Song Premiere: Ted Drozdowski’s Scissormen – “Dreaming on the Road”

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Utne Reader is proud to premiere “Dreaming on the Road” by psychedelic blues innovators Ted Drozdowski’s Scissormen off their new album Love and Life.

A protégé of the great electric bluesman R.L. Burnside, Ted Drozdowski has been taking what he learned from Burnside to a cosmic level with his experimental juke-joint trio Ted Drozodowski’s Scissormen. On the band’s sixth album, Love & Life, Drozdowski utilizes just about every guitar effect and multi-tracking technique he can find to impart his characteristic psychedelic vibe to the blues. Speaking about the elaborate production, Drozdowski says he wanted, “to create a broader, unpredictable sonic palette, and just plain get weird.” For all of the sonic experimentation on the album, it’s worth noting that Drozdowski recorded the record at Omega Lab, which is a “green” studio outside of Nashville. Essentially just a tent on top of a mountain, the studio boasts that it’s able to run everything in it on less power than the average hair dryer.

While he certainly elevates traditional blues into another sonic realm with all of the bells and whistles, there are moments on the album that also illustrate his ability be evocative while keeping things simple. One example is the track “Dreaming on the Road,” which is a song that Drozdowski wrote in a motel room after the death of New England folksinger Bill Morrissey in 2011:

Drozdowski is also an award-winning music journalist and noted blues expert, and will be publishing an e-book titled Obsessions of a Music Geek, Vol. 1: Blues Guitar Giants to coincide with the album release. Love & Life will be out July 31 on Dolly Sez Woof.

  • Published on May 20, 2015
Tagged with: Blues, Song Premiere
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