S/D: Thin White Rope?

-Matt, taking a break from spackling.

A mighty fine band, great guitar work as mentioned by Matt, but what made them so good was Guy Kyser's voice. It sounds like it comes from some other place, from the other side of your nightmares. Insinuates itself into your soul. He could sing a nursery rhyme and it'd sound fucking spooky.

A great band live as well. Only saw them once, towards the end (Ruby Sea tour) at the Joiner's Arms in Southampton, but they were as good as I'd hoped.

i've read somewhere (online interview i think) that he's gone back to gardening...

great band. most goodies have been mentioned above. also, i really like their version of some velvet morning.

James is right, Guy Khyser's voice is a crucial part of the band, as are his lyrics (and i don't say that sort of thing very often).

Shout-out to my homie Kris from alt.music.alternative!

-Matt, needing coffee

a few more brief thoughts on Mummydogs -- the album came out last year on the revived http://www.frontierrecords.com/">Frontier label, which is being distributed by http://www.mordamrecords.com">Mordam. a decent return by Guy -- but after TWR, maybe a little too straight up without some of the interplay TWR was especially good at. still nice vocals from Kyser and his wife and sign of perhaps even better things to come if the Mummydogs continue and Kyser finds his footing better with his new group.

Spoor.

the reissue news is grebt! (though i have most of their stuff on vinyl, it would be fantastic if they included some interesting bonus-stuff)

Just re-listening to Moonhead (actually Moonhead...Plus diablo records release), and like above it has been saved from a 'get rid of pile' - damn it's a good record - I just played it back to back with eleventh dream day's 'prairie school freakout' and both rekkids guitars sounds equal desert peyote - real good fun on a Sunday before a ball game.

Their former manager ML Compton has been posting tour stories irregularly on his Myspace site:

http://www.myspace.com/melcompton

One of my very favorite bands. I just love the whole package so much. Guy's basalt vocals, the thick twining snake guitars, the natural-history-tinged lyrics, the twang wedded to the dino-hevviness, the "this is a song about waking up with an acid hangover and a boner".

I miss them so. If I were to send someone home with two of their releases to try'n make a fan outta them, it would be Moonhead and the very well-chosen best-of When Worlds Collide.

FISH!!!

I listened to White Heaven first album the other night and Kurihara's super-scorching guitar sound blew me away as usual.
Suddenly it reminded of Thin White Rope.
The Kyser/ Kunkel interplay was obviously impressive in its Television-inspired detail, but it is the monstrous sound of their guitars that really made TWR. So dark, powerful and impossibly sad.
And the way Guy Kyser concocts haunting, spooky natural images like a cowboy Georg Buechner: "Ants are cavemen" is him channeling a delirious Woyzeck-like enthomologist of sorts and sounding at the same time frightening and funny.
Best 80's American band, period.

:-) Definitely encourage everyone again to check out ML's blog I linked up there for more TWR stories, among many other things. Need to break out the albums again.

I checked it a couple of times and its fun.
Give the albums another try, Ned: the production unfortunately isn't always that good, but the songs are ace. Kyser was a very personal writer. Also no other band in the world is equally in debt with Marty Robbins and Joy Division!

One of my favorite bands of the 80s. So alien, unlike almost anything else, either in their time or out of it. People often mention Television and Paisley Underground contemporaries like the Rain Parade and the Dream Syndicate in describing them, and while that's fair, it doesn't get at how strange they were underneath. Love the snaky, heat shimmer guitar tangles, the super-creepy storytelling and Kyser's wobbly, wierdly affected vocals. They're about the most Halloweeny band I can think of, and the best part is that they manage it without ever resorting to campy spook-show schtick. They rarely sound like they're trying to be scary ("Disney Girl" and the Ruby Sea LP being clear exceptions), but they scare the crap out of me anyway.

'Course, it isn't an accident, either. Most of the lyrics read like ghost stories, and the ones that don't rarely have anything reassuring to say. Creeping you out was obviously a big part of the intent. Still, for all the theatricality, there's never anything forced about it. The vibe of alienation and depersonalization fits with the music and with the subject matter, making it ring true, at least in the sense that it doesn't seem like an act.

Agree that they never really got the production they deserved, but it doesn't bother me much. I like the records the way they are.

Their version of 'Some Velvet Morning' was fantastico.
Fuck - i forgot about the Rope!
Saw them live too. Excellent

Totally love the "Yoo Doo Right" cover.

gygax! started a thread about it once.

TAKING SIDES: "Yoo Doo Right" by THIN WHITE ROPE vs. "Mother Sky" by TH' FAITH HEALERS vs. "The Sad Skinhead" by TRUMANS WATER vs. "Jenny Ondioline" by STEREOLAB

contenderizer: They always reminded me of Television crossed with Skynyrd.

Gimme three steps toward the ghost-cow.

along with thinking fellers, this is one of those bands I'm surprised has/had the cult following they did, they seemed like not such a big deal when around. glad to see shasta still flying the flag for them. what is guy keyser doing now?

also it dawns on me that I actually know someone who was in this band, which I forgot about.

see also:

http://www.myspace.com/acmerocketquartet

Moonhead is a classic (listening right now). I also always had a soft spot for The Ruby Sea, which some seem to find a little slick.

Can't believe I never posted on this thread. Still one of my favourite 80s bands. Moonhead is a deathless uber-classic, especially the title track. One of the few bands where I'm *really* bummed out that I never saw them live properly, only in a tent at the Reading festival, and even in that setting they sounded monstrous.

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erm... I mean this:

#1 on my "reunite for ATP" list.

I only ever had The Ruby Sea, but o how I oved it, "Puppet Dog" especially. That one hit me right away, the rest was a grower. I haven't thought about them in years, but this thread is making want to seek out some of their other records.

Puppet Dog is a great song. One of the best on The Ruby Sea. If you like the Ruby Sea, do seek out Sack Full Of Silver and Moonhead

Moonhead really is a stone classic, but the first album Exploring The Axis is worth seeking out too, especially for the first track 'Down In The Desert' which is fantastic.

also it dawns on me that I actually know someone who was in this band, which I forgot about.

― akm

now I have no idea who I was talking about. who did I know in this band? I know someone who produced them at one point, at least.

More people should cover TWR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KDvgt3rcQ

Damn you Ned for a sec I thought this bump was for a reunion!

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/38867781/Moonhead%20IMG_9238.jpg

xpost -- alas

the pdfs are just the lyrics sheets/booklets as they were before

they were going to do the first 5 albums this year, so I suppose The Ruby Sea is still coming up

The digital version of Moonhead has four extra tracks compared with the original vinyl. As you can see I'm getting tempted here...

Seemed like they shuffled around what was on as extra tracks from previous editions.
I think I had a coupl eo fthose tracks on In The Spanish cave but not sure where Roger's Tongue came from.
Some of that stuff is off the Bottom feeders e.p. isn't it? Not sure about chronology of tracks recording so where they fit.
I saw taht In The Spanish cave had Munich Eunuch again

Can’t wait to compare the sound quality of the new Triangle Song mastering. I don’t want to go into detail rn but there are things about that recording that have really bugged me

One of my favourite songs

Do tell us what bugs you!

Then again, maybe it'll start bugging us all....

do you mean the way someone is fiddling with various instrument volumes all the time and how some of it sounds like liquid stereo (I always imagined they reconstructed that track from tapes they had thrown away initially)? yeah, it's still like that.

Yes. That.

there's probably some clever reason they mixed it like this, but I can't figure it out.

do mixing desks have randomisation buttons with a triangle on and it felt lol funny to use it for this song? (triangle = D = delta = difference in math writing)

That almost sounds like a thing someone would do

Late realization, but watching live videos it's so obvious that Guy Kyser started life as a banjo player. His thumb pick and hand posture are typical Scruggs style.

http://blurtonline.com/feature/story-behind-album-ruby-sea-thin-white-rope/

The Ruby Sea remaster is still coming up + Lisa/Frontier might do an odds and ends compilation and a remaster of The One That Got Away

Thanks for this!

LF: I’ll have to wait and see how the reissues go as I need funds to do more, but I certainly hope so– now or anywhere in the future. Guy knows that I’d have a stroke if he ever wrote a new TWR song and/or if he formed a new band of any kind. (He briefly had a bluegrass band with Roger and I drove up to SF alone the instant that I heard they were playing!) My most fervent dream in life is that Guy will return to music, but mostly I want him to be happy in life whether it includes writing or playing music. It’s just that I’d like for Guy and Roger to finally get their due, something Guy could care less about, I’m sure!

This part from lisa fancher made me cry!

It remains a life ambition of mine to shake guy’s hand. <3

I did NOT know he played with a thumb pick! All throughout twr or just later on when the c&w vibe got stronger?

I would really like fancher to write something long about twr again- her liner notes for the When Worlds Collide comp were so great.

Awesome detail that the lyrics for RS came from a solo wilderness wander to get his head straight

Also the clown song is just such a brilliant piece of writing

Watch live TWR videos and you'll see he plays the guitar with thumb pick. Hand posed like a bluegrass banjo player. Guitar tuned to open G, I'd bet

I remember the Melody Maker review pictured in that article. They were huge TWR fans

I also remember an earlier feature by Everett True, where he ends up joining the chorus at the end of The Fish Song. FISH!!!!

FISH!!!

I think he is credited on the LP

I think the only in depth twr article I remember from the original time was the mondo 2000 interview (which was a really good one). There were always reviews of course. It was a particularity savory review of Moonhead in OPtion magazine that started me.

Mondo 2000 interview: the one that was posted in this very thread on Wednesday, 10 July 2013 ?

I know that Bucketful of Brains have a cover photo of them in Russia. Not sure what the story accompanying it says.

Yeah that’s the mondo interview upthread. Unforgettable

bucketfull of brains cover photo & one page from the interview:

https://www.amazon.com/Bucketfull-Magazine-Sneetches-Holsapple-Plasticland/dp/B00950M1EE

scanned page: https://img.cdandlp.com/2018/01/imgL/119033806.jpg

Interesting how that BoB writer is well aware of the significance of A Can of Bees era Soft Boys and especially “The Pigworker” (especially live!) in this lineage of crushingly glorious twin guitar rock

Russia cover photo apparently ties in with the cover mounted single. I can't find a story on the band in the issue.
Just found it beside my bedm saw back cover advert for Dave Graney's my life in th plains and thought it might be that issue.
Says there are stories in numbers 11; 13 and 25. Russia cover is 33.

https://frontierrecords-thinwhiterope.bandcamp.com/album/the-ruby-sea-2019-remastered-edition

(out next week)

it's out!

Does anyone know if this was remastered in 2019? I've a sneaking feeling it's a reissue of a 2002 remaster

I mean this:

https://www.discogs.com/Thin-White-Rope-The-Ruby-Sea/release/5165366

Was that one remastered though? Discogs usually mentions that where it says "reissue"

The 2019 credit sheet contains "Remastering: Paul du Gré" just like all the other 2018/2019 versions but I don't know for sure about 2002.

I'm thinking this because they seem to be selling that CD as well, as a 2018 product.

I have the 2002 "Exploring..." and it had that same "Remastered etc" sticker on the front

(I'm considering getting the CDs)

Update. I bought Moonhead. Amazon lists it as released in 2018. It looks like the CD on the Bandcamp page:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0012871653_10.jpg

And the barcode tells me its this:

https://www.discogs.com/Thin-White-Rope-Moonhead/release/12507123

Which is reassuring but also confusing as my Exploring the Axis had exactly the same sticker on the front but is apparently a 2002 reissue.

Exploring the Axis is a seriously fucking amazing record

Thin White Rope
1984-05-26
Samurai Sound Labs CA
The Rational demos

(9th in series)

info source:
Lineage: SBD tape (unknown gen) > Apple G4 > AIFF > FLAC

The cassette states that these were recorded at Samurai Sound Labs CA on 1984-05-26.

Anyway this set is ripped from a tape of demos given to Frontier Records and the copy I have is a low generation copy although there is some tape hiss it's still an excellent set.

Total 1:01:10

1. The real west
2. Waking up
3. Moonhead
4. From home
5. Down in the desert
6. Munich Eunich *
7. Here she comes now ** Removed
8. And those fears
9. Not your fault
10. Disney girl
11. Three song
12. Atomic imagery
13. Dead granmas on a train
14. Eleven
15. Mother
16. Exploring the axis
17. Lithium

I wonder if these are the demos produced by Scott Miller that he mentioned in Music: What Happened?

(upon further research I'm thinking: duh, yeah, prolley is...)

The text file with that download contained this, that seems to suggest it prolley ain't:

"There's an article by Joe Becker from the band on their origin in which he makes reference to a several of the demos that the band recorded at this time. I don't *think* that these are the demos produced by Scott Miller (later of Game Theory and the Loud Family) because they date from 1983. Maybe they're the demos produced by Russ Tolman (from True West). Who knows?! They're great anyway.
The cassette had obviously been copied a couple of times before it got to me and there a couple of minor wows and flutters on the tape but, if you're a fan of the Rope, that won't deter you none.

The article can be read at https://web.archive.org/web/20120301130712/http://www.davis80smusic.com/davis80smusic%20thin%20white%20rope%20joe%20becker.htm "

Oh they were called the "Rational demos" and Game Theory self-released their early stuff on "Rational Records"

ok, +1 point for the Scott Miller theory then after all :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6_eVB_c81w

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

I Think I was at that show.
Definitely saw tehm at the venue and assume it would have been that year.

would've been amazing to see them at the boardwalk, great venue! saw both the young gods and fugazi there in 89-ish, perfect sweat-infested box of sound

Thanks for the heads up!