FEATURES

All Photos @ 2000 - John Kilkus/Argent Images

Seeing singer/songwriter Michael McDermott live at the Double Door last
month to celebrate the release of his brand new album, the Last Chance
Lounge, served to reawaken something in the soul of this tired old rock 'n'
roll scribe.

     After so many years and so many albums and so many concerts, one tends
to get a bit jaded almost by default.

     I really liked McDermott's new album from the outset, hearing it a few
weeks prior to it's release via Koch Records, while preparing to interview
the Chicagoan for this feature. But I like a lot of the CDs that find their
way to my cluttered desk week after week. It wasn't until hearing McDermott
do his songs live that I felt the powerful spirit of this remarkable artist.

    Performing with a rawness and determination that dripped with character
and emotion, McDermott did not just sing us his songs, he made us feel them.
As he strummed, slammed , sang and shouted his way through songs inspired by
living a rag tag bohemian lifestyle, Michael McDermott connected with this
writer in a one on one fashion that I've not experienced in many years.

Looking about the SRO crowd, I could tell I was not alone in that feeling.
It was then, that I suddenly related to the old soft-rock anthem, "Killing Me
Softly," by Roberta Flack. For McDermott was up there sharing in his songs
the same kinds of pain and pleasure we all have felt.

     A heartsick sense of hopelessness stabbed our emotions as he choked on
the lyrics of his tragic love paean, "Junkie Girl." And he shuffled
through"Unemployed," who could not relate to the frustration painted so
vividly in the lyrics? Who could not understand the need to sometimes toss
back a cold brew and say, "Screw it all!"

     And when McDermott covered the Johnny Nash chestnut, "I Can See Clearly
Now," we felt his heart rejoice as the artist was singing of his career
rebirth.

A FALSE START ...

Michael McDermott knows first hand how fickle the recording industry can be, after seeing his dream of rock 'n' roll success come within reach only to have it slip through his fingers like so many grains of sand.

This Chicago born and bred troubadour, broke out big of the Windy City neo-folkie scene at the tender age of 20 after landing a record contract with Giant/Warner Bros. Things looked bright right out of the gate. His first album, 620 W. Surf, was met with critical praise. His song, "A Wall I Must
Climb," became a hit single and an MTV "Buzz Bin" video.

     "Music was changing then," explained McDermott, a 1987 graduate of Carl
Sandburg High School in Chicago. "My first album came out just after the
singer/songwriter thing with Tracy Chapman happened and that whole scene was
kind of winding down I think. The Seattle thing was happening and grunge was
happening and there I was not really fitting in anywhere."

     McDermott went from being hailed as "the next Dylan" and "the new
Springsteen" by the media to being virtually forgotten by the time his second
and third albums (Gethsemane and Michael McDermott) hit the retail racks.

      "When radio or MTV or whatever embraces you like they did with my first
record, and then you fail to break out really big, they tend to shun you
because you made them look bad for having gotten behind you," he said. "I
think that is what happened with me. Everyone was there with their arms out
when I did the first record and then suddenly all the doors were closed to me
when I came around with my second album."

     McDermott began penning much darker music that reflected his
discouragement with the recording industry and the music scene at large.
"When the first album failed to really take off, I became a very dark and
bitter 20-year-old kid," he recalled. "The records that followed were a
reaction to my disillusionment and my disappointment at how things had turned
out. My self-titled (third) album was probably the best one I did, but
nobody really heard it. By that time, I was crawling further and further
into my shell."

ROCKIN' WITH THE KING ...

     The Michael McDermott album even had a quirky marketing hook that failed
to get press. Horror author and devout McDermott fan, Stephen King, penned
the liner notes to that album and actually played guitar on one of the songs
from that album, "Killin' Me."

    "King's son had heard my second record, Gethsemane," and liked it so
much that he bought it for Stephen for Father's Day in 1993 and he loved it,"
said McDermott of the connection. "One day I was shooting hoops at my
sister's house and the phone rang. It was Stephen King. I figured he had
called the wrong number and was looking for Michael McDonald from the Doobie
Brothers or something, but he wasn't. He told me he really liked my music
and that he was coming to Chicago to see a Cubs game and could spare the time
to go with him. I was like, 'Hell yeah!' We have gotten to be good friends.
He's a really, really fascinating guy."

   Celebrity fans not withstanding, things got so dismal for the artist once
pegged as "the next big thing," that he had to self-release his fourth album,
Bourbon Blue. The sparse collection was put out on McDermott's own imprint
which was headquartered in a spare room of his home. Gone were the record
label go-fers, the publicity machine and the large promotional budgets that
he once had backing him up.

    McDermott found himself back on "square one," as he put it. He was
wearing all the hats on that venture, for the creative side to the marketing
side, it was all a one man show.   "Having to handle everything was really
overwhelming. It was much more than I had bargained for when I set out to do
that record on my own. Maybe I'd just been conditioned to be lazy," he
laughed, "having had record companies to do all that stuff before. There was
an awful lot of work involved in putting out that record and I hope I never
have to go through kind of misery again. Hell, there's probably a whole
album's worth of material just in that experience."

    Even though he was selling his last album from a table at local club
performances and on consignment at a few neighborhood record shops, McDermott
still managed to push out 10,000 copies of Bourbon Blue to his Midwest fans.

    Fortunately, that feat was not lost on Koch International Records. Some
insightful A&R person at the relatively new label rediscovered this powerful
folk-rock bard and has given the world another chance to recognize and
appreciate one of the most literate songcrafters pulling in air today.

THE LAST CHANCE ...

      Last Chance Lounge is the latest and perhaps the greatest slice of life
put to music by McDermott yet. The 13 story-songs on this collection are a
combination of brand new tracks and a four moody gems pulled from his Bourbon
Blue which the label thought were strong numbers needing to be heard.

    One of those holdover songs is his current single, "Junkie Girl," which
got a big push on WXRT radio in Chicagoland. According to McDermott's publici
ty people, the song is getting a good deal of adds in other markets.

    "I still don't know about the wisdom of that. I think it is kind of a
risky move making that the first single, given the nature of the song," said
McDermott, whose personal choice for first single would have been the song,
'Unemployed'."

    "I love 'Junkie Girl,' but I think that a song like 'Unemployed' is one
that more people could be drawn to and relate to maybe," he said.   "I don't
know, maybe 'Junkie Girl' will make people pick up their ears because it's a
rather compelling song."

    McDermott's brief explanation that "Junkie Girl" is rooted in a sordid
and clandestine relationship that he once had with a drug user was shrouded
in mystery. "I was a naughty boy there for a while," he confessed, while
never getting specific. "We all have our vices, our problems and our dark
sides," he concluded. "I've had my share as well."

     McDermott felt the new album's title was prophetic and apt considering
his roller coaster career. Keeping it local and keeping it real, he had the
album jacket art and his latest promotional photos shot at the Last Chance
Lounge on Fullerton on the West Side of Chicago. "It's got that slightly
seedy atmosphere, that really fits the music," he said.

    McDermott celebrated the release of his new album with a string of
hi-profile events alongside his devout hometown following. The day of the
CD's October 10 street date, McDermott did an on-air performance for WXRT
radio. The next day, he drew big numbers to a "meet 'n' greet" at Tower
Records on Clark Street, where he performed a live acoustic set.

    Next came the thrill of being asked by Jakob Dylan to perform as a
surprise hometown guest at the sold out Metro concert by Dylan's band, The
Wallflowers. Capping it all off was the headline show at the Double Door,
where McDermott played to a standing room only crowd.

    Just as he felt that his timing was wrong the first time around, emerging
at the cusp of the grunge/alternative scene, McDermott thinks that maybe now
the musical waters are again safe for him.

      "People like David Gray are doing well and Dave Matthews has just
exploded," he said, "so maybe people are ready to listen to someone like me.
I try not to think too much about that kind of stuff though, because that'll
keep you up all night.

    As a songwriter and as a performer, all you can do, is make the best
music you can and hope that you find people who are willing to listen to you."