Music
Press
Las Vegas Mercury
Switchyard. Bastard daughter of crime novelist James Cain and torch singer Julie London. The velvet female voice tempts you, the languorous bass lines seduce you, the fleshy drums possess you. Beware the smoldering horn section, which-when ignited by the atmospheric turntables and snippets of film-noir dial ogue-never fails to completely destroy you. The guitars haunt you like that creepy 1955 serial-killer movie called The Hitch-hiker. The lyrics? They tap you in the chest like the hard muzzle of a .38-just before the trigger pulls: "Sleep will not save us from what has awakened." Too bad you're not dreaming this.
The tracks that lead to this lonely and beautiful sound are apocryphal. Presumably, Switchyard began as the house band for an all-nude club on the Vegas strip, where the singer was discovered by the rhythm section. Or was it the other way around? In any case, songs like "Cold Blue Fingers" and "Horizon" could only have been fashioned by artists who've been swindled by angels and paid off by devils. A black diamond of neon-lit desolation in the middle of nature's larger desolation. A dirty stiletto hidden in a Versaci handbag. It's always nighttime in the Switchyard.
Switchyard's mysterious singer is a femme fatale in the tradition of Marlene Dietrich and Cat Power. She'd just as soon ravish you as cut your throat. Achingly gorgeous-yet dangerous-pop songs.
- Las Vegas Mercury
Discography
Recently released, "The Secret Life of Spiders"
Have radio airplay in San Diego and Las Vegas
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Switchyard began as an all-female, disco cover band in Las Vegas.
Drummer Rachel Bellinsky and guitarist Gina Fiore met while both searching for a musical project that would pay the bills. They would go on to play in casinos and nightclubs throughout Las Vegas for two years, entertaining people with countless renditions of "Hot Stuff" and "Kung Fu Fighting."
Then one day, after nearly dying of heat stroke during a summer yard party, Rachel decided she'd rather be singing and writing her own music. So she wrote some songs, recruited Gina and started recording. The end result is 'The Secret Life of Spiders', and it sounds nothing like Donna Summer.
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