Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
“Drozdowski is one of the blues’ most distinctive and exciting stylists — a stalwart slide guitarist bringing some contemporary perspective and technical flamboyance to vintage sounds.”
—Ron Wyn
Nashville City Paper
“Not content to play with just a slide on his pinkie finger, Drozdowski climbed up on the bar and played with knives and forks; he got down on his knees on the floor and played with an empty ashtray; he interrupted someone’s meal in the café next door to play with their dinner plate.”
—Buzz McClain
The Washington Post
“One guitar, a drum kit, two guys blasting through 100 years of music history to get to the future. If you see Scissormen and don’t discover the roots of a classic song or a new favorite by them then check your pulse. They’re phenomenal.”
—Wayne Andrews
Executive Director, Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival
“One of the unwritten rules of the music industry is that Yankees can’t write or sing the blues. But Scissormen have been able to successfully modernize the genre, and should rank somewhere up there with the Allstars and Black Keys as part of the new blood in juke-joint inspired blues-rock.”
—Ben Bounds
Oxford Town, Oxford, MS
"The Scissormen are a breath of fresh air on the blues landscape. Their music wades into the healing waters of ancient, elemental blues without flinching or apologizing, drawing inspiration from the same well that produced the earliest blues, even as their musical excursions compellingly stand on their own. This is intelligent, unadorned music for the contemporary common man."
— Teo Leyasmeyer, Blues Foundation Promoter of the Year, 1997
"I listened and was taken back to the Delta. A very alive surprise. Some smart label should come along and sign them."
— Holly Harris, "Blues On Sunday," WBOS 92.9 – FM, Boston
"It's rare that an artist can conjure both heaven and hell simultaneously, but the stripped-down Scissormen manage to summon the fire-and-brimstone fury of the blues while taking musical flight toward a custom-made heaven — a place where folks like Robert Johnson, Elmore James, and Junior Kimbrough still throw it down and pack the juke joint every Saturday night. Guitarist Ted Drozdowski's masterful slide playing carries the band's material as surely as if on steel rails: bending deeply here, swooping widely there, and yet constantly threatening, like a thrill, to come completely unhinged at any moment." —Jonathan Perry, The Boston Globe
"A sonic kaleidoscope of ringing, stinging and slashing slide guitar."
— Jerry Portnoy, harmonica master, Muddy Waters Blues Band, Eric Clapton
"Ted Drozdowski is a trippy guitar player."
— Otis Taylor, Handy Award-winning guitarist/songwriter
- Quotes from press, industry, artists
Discography
Scissormen: Ted Drozdowski Discography
ARTIST TITLE LABEL
Scissormen Jinx Breakers EP HI-N-DRY 2005
Devil Gods Sick Little Monkey LP triPup 2000
John Sinclair Steady Rollin’ Man LP triPup 2000
(as bandleader/guitarist)
Vision Thing "Testify" Artists Only 1997
Kids at Heart compilation
Vision Thing Vision Thing LP Cherrydisc 1995
Vision Thing "Funny Notions" Castle von Buhler 1994
Soon compilation
Bloodblister Bloodblister EP NeoDog 1993
Vision Thing "Resolution" Monolith 1992
Rock for Wood compilation
Vision Thing "Lose Yourself" 45 Barking Koala 1992
Vision Thing "100 Days" b/w Barking Koala 1991
"I Want More" 45
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Scissormen are devils or demi-gods, depending who you ask.
To some crusty blues fans, they’re rock ‘n’ rollers muddyin’ up the music’s waters. But to people who understand that the blues is still a vital style that can be every bit as hip and creative as what’s on the stages of Warped or Coachella, they’re saviors. And those are the folks the band’s been playing in front of for the past two years.
Touring behind their debut CD Jinx Breakers (Hi-N-Dry Recordings) — which was produced by Morphine’s Billy Conway — they’ve seared a path with their incendiary live performances from festivals to premiere nightclubs to blues rooms to juke joints to coffeehouses to punk rock shows from Maine to Mississippi and out to the West Coast.
Ted Drozdowski, the Boston-based band’s slide guitarist and leader, understands that Robert Johnson, Jimmy Page and Johnny Ramone share the same spiritual connection. So he turns his guitar into an Ouija board and channels all three in blazing, over-the-top performances which typically find him leaping up on tables and running out in the street, playing slide with everything from martini glasses to old worn-out boots.
“I came up in punk and psychedelic rock bands, but playing the blues the way we play it means everything to me,” says Ted. “This is music with teeth and guts and heart, and it rocks like hell when it’s done right. And we do it right! I caught the fever from musicians like R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Jessie Mae Hemphill, who taught me to put every bit of my heart and soul into this music. So that’s what I do.
“We work hard to give people who hear us live a show they’ll never forget. And we work hard to keep this music kicking and moving forward, just like Jessie, Junior and R.L. did, and a handful of the best musicians from the Mississippi hills still do. We honor the past, but we’re all living in the present. And so is our blues.”
Recently Scissormen have been finishing up their full-length debut. Meanwhile, Jinx Breakers is available from their web site www.scissormen.com, where you’ll also find free MP3s and learn more about the band, or via www.hi-n-dry.com.
Publicity: K.L. Productions, 615-297-4452 or klpzgr@earthlink.net
Links
