RAINY ORTECA, Bass, Vocals

Bob Dylan Told Me Never to Name Drop

Rainy Orteca was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up as an only child in a small town in Maine. She did what every little girl wants to do after learning to walk: she taught herself to play the electric guitar in order to realize her obsession with playing "Smoke On The Water" at blow-your-face-out volume levels. As a pre-teen, she developed a rigorous discipline of staying inside, hammering out scales, and watching black and white television with the volume turned off. This practice was augmented by intense listening sessions focusing on T-Rex, David Bowie, The Pretenders, Led Zeppelin, Blondie, Wendy Carlos Williams, Muddy Waters and Middle Eastern Music. Apart from occasional impromptu performances by her band Random Violence, her teenage years in boarding school were spent mostly practicing the electric guitar in secret, playing along to punk rock records after study hall.

Shortly after her arrival at a prestigious women's college, she requested permission to practice in the music building. This request was denied due to faculty concern that the sounds produced by her electric guitar would harm the music building's architecture. So she practiced instead in the basement of her dormitory. A strong wave of desire to kick academics to the kerb and be liberated from basement rock propelled her to Philadelphia where she passed some time working by day in art museums and playing in many indie rock bands by night. Her "Professional" music career began quite randomly after her name caught the attention of Joan Osborne, who was putting together a touring band to support her record, which would later win seven Grammy nominations.

And so, unexpectedly, Rainy took up the bass, hit the road to travel the world, and fulfilled a lifelong desire to play video games in Tokyo while drinking iced coffee from a vending machine. After almost three years of solid touring, she finally landed in New York's Hell's Kitchen. There, while still playing locally, she took up a flat career in Creative Product Design for Nickelodeon Television. Three years later, she found her way to freelancing in illustration, graphic design, audio editing, writing and playing music. Today, in JOANASPOLICEWOMAN, Rainy brings a dark, melodic, sometimes gritty / sometimes delicate enveloping flavuor to the JAPW oeuvre. Drawing on vastly disparate influences, her driving soulful melodic sensibilities work powerfully in tandem with Ben Perowsky's creative beats, elegantly carrying and exponentially expanding the sonic territory that is JOANASPOLICEWOMAN.

Her New York-based music years have afforded her the opportunity to join in the making of numerous projects involving (to name a few) Antony and The Johnsons, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Lesley Gore, Sarah Silverman, Lloyd Cole, Mascott, The Naysayer, Dave Derby, Cat Power, Harper Simon, White Magic, James Blood Ulmer, Joseph Arthur, Jane Siberry and fashion designer Patrik Rzepski. Presently, she divides her time between playing, writing, reading and fixing computers. You can see some of Rainy's drawings and designs as featured on The Naysayer's "Kitten Time" record.

Rainy is also a collector of pocket novels from the Olympia Press' Traveller's Companion Series. And, of course, she's always eager to add to her ever-expanding network of reformed Goths. Please contact her if you wish to join.

Be on the lookout for a solely Rainy-based project soon.