Michael McDermott
at Greenbelt 2010: The art of looking sideways
I love this manwodrous performer
also Level Five to the core. We hit it off a few years ago when he came for his second visit and we loved him
human/conversation/musicality/Level5Heaven ....
“I consider myself a storyteller,” McDermott said in a 1999 interview. “I’m also a hopeless romantic, so lots of my subjects are simply from everyday life and the relationships we have in today’s fast-paced urban world. People and loved ones are an important part of my music.”
Stewart Franke of the Metro Times, wrote in an article in 1996 that “McDermott’s [work] is reasoned and spare, his songs are longer than most, his poetry dense and wordy. McDermott’s songs are often in the form of a personal letter, to a variety of unknown correspondents: the half-remembered friend, a fallen accomplice, the ghosts of high school, a vanquished lover, a family member."
However, they remain ever accessible, bringing to light universal experiences of the common man (and woman), in a way all can relate to and few could forget.
As John Thompson wrote in a 1996 review, “As far as I can tell, McDermott hasn’t signed up for a seminary just yet.” Instead, he’s “put together a scrapbook of memories we all share – like relationships that ended for some un-remembered reason. His telling of the stories is so brilliant that each sounds like someone we know…his songs are, more often than not, tales of woe and misguided steps. He’s a dysfunctional prophet who sometimes forgets his name. He loves, he loses, tries and tries again – but he usually ends up at a bar somewhere wondering what the hell went wrong. He’s the prodigal son who – no matter how hard he strives to embrace the world and its darkness – is constantly reminded that there’s another perspective.
“He’s also in possession of one of the best voices in the annals of rock.
