Red Line Tap Press Release: Sara Hickman 4/12/2013

The Red Line Tap
7006 N. Glenwood
Chicago, Il 60626
773 274-5463 or 773 465 –8005
www.heartlandcafe.com


Friday, April 12th at 8 pm
Sara Hickman
http://sarahickman.com
7.00 Adv / 10.00 Night Of Show

Tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/profile/74898



Let’s start with today

In May 2010, Sara became the Official State Musician of Texas, following in the footsteps of the legendary Willie Nelson, and used this title to help families create together and bring art programs into public schools. The result in 2011 was the ground-breaking album The Best of Times, a compilation album of her songs recorded by other amazing Texas musicians, including Willie Nelson, Marcia Ball, Shawn Colvin, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Ruthie Foster and 25 other artists. All proceeds go to Theatre Action Project, a group dedicated to putting art, music and theater back into public schools.

She’s been performing with her kid friendly trio, Family Time Rocks!, whose motto is “families that to create together, do great together!” Sara’s produced a CD for FTR! that came out in September 2010 as a free download for families, thanks to the support of HEB.

Sara released Absence of Blame, her most recent CD, which includes 13 songs of sorrow and redemption. She put out an animated DVD for children entitled, Big Bird, Little Bird (which immediately won Dr. Toy’s award for Best Summer Vacation item), and produced Sweet Songs, a collection of Austin female musicians singing songs for families, with all proceeds benefiting the Mothers’ Milk Bank.

But, at the very beginning…


Age 7: Sara got a guitar. She named it Martha.
Age 8: Sara wrote/performed her first song on stage, winning first place from the Daughters of the American Revolution.



As a child in Houston


With a fiber artist mother, a painter for a dad, a soccer playing sister, Sara’s world was full of interactive creativity: writing, painting, wild art parties thrown by her parents on occasional weekends, with interesting women in fur coats and long cigarettes, collegiate art students around the piano, everyone singing “Girl From Ipanema,” Sara in pajamas, eyes full of enthusiasm.



Teen Years


Sara attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts, studying vocals and beginning to perform at bank openings, weddings, in psychiatric units, and even at a pizza parlor. She also started getting involved in bands.
College Years


Graduated w/a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of North Texas/Denton. Set to become an art director, she switched plans when she moved to Dallas, creating her first album, Equal Scary People with Brave Combo founder, Carl Finch, who had seen her on a cable access show.

Multiple awards were won from the Dallas Observer, so Sara landed a deal with Windham Hill, then Elektra. Sara began touring, playing festivals, appearing on VH1, singing on the Tonight Show.

Then… Crash!


Elektra decided to shelve Sara’s next project and drop the album. Sara’s fans rallied together to help her raise $50,000 to buy the album back. It was a moving testimony to the power of the people.



Community Issues

Sara does a world of good. She’s raised hundreds of thousands of $’s for: the Dallas Dance for Life; House the Homeless; Bryan’s House; AAIM; PETA; Amnesty International; homeless shelters, SPCA, Mothers’ Milk Bank, TCADP; visited Romania to deliver clothing, money and supplies to orphans; and personally raised more than $50,000 for the Hill Country Youth Ranch in Ingram, Texas, a safe haven for severely abused children. The HCYR then opened the Sara Hickman Childrens’ Fund, which accepts matching grants and buys musical instruments, dance shoes, and art supplies for the children of the ranch. Sara’s involvement in music and art therapy continued through ARTS (Artistic and Recreational Therapies), leading her to perform for children in burn units, AIDS and stroke victims, and in psychiatric units, where she utilized her talents and love to help with the healing process. In 2004, Sara was the National Ambassador for Half Price Books visiting hospitals and schools across the U.S., helping to promote literacy where she performed and read to children.

Red Line Tap Press Release: Michael McDermott 3/30/2013

The Red Line Tap
7006 N. Glenwood
Chicago, IL 60626
773 274-5463 or 773 465 –8005
www.heartlandcafe.com


Saturday, March 30 at 8 pm
Michael McDermott
15.00, Singer Songwriter

The anthemic, arena-filling “Scars From Another Life” (from his forthcoming album Hit Me Back) paints the a picture of how far singer-songwriter Michael McDermott has come:  “I was so down... I had completely lost my way / When I hit Broadway I began to realize / That all they are are scars from another life.” His life since becoming a recording artist—full of myriad highest highs, gutter-skimming lows, and absolute rock bottoms of the past two decades—could read like a screenplay, but with stories so ridiculously outlandish that they couldn’t possibly be true. All of it—the addiction, the failed relationships, the financial dramas, the career hurdles—have left plenty of scars, but McDermott’s moving on, moving up, and taking charge.  He makes no excuses for his past—it has made him who he is today—but sings to everyone listening (and to himself):  “Don’t run away, they’re scars from another life.”

It's been quite a ride since singer/songwriter Michael McDermott unleashed his debut, 620 West Surf, but one might even go so far as to say that his 2012 release, Hit Me Back, represents the work of a new artist:  for the first time in his recording career, McDermott is a father, a philanthropic entrepreneur, and has experienced the loss of an adored parent.  All are major life changes which have found achingly honest expression in his songs.
Hit Me Back also exudes McDermott's trademark embrace of faith and hope in the face of adversity.  The lyrics are, as always, uniquely evocative: McDermott sings in poetry; his tunes are literate story-songs.  On the haunting "Ever After," he offers the listener palpable insight into the jarring confusion and doubt felt in the days that followed his mother's passing (in October 2011).  The wryly observed title track puts a new spin on fighting a long-time nemesis, alcohol.  His demon-banishing in the aforementioned “Scars From Another  Life” is echoed in the love-is-redemption refrains of “Let It Go.”  The exploration of temptation and bowing to its siren call is explored in the Americana-laced “A Deal With The Devil.”

Influenced by such musical giants as Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, McDermott exhibited a talent for mature and lyrically dense songwriting that soon caught the eye—and ear—of then-talent scout Brian Koppelman (now a screenwriter, novelist, director, and producer; best known as the co-writer of “Ocean’s Thirteen” and “Rounders”), who immediately signed him to Giant Records.  That first album, 620 West Surf, boasted a Billboard Hot 100 charting single, (“A Wall I Must Climb”). McDermott continued to write introspective, character-driven songs that won him an enduring band of appreciative followers.  In the liner notes for McDermott’s self-titled album, bestselling author Stephen King wrote:  “Michael McDermott is one of the best songwriters in the world and possibly the greatest undiscovered rock ‘n’ roll talent of the last 20 years.”

The recording industry shakeup that marked the mid-1990s left McDermott without a contract, and awash in debt and self-doubt.  “Throughout the years, I had continued to feel like I was on a mission, of sorts, singing spiritual songs,” he once said, “but never really feeling good about the other elements of my life.”  McDermott released five more albums in the next decade, some with label distribution, others independently.  He also continued playing live shows, and riding a personal rollercoaster of addiction, recovery, and sometimes-misplaced ambition.
Having at last become more comfortable in his own skin, scarred but smarter, McDermott has in recent years begun to make more life-affirming choices.  He has launched his own coffee line, with sales from each bag of his two signature blends providing meals for seven children.  Understandably, he's found positive inspiration in his wife, Heather Horton (whom he married during a tour stop in Italy in May 2009), and the birth of their daughter, Rain (in July 2010).  And he’s once again a signed artist, this time with New Jersey label, Rock Ridge Music, who will be releasing his forthcoming album. McDermott and wife Horton (a gifted musician/vocalist), and producer CJ Eiriksson (engineered albums for U2 and Matchbox 20, as well as McDermott's 2007 album Noise From Words) spent a whirlwind eight days in the studio to record Hit Me Back.

Of course, recent positive inspiration doesn't mean he's forgotten his tumultuous past or that he no longer faces present struggles. For McDermott, a performer and storyteller to the depths of his soul, his connection with fans and his uncanny ability to communicate universal truths through his own personal experiences are helping fade the many of the scars that remain.  The demons aren’t gone; he’s just found a place for them to dwell in peace.  It is coming to terms with those demons and putting them in their place that continues to fuel his art ever further.

Tour bus at The Mayne Stage

Those in the know, know that I follow both the radio charts and my neighborhood of Rogers Park.

When both Rogers Park and music business come together, everyone knows that I'll be on it!

Here is a photo of a tour bus in front of our local venue The Mayne Stage:

http://rp1000.blogspot.com/2013/03/tour-bus-at-mayne-stage.html

Sons of the Never Wrong make Roots Music Chart!

Sons of the Never Wrong make the Roots Music Report

Read the full article at Rogers Park in 1,000 Words.