Text by Augusta Palmer
Nashville-based blues band Scissormen hits The Delancey Bar & Nightclub on March 20th, and it might just save your soul if you join them. Since they list blues legends R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough alongside avant-rockers Sonic Youth as their prominent influences, it won’t surprise you to hear that they’ve fully harnessed the power of noise and the trance rhythms of the Mississippi Delta.
Guitarist and front man Ted Drozdowski, who also happens to be a music writer of some renown, is happy to use a whiskey bottle (or almost any other weapon of mass destruction you can imagine) as a slide for his guitar. He’s not afraid to walk the bar, either, despite treacherous encounters with low-hanging ceiling fans. With R.L. Hulsman on drums, Scissormen call themselves “a modern juke joint blues band with old roots and new shoots” and they’ve created a highly listenable guitar-driven blues that will make you dance till you’re breathlessly begging for more. How Connecticut native Drozdowski manages to wring so much Delta dirt from his guitar is worthy of a longer answer elsewhere, but I sure like the sound of his playing. And the understated, slow burn of his singing is well worth a listen, too.
Better yet, Drozdowski, Phil Reeves, and Sean McDevitt hope this is only the beginning: they’re testing the waters for bringing more music to our blues-starved city. With the high price tags of shows at B.B. King’s and the tiny capacity of Terra Blues providing our only year-round blues venues, New Yorkers don’t have as many opportunities to hear blues as they used to.
“What falls through the cracks is a fabulous array of musicians with a national profile. They record for labels like Alligator, Blind Pig, Telarc and Northern Blues. And they play all over the nation and the world. But many of them struggle to find gigs in Manhattan. Not that they ‘never’ find gigs here, mind you – it’s just that New York City used to be a regular stop for anyone traveling the nation’s blues circuit; it’s just not that way now,” says co-organizer Sean McDevitt of livebluesworld.com.
If you want to help change that trend, come on down to The Delancey Bar & Nightclub this Saturday. Doors open at 7:30 for a show that also includes Rockstellar, Emile Menasché, and Anodyne Blues Band, quite a bang for your $10 bucks at the door.
Date: Saturday, March 20th
Time/band: 8 pm Emil Menasche, 8:45pm Anodyne Blues Band, 9:50 Rockstellar, 10:45 Scissormen (two sets), 12:45 Violent Stones
Venue: The Delancey Bar & Nightclub (168 Delancy Street, 212-254-99200) Ticket: $10
Genre: Blues
For all Blues lovers check out Stephanie Keith’s article about Tinarinwen‘s – the desert Blues band from Mali – show in Brooklyn Feb.19th, 2010!
