less like a total freak of nature."

A "gentle, come-away-with-me love song", Joan As Policewoman's next single will be The Ride, released on January 15. People have already, Wasser tells me with an incredulous little shriek, been conceiving babies and getting back with their boyfriends because of it.

When touring her own material Wasser plays guitar or keyboard and leaves her glitter-covered violin behind under her bed. "I know the Dixie Chicks pull it off," she laughs, "but playing violin and singing at the same time is just the least comfortable thing. I mean, that thing is coming out of your neck! I only do that for Anthony and Rufus."

Both Anthony Hegarty and Rufus Wainwright have had a profound impact on Wasser's work. Hegarty has taught her that "it takes a lot of personal power to show your vulnerability", while Wainwright has helped her achieve vocal feats of which she never thought herself capable.

"Because he expects you to do it, you do," she laughs. "I think the greatest gift you can get from someone is confidence that you can do it."

There has, of course, been another vital influence. "I have a lot of strong memories of Jeff," she says, her voice trailing off almost entirely this time.

"But definitely that person loved life, more than anyone I've ever known.

And really took advantage of every moment in the most beautiful and profound way. The way he lived really changed the way I saw life."

She was dating Jeff Buckley when he died? I didn't know that. That explains a lot.

really? i'm surprside everyone doesn't know it by now. they met when the dambuilders and the grifters opened for him in iowa city in july 94. she was with someone else so they were friends for about a year. they had been dating about 2 yrs when he died.

and yes, a lot of her songs have been about him and trying to work thru the pain of his loss.

Well seeing as how I didn't even know who Joan was six months ago, the fact that she was dating Jeff Buckley would have not made any impression on me before then.

wow... she sounds really interesting, and I adore everyone she's worked with. I will definitely be getting her CD asap.

i hear the artwork for the cd is great - lots of photos joan took. i only have a promo copy so maybe i should buy a copy and see for myself.

wavesofbliss said:

It is kinda cool. It's a fold out digipak with random photos of Brooklyn by Joan. Mine also has a separate numbered photo of what looks like Manhattan Bridge on one side and a highway sky shot on the other.

sounds interesting.

- - - - -
Joan Wassser finds her voice
Friday, January 05, 2007

By Charlotte Cripps

Joan Wasser played violin for Lou Reed and Nick Cave, but now she's a singing star in her own right.

One difficult moment for the cool New York singer/songwriter Joan Wasser (aka Joan as Police Woman) was when she had to choose between being in two bands: Antony and the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright's.

A close buddy of Antony Hegarty's, of Antony and the Johnsons, whom she describes as her "spiritual guide", she considered his band home for years, until Wainwright asked her to join his band and also be his support act, opening his world tour in 2004.

This meant she could take the solo plunge as Joan as Police Woman, the indie art rock outfit she had formed in 2002, to sing her own chamber pop soul while touring with Wainwright.

For years, Wasser, 36 - who is reclining on a lush, red sofa in a bright café boudoir in Brighton wearing white tassled cowboy boots - has hidden herself from the spotlight. While summoning her own creative courage to go it alone, she was quietly notching up a reputation inside the music industry. As a classically trained musician - she took violin lessons as a child and went to Boston University to study music - she was drafted in to studio sessions to play violin with the Scissor Sisters, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Sheryl Crow and Sparklehorse. So what has taken her so long to take the reigns of her own career?

"I had to learn how to relax. It was a strange catch-22 because when you are physically relaxed in your voice, the beauty can come through you. But the more I thought about singing, the more freaked out I felt," Wasser says. "It just takes time. The violin had been my voice for ages. You have to learn it for yourself. You can't be there until you're there."

Wasser's touring schedule as Joan as Police Woman has been relentless since last March, when she left her Brooklyn brownstone on a tree-lined street, as seen on the American TV programme The Cosby Show. She couldn't be happier with her life right now on the road, which has also included a stint touring with hot newcomers the Guillemots, in May.

Her debut album, Real Life, released last June, has a hauntingly beautiful duet with her old boss Hegarty, titled "I Defy". "I was playing piano at Antony's Manhattan apartment, when I confronted his habit of undermining himself. It was like stop putting yourself down!" she shrieks. "The song is about what we were telling each other. It happened in a few hours." Her new, hypnotic single, "The Ride" , also taken from her album, is re-released on 15 January.

The grounded but manic singer, who sporadically laughs out loud and says " awesome" and "are you crazy?" a lot while trying to work out her own chronology, has certainly lived a rock 'n' roll life. From 1994 she was Jeff Buckley's partner, until he drowned while swimming in Wolf River, Tennessee, in 1997. Around this time Wasser first picked up a guitar, straying from her violin. She was in her first band, the Dambuilders from 1990 until 1997 but, after Buckley's death, she spent some time singing and learning how to write songs, for the first time, in Black Beetle. This was the band she had put together with two of Buckley's band mates - Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred - as a way to get through the ordeal, having already performed with the band Those Bastard Souls, with Grifters guitarist David Shouse, Steven Drozd from the Flaming Lips and Fred Armisen of Trenchmouth. Wasser made a record with Black Beetle, which never came out because the band split right after recording it.

"It was incredibly difficult to grieve privately for those close to him - everybody wanted a piece of him - we were a very private couple," she says. "It took a while to get through that period, honestly. I never would want it to happen any other way because the fact that I survived it has made me such a strong person. It has actually really made me more compassionate."

After Black Beetle split, Wasser formed her own band, Joan as Police Woman. She was later joined by Ben Perowsky on drums and percussion, who has played for Elysian Fields and John Cale, while Rainy Orteca on bass has played with Lloyd Cole and Lou Reed; both of them sing backing vocals for Wasser. The band self-released recordings before they were signed in December 2005 by the tiny British indie label Reveal Records, which released a seven-inch single "My Gurl", as well as re-releasing Wasser's debut EP - followed by a smattering of singles including "Eternal Flame" and " Christobel". The debut album, Real Life, was also released in Europe, Asia and Australia by the record label Play It Again Sam. "It turns out the only place my album is not available is my home country. America is just horrifying for music. That's why I did a deal in the UK." The name Joan as Police Woman was suggested by a friend, who saw a similarity in Wasser to Angie Dickinson, who played the central character of Seventies television show Police Woman.

Born in 1970, Wasser grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, with a younger brother, Dan. She was born in a home for unmarried teenager mothers and put up for adoption. She says she found solace in playing a violin. "I just always loved music. I was the girl with a mohawk playing the violin in high school. Everybody thought I was a freak. And guess what? I am."

She feels that her music is the "melding of the two styles" she loves the most: soul (Al Green, Nina Simone and Isaac Hayes) and punk (the Smiths, the Grifters and Siouxsie Sioux). She recalls that, after Buckley's death, when she first started singing, "it was terrifying" and her first bout of songwriting "was poetic and complicated". "I just kept trying to make my songs simpler and to get more to the point and be more honest. I was really trying to learn who I was as a person. I had no way of dealing with the trauma of Jeff's death and I needed to learn how to express myself. I thought if something [singing] scared me so much, I needed to learn something from it."

But to begin with, words seemed so secondary to Wasser. "For a while I just didn't know what I wanted to put out there lyrically. I had never used words before. Suddenly there was this whole new world of words. 'What have words got to do with music? Well - they are the lyrics, Joan!'" she yells, recalling when the penny dropped.

It was during Wainwright's tour that Tom Rose, of Reveal Records, asked Wasser if her debut EP could be his first release on his new record label. He had seen her singing, playing violin, electric and acoustic guitar and mandolin with Wainwright's band, as well as singing her own material. " He asked me to send him a box of 30 copies of the EP [Joan as Police Woman] that I was manufacturing myself - 30! I thought: 'Are you crazy?' Then he called me a week later. He wanted another box. Then he wanted to release it on his record label. It is what you hope will happen: that somebody real who is a lover of music wants to try to make it work with you."

Wasser's decision to go quieter, rather than loud - "I played violin through distortion pedals and huge amps" - was consolidated when she met the operatic pop diva Hegarty. "When I joined Antony's band in late 1999, I was surrounded by gentle people who became my family," she says. "Antony is very nurturing. That safety allowed me to continue making a surveillance of my life and learning who I was - ultimately becoming healthier and more able to be creative," she says.

"It reinforced the importance of making really quiet and caring music because I witnessed how Antony's music affected me. It helped me feel safe enough to heal."

She says that she gave up anger because she needed a change. "Anger is so easy," she says. "It only stems from other feelings you're not dealing with. I'm trying to get deeper. You've got to learn just to give anger up. What's going to happen is going to happen. Feel comfortable with the fact that you'll be able to deal with it, whatever it is."

Although Wasser happens to describe her own music as "the wind rushing through the forest" - there is nothing flaky about her. She sings about love and loss, as though she is born of Cat Power and Antony and the Johnsons. " I realise it is so more sexy to know yourself," she says, while her dark eyes dance beneath glittery eyeshadow. "Growing up and becoming adult is not boring. It means being responsible and connected to yourself. I learnt how to do this through music." The album Real Life, she says, " is about finding a way to be truthful with myself, after a real long time running away". It has taken her "a lot of patience to admit how I'm feeling - rather than to suppress it - until it comes out as a rage attack. This record is about learning to be real."

When Wasser finally took the solo plunge - she faced one of her worst fears, she says - "It was that nothing beautiful would come out of me and that people would throw tomatoes at me on stage." These days, the sultry Wasser who plays on Antony and the Johnsons' acclaimed album I Am a Bird Now is tipped to be the hottest new act of 2007.

Wasser has had to lay down her violin for her throaty and hauntingly beautiful voice - "because singing and playing violin, well, I've done it but it's not fun. I mean, it looks like the violin is growing out of your neck" - but she has added piano to her repertoire. To have studied classically - "I love learning discipline. It is a gift. You can use it in all areas of your life" - has helped Wasser.

But she says: "I think a lot of classical musicians do have a problem with not having the music in front of them on paper. I always had crazy shit going through my head, so improvising comes naturally to me."

Despite bouts of self-doubt along the way, she has never looked back. " I had to push myself to feel more comfortable and to not have to rely on anybody else," says Wasser. "That was the test. I had to decide to put myself first and actually give myself the opportunity to try with my own music, solely made with the purpose of being beautiful."

The single 'The Ride' is released on 15 January; the album 'Real Life' is available on Reveal Records; www.joanaspolicewoman.com
[Edited 1/6/07 9:43am]