My Pal the Pop Star

 

Her lips almost kiss the microphone. "I'm so tired today, I've been running around analyzing everything you say…" Singing softly to a reggae-style beat, she's telling secrets about love, heartache, moving on. She's cracking jokes about creeping into her listeners' dreams tonight. She is funky lovely with her sun-halo of blonde dreadlocks, an up and coming pop star refining the art of seducing her audience.

She's got my number.  But then, we're old friends.

Jessie Farrell sings regularly in Vancouver at Balthazar's Lounge and this Thursday headlines at the Arts Club Backstage. Her first CD, Today, was released last year and she is working on the next with song-writer Jim Vallance (Ozzy Osborne, Bryan Adams, Aerosmith).  Her website gets thousands of hits. Her face gets recognized on Vancouver's streets a "few times each day." 

And every so often she gets her toes done with a friend from her unglamorous past. "Everyone should have a room in their house that smells like this," Jessie says with a smile, inhaling as she rolls up her old jeans at Eccotique spa in Kitsilano.  Peppermint essential oil mixed with soap wafts over us.

We lounge side-by-side on a red, plush couch, soaking our feet in bubbling foot baths, comparing leg hair and chatting with the aestheticians. "Are you trying to grow pants?" one of them accuses us. Jessie rolls her eyes and we both giggle.

When we met seven years ago at the University of Victoria I had no idea she could sing.  Back then we bonded over art history essays and our overly romantic ideals.  Jessica had wavy light brown hair and a clean-cut style.  She was tall, skinny and soft-spoken, and unbeknownst to me, she liked to write music.

"It was the one thing I was always good at," she explains, closely examining the colour palette for her toe polish.  She selects La Boheme.  I choose Kinky In Helsinki. 

"The past two years" she says, "have been a blur."  Jono, her cherished younger brother died of cancer two years ago.  She credits him for helping her to jump in and fully embrace her music career.

"I think when something tragic happens, it makes you question everything - God, humanity and life - but you settle on knowing that there are some things you can control," says Jessie. "Love is the one thing you can control.  If you love, you usually get love back.  It is really important not to get jaded by life."

"I see the world as a very sad place but also as a magical place.  You can't get the sweet without the sour, you know what I mean?"  She does what she can to stay sane. She turns her cell phone off when she walks her dog Rupert, Jessie says, so they can enjoy "quality time" together.  Still she works herself into a "tizzy" and can't help but question why so many young people have to die of cancer.

"Because life is so overwhelming, I think it is important to try to keep things light. I try to do this with my music too - sometimes people just need a light song with a simple message.  Most of us are running on sensory overload and I think simplicity is underestimated." A fan described her as a "hot cup of cocoa on a cold day."

"Nothing I talk about is really new," she freely admits. "It is the same shit over and over again - love and all that - but I am trying to twist those themes in my own way."

I ask her if she considers herself a role model for young girls. She blushes. "I would be honoured." In fact, she does have growing fan base among 12-year olds.

I'm listening to her next CD playing in the background as we receive our cuticle emollient, wondering what Jessie's "tweenie" followers will make of what I'm hearing.

"This song is in a new movie soundtrack." Jessie laughs and gestures into the air.

Is it a love story?

"Not quite. Two beautiful girls walk into a frat house, make out with some frat boys, then tentacles come out of their boobs and strangle the boys - or something like that."

In Grade 7, when Jessie Farrell was still going by the name of Jessica Hungerford, she wrote a song for her junior high graduation ceremony called "Friends."  She breaks into the chorus, complete with air guitar.  "Friends are peo - ple we de - pend on, they help us when we are feeling blue…"

When I was that age I wanted to be a private investigator. Today, for this moment at least, we're just a couple of wannabe Charlie's Angels with perfectly glam toes. Case closed.

Chantal Eustace has written for for Kiteboarding Magazine, The Prince Rupert Daily News and The Province. Her previous piece for The Tyee looked at Vancouver's burlesque revival.