Melissa Ferrick: Ferrick's Funk

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Ferrick’s funk

Two songs on Melissa Ferrick’s new CD show the lesbian musician’s prowess as
a talented guitarist, but she’s still self-absorbed.
By Adrian Brune

Friday, June 11, 2004IT APPEARS THAT lesbian folk singer Melissa Ferrick made
her new CD, “The Other Side,” for herself, and nobody else. To Ferrick, who
is scheduled to perform on Sunday at the Capital Pride festival main stage, this
marks somewhat of a departure in her more than 14 years of recording. It seems
to signify a return to the days of her adolescent songwriting, alone on the
third floor of her childhood home in Newburyport, Mass. At nearly 34, Ferrick
even ventured back to her teen-angst roots by recording her ninth studio album
over three weeks, during a stormy holiday season in Newburyport, while she moved
out of an apartment she didn’t like and as her personal life was falling
apart. “I definitely find that I wrote more frequently during times of turmoil
or in between surrenders,” says the singer, who recently ended a personal
relationship with her tour manager, Jen Perry. Ultimately, “The Other Side,”
released June 1, is just another set of songs about the singer’s personal
life, and because this subject is a theme in the bulk of Ferrick’s work, most
of the songs on the new CD sound like they did when the very melancholy
Morrissey discovered the equally emotive singer in 1991. Ferrick’s latest
effort bears the most resemblance to “Freedom,” an explicitly
autobiographical album that featured 11 songs tracing her life during the end of
another long-term relationship. In typical Ferrick form, on “The Other
Side,” she again recreates her personal life through song lyrics, and what
emerges is a session of Gestalt therapy set to raging guitar — some of it
lyrical, a lot of it rambling. THE ALBUM OPENS with “Beijing,” the only song
that the singer says was not derived from any “tumultuous relationship or
experience.”

Featuring her trademark staccato guitar, Ferrick wrote “Beijing,” an
invective against corporate America, with the childhood imagery of digging a
hole to China to escape AOL/Time Warner mergers and Martha Stewart-ish greed.
The title song, “The Other Side,” follows and also highlights Ferrick’s
strong need to get to another place. It was written during a sound check in
Houston, while she says she was feeling discouraged about having to play in
“one more loud, dirty atmosphere.”Upbeat and rhythmical, “Beijing” and
“The Other Side” demonstrate Ferrick’s prowess as an extremely talented
guitar player. The CD sinks from there, and is only briefly buoyed by
“Fearless,” a song Ferrick says is about her frustration with being on the
road and feeling inadequate in her ability to be someone’s partner. At times,
the singer’s lyrics are excruciatingly painful to listen to, as with
“Nebraska,” in which she says her heart “looks like a disaster, like the
blown out semi-tires on the highway of Nebraska.” Ferrick’s latest
contribution most closely resembles her previous work on albums such as
“Valentine Heartache,” “Everything I Need,” and other CDs she has
released since the very beginning. Ferrick says she has grown up on her latest
CD, and has future plans on her own label, Right on Records, to begin working on
other multimedia projects. The first will be a DVD that documents her first 10
years on the road.But a sign of true maturity, in life and music, is a
willingness to be a little less self-absorbed, not more. She could learn a thing
or two from guitarists such as Dave Matthews, who is working more with fellow
musicians and, in the process, receiving critical acclaim. Perhaps with “The
Other Side” Ferrick has finally worked out her inner turmoil, so with her next
musical contribution she can finally escape her own box.

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