A couple months back, I interviewed the Scissormen for Popdose. They’re a raunchy blues-rock duo in the vein of Black Diamond Heavies or Black Keys, except masterminded by an even older soul, rock journalist Ted Drozdowski.
Well, as luck would have it, this month the group’s new record,Á‚ Luck In A Hurry, hit the shelves — whichever shelves are still open to blues duos scratching out a living in southern juke joints and selected fine watering holes in New England.
Drozdowski’s deep blues, like many of his compadres out there, carries the torch not so much for the polished Chicago gentry like Buddy Guy or his Memphis peer B.B. King as much as rough-and-tumble Mississippi Hill Country originals like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, rediscovered and immortalized on Fat Possum Records in the 1990s. In fact, Drozdowski credits Burnside — who encouraged him to follow his dream and play the blues — for inspiring the riff on the new record’sÁ‚ “The Devil Is Laughing.”
On the new record, the Scissormen play mostly the sparse, forlorn blues we’ve come to appreciate from the milieu, oddly suitable for these times of economic war, woe, and social inequity, much as they were back in the mid-20th century when blues dinosaurs roamed the South’s back roads practicing their art.
But on “Whiskey and Maryjane,” they bring in a ringer: Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who you can hear clearly appreciates joining a punky little slide tune from which you can practically hear the rust chips fall. Morphine drummer Billy Conway makes an appearance on Luck in a Hurry, too. These guys not only help change things up sonically and put their stamp of approval of the proceedings, but they also help make the connection from ancient blues to modern rock. Drozdowski’s the bridge from old to new, the impresario, his guitar the catalyst. There’s some kind of magic in those grooves that no digital studio creation can replicate.
One area where the Scissormen have digitized is their media: Check a heapin’ helping of tuneage, video, and other stuff at both the band’s download page and MySpace.
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