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

i'm surprised they haven't reuinted but maybe i'm not surprised by that after all

Maybe we can force them to, via Kickstarter

Man I love that footage of It's OK, it totally kicks butt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtRRxU5vddg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDCYIyIhLc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60B-TlpfIUg

There's a scorching tape from '88 up on D1m3adozen right now, recorded in Germany and it's EX quality. God damn, this band.

ty for that, maresnest

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.

― MaresNest, Sunday, March 29, 2009 3:57 AM (4 years ago)

tbh, i prefer the debut to moonhead, though they're both great. don't think they wrote a song as "disney girl" until "astronomy".

lol, a song as good as "disney girl", but either way yeah

When World's Collide was a great compi and also hangs together as both an lp and individual tracks.
THink I also have a live set on my walkman.

The website of Kyser's lyrics was quite revelatory though I fear it is long gone. I'd tried to note down his lyics by listening line by line to a tape of lps and failed wholesale since his points of reference seem to be way outside my own, or at least twisted slightly askew.

Do wish there was more video footage of them around, though I've yet to see The One That Got Away, the cd of that gig is pretty great though.

I'd tried to note down his lyics by listening line by line to a tape of lps and failed wholesale since his points of reference seem to be way outside my own, or at least twisted slightly askew.

yeah, i've done this too, though not with a tape. worked out a bunch, though several key tracks remain mysterious.

XXXXP - Moonhead probably remains my favorite by virtue of it being the first TWR record I'd heard. I think I rewound Come Around like 6 times and sat boggle eyed at the ferocity of the vocals.

i think "Take it Home" might be my favorite twr track now. I wish the already lengthy coda were ten times as long.

I wonder if I could
Enter suburban homes
Say 'hi' to trusty dogs
Soothe them with meaty bones
Wander from room to room
Moonlight on every bed
Haloes my chosen one
The axis in her head

the axis buried is a pivot in your head
around which buried things revolve that
most people leave unsaid
and it's probably a good idea
'cause things could happen in your town
the police come by coincidence and
find it written down

Well this thread caused 'Exploring the Axis' to get pulled out. Sounding great now... Guess Moonhead will be next.

You could do a hella decent twilight zone style short story antho based just off the first album's lyrics

I think Moonhead is, to my ears, the only TWR album that actually SOUNDS fantastic. Which is a heartbreaking shame to me bc every one of the albums is a masterpiece. Spanish Cave is like Raw Power levels of mixing wrongness and there is something abt the sound on Sack Full that drives me up the fuckin wall.

Totally agree ... 'The One That Got Away' kinda makes up for any studio production mis-steps.

Like WTF is happening with the volume levels of the gtr on Triangle Song? What the hell is that? Some kind of noise gate keyed to the cymbals?

Xpost otm. Best fucking double live ever.

otm. they rarely if ever got the production/mix they deserved. someone's weird fondness for relentless, crashing snare hits amidst relative calm nearly wrecks a bunch of songs throughout their career. and yeah, moonhead sounds awesome, but i think i prefer the songs on exploring and sack full of silver. also strange to compare their fairly restrained studio albums to the devastating, almost metal-heavy live band documented on the one that got away (and elsewhere).

You could do a hella decent twilight zone style short story antho based just off the first album's lyrics

oh hell yeah (i am mr agreement). all the way through, really, from "disney girl" to "the ruby sea". strange tales.

which is to say "hell yeah" some more

Anyone who has not read the interview with guy done for mondo 2000 in 1991 or so should google it up. Interviewer was Richard white.

found this:

THE GEOLOGIC SYSTEMS OF THIN WHITE ROPE

An Interview with Guy Kyser by David Turin

"Where man is not, nature is barren."

-William Blake, Proverbs of hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

"I fun tate plat!" Guy Kyser shouts from the immense gray slope of the LA River flood bank. He looks and sounds indigenous.

"Wha dyu say?" I yell from the middle of the LA River. I'm seated on a rotten chair Kyser found, posing for a photograph. The chair teeters, threatens to dump me in the toilet-blue chemical gravy - 95% treated sewage effluent, 3% hypodermics, used condoms, dead dogs, 2% mystery meat - I'm told. Wrapped waist-high in forest green polypropylene, the photographer and I haul our stinking cargo over the bank to check out what he's onto.

"I found a tomato plant", he exclaims upon our approach. "Oh", we say, index fingers swinging elliptically in our minds. Then it dawns on us how amazing it really is - not only that there's an edible nightshade growing there in Garbage Pail Kid turf, but that Kyser would recognize its leprous silverish growth. It occurs to us that Kyser is admirably equipped for survival in the sewers and stormdrains of LA or other post-apocalyptic environments.

Thin White Rope singer/songwriter/guitarist Kyser deals with the man/science interface: the poesy of a human being set against mysterious, uncompromising natural laws. Thin White Rope (a Burroughs code word for semen) is what Kyser uses to suture together past present and future. The result is the Frankenstein monster of Thin White Rope sound - mirthful and eerie at once. There's the batter of Kyser's feedback soloing and living-dead vocals and Matt Abourezk's Bonhamesque drum pummeling. The emotions are hazy, subliminal in the effervescent buzz of geologic time. In the lyrical foreground, there are petrologic daydreams, tectonic veerings, climatic spasms, screened through the distraction of the seasons.

Kyser was born in Ridgecrest, California's Los Alamos, the son of a physicist. The band is based in Davis, CA. Where Kyser studied geology and now works part-time as a lab and field technician in the UC Davis agriculture department. The growing success of the band, he swears, won't deprive him of his great job cruising horizonless fields in an Andromeda Strain uniform hosing down beans with weird white test snows.

Thin White Rope has released four critically acclaimed albums, Exploring The Axis, Moonhead, In The Spanish Cave (all in Frontier) and Sack Full of Silver (RCA). The band's fifth album, The Ruby Sea, is currently circling the globe.

-David Turin

MONDO 2000: Has geology made you what you are today?

Guy Kyser: Geology - the concept of geologic time - tends to make an existentialist out of you. A living-for the-moment-type, where no matter how worked up you get about whatever's going on, you realize there'll be a situation even vaguely resembling this for only a few thousand years more.

MONDO 2000: Geologically speaking, how would you describe yourself?

Guy Kyser: I would say mud flow, but that wouldn't be very flattering. How about a horn-a point made by passing glaciers.

MONDO 2000: Where in time would you most like to be?

Guy Kyser: If it was an extended visit, I'd probably enjoy the 1920's. But for just a short-term peek, I'd say one of the ice ages. The cold caused everything to get bigger, hairier and more intriguing.

MONDO 2000: In your opinion, what's the difference between an archaeopteryx and a pterodactyl?

Guy Kyser: Well, they're starting to think that pterodactyls might have had feathers too. They might have been warm-blooded. There's no reason to suppose that feathers just all of a sudden popped out on archaeopteryx. Normally, fossils don't show feathers too well. Archaeopteryx is a very unusual, finely preserved fossil, so it's quite possible that other animals had feathers which didn't show up.

TYCHO BRAHE'S GOLD NOSE?

MONDO 2000: How do you approach songwriting from a scientific perspective?

Guy Kyser: There's a lot of mathematics in it. I've been trying to come up with a manifesto - why some melodies work and some don't - because it's puzzled me for a long time. A lot of my melodies are one precise interval carried up and down the scale. When that doesn't work, you have to bend it a bit. Decide where to bend the rule is what makes a melody work. If you come up with a rule for a whole song, and it doesn't work, then you find a logical, geometric place to shift into a different key. There's a definite logic behind melody. I have no idea why.

MONDO 2000: Would you say that say that soul, the irrational aspect of being, is a component of logic?

Guy Kyser: It's what allows you to make logical leaps. That's how you fill in the gaps between two logical paths.

MONDO 2000: What role does science play in your lyrics?

Guy Kyser: There's a lot of references to paleontology and botany, and a lot of metaphors. I don't ride on those things, though, because you can get clinical real fast. Science is as fertile a ground for metaphor as religion or sailing ships. You just have to be careful about getting too esoteric.

MONDO 2000: How did growing up in the household of a nuclear physicist influence your interest in science?

Guy Kyser: It just made it an accepted part of life. Some guys are really comfortable around cars or horses, I happen to have grown up around physics.

MONDO 2000: On the last album, you give a poetic and geometric description of some of the songs. Is there a geometric pattern for how your songs are sculpted? Are there any geometric shapes you try to duplicate?

Guy Kyser: A lot of them are like angular spirals. They keep coming back to the beginning, but not quite - moving on a little bit in each circle.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INTERVIEW CLICHE?

MONDO 2000: What symbol would you use to describe Thin White Rope?

Guy Kyser: What comes to mind is this comic book I had called Korak, Son of Stone. Korak kills and skins a dinosaur to make boots to walk across burning lava. He negotiates the lava flow by wearing dinosaur-skin boots. That kind of sounds like some of the songs.

MONDO 2000: What authors have most influenced your scientific perspective?

Guy Kyser: Stephen Jay Gould and Isaac Asimov.

MONDO 2000: I saw some William Gibson books on your shelf.

Guy Kyser: He's the technological side of things. He uses technology and humanity almost interchangeably. It's not my strong suit, but I like the way he does it.

MONDO 2000: One of the scary themes in your songs is the notion of the ideal being elusive because, due to some historical mishap, it was never created.

Guy Kyser: That notion drives a lot of writing. It's a lot better than a negative motive - a couple of songs on our first album were completely hate inspired. And it gets reinterpreted as scary, but it's not scary - it's awe. It's awefulness.

TECHNO-BABEL

MONDO 2000: Do computers ever figure into your art?

Guy Kyser: They never have. I'm a little worried that if everyone developed some amount of computer knowledge, then anyone would be able to create anything they envisioned. It makes me feel a little insecure about having spent all my time learning on these mechanical instruments. On the other hand, people who are limited because they are physically uncoordinated would be able to create, so we'll probably discover a lot of genius. The only thing I'm really worried about is computer technology and smaller technology-like desktop publishing and home cassette duplication - saturating the world with information. It's nice to be able to pick and choose, but at the same time, you could spend your whole life doing nothing but sorting through information.

MONDO 2000: Do you think the overload of information makes it harder to find oneself?

Guy Kyser: No, you can find yourself more easily. But it's a lot harder to get someone else to pay attention once you do. Everyone's already overloaded.

MONDO 2000: You seem to talk the Frankenstein's monster of technology.

Guy Kyser: It's a bit like a Tower of Babel. People just keep slamming stuff onto it without having a chance to assimilate everything that's come before. Pretty soon it will be impossible to assimilate even the story of your own field, much less the history of all the fields that should be learned to understand what you're doing.

BEEFHEART 'N' BEER

MONDO 2000: Who are some of your musical influences?

Guy Kyser: Captain Beefheart was probably the biggest. I don't know how much he shows up in the music, but what I feel is more from him than anyone else. The Velvet Underground and the Stooges probably show up a lot more in the music. The Ramones and the Sex Pistols had a lot to do with getting me pissed off enough to get in a band in the first place.

MONDO 2000: What role does beer play in what you do?

Guy Kyser: Fortunately, it's a very low-tech kind of behavior. Beer is regression. Beer is 10,000 years of de-evolution in every bottle.

MONDO 2000: Are you sick of the critics heaping Thin White Rope in with cow skulls and Saguaros and peyote?

Guy Kyser: We set out on a deliberate campaign to disassociate ourselves from that.

MONDO 2000: What replaces the desert imagery?

Guy Kyser: There are no big scale schemes. It's all determined by song-writing. I seem to be heading into ocean imagery now. Again, it's not a concept. It's just a crank metaphor. I'm fond of using the ocean because it's three dimensional. In the desert you can't get any more down than you are. In the ocean you've got another seven miles to go.

- MONDO 2000

noted:

I'm a little worried that if everyone developed some amount of computer knowledge, then anyone would be able to create anything they envisioned. It makes me feel a little insecure about having spent all my time learning on these mechanical instruments. On the other hand, people who are limited because they are physically uncoordinated would be able to create, so we'll probably discover a lot of genius. The only thing I'm really worried about is computer technology and smaller technology-like desktop publishing and home cassette duplication - saturating the world with information. It's nice to be able to pick and choose, but at the same time, you could spend your whole life doing nothing but sorting through information.

was that the one? if so, thanks, good read, cool dude.

Oh yeah duh, crossed wires Richard white was the guy who interviewed Robyn Hitchcock for mondo 2000. That is indeed the kyser classic I was remembering.

just read the hitchcock one. fantastic. now sort of bummed i never read mondo 2K while it was around. i could never quite get over the mondo.

Roaches have existed since the dawn of time
Have seven brains without a mind
Have seven mouths for every brain
They can live without us just the same

love that fucking song, the percussive little feedback stabs. listened to it obsessively the year it came out. one of the few studio recordings captures that crushing live intensity (though you gotta turn it way the hell up to really feel it).

one gene lets you buy your way
one gene makes you sad
one gene makes her shake and cling
and that one, i don't have

^ seems a cheerful fellow

I covered that one ('It's OK') back in my Seattle days with my stupid band that never played anywhere. That song was v hard on the drummer. Also one of the hardest Kyser vocals to decipher-- I'm impressed by what you just typed!

wow cool, would love to have seen someone/anyone cover thin white rope. band name?

i spent some time a while back trying to write down every thin white rope lyric, w special emphasis on the inscrutable one. kyser seems to write a lot of ghost stories, but it's often hard to be sure.

(ones)

Dave I saw your tiny fist around a leper's tit
Jesus walked right by you and you didn't give a shit
Andy killed an animal, he killed it with his hand
And gave it all to me because I was a woman then

I remember Clay was turning blue from some disease
He picked up in London in the 1470's
Got to laugh at Lloyd, he will deny it to his death
That he's the one who never could extract that pound of flesh

That clip of It's OK up-thread never fails to kill.

somehow it'd never occurred to me before, but having read that interview, i'm listening to "down in the desert", and it's like, beefheart, duh. influence is v obvious, that staggered little bump-banana-bump bass/guitar riff on the verse.

she throws firebombs on the highway
glass flashing and the bushes burrrning
on both sides, so far away at night
in the rearview watching twin red lights

she's not an insect, i just
hear that humming in my mind
not an insect, not her eyes...

"soundtrack" is the best fucking song, so thrilling & mysterious (and creepy as hell)

do sometimes find myself wishing becker were a more more interesting drummer (sorry). that careening midsong transition needs muscle & fire, something more than polite timekeeping.

those first couple of minutes of Red Sun are pretty damn sublime, aren't they just?

"Red Sun" is one of those songs like "Guest Informant" where every version is the best version. One of my all time favorite slide guitar riffs too.

When Guy sings the first line of Red Sun I get goosebumps, the way he bends the word 'down' is fantastic.

OHHH LORD YYE

EEAAAHHH

Impossible to decide what the best bit of Red Sun is. There's a lot to be said for those trumpets you know.

Just found out that TWR were booked on Pan AM Flight 103 but missed the connection, jeez.

hadn't heard that either. blimey!

John Lydon too, according to Wiki

Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood was supposed to be on the flight too

my friend thomas was supposed to be on that flight, and then was. con

...grats to celebrity disaster avoidance tho

This is one of those bands I've always meant to hear (remember Byron Coley writing up In the Spanish Cave for Spin) but have never actively sought out. But now the whole catalog is on Spotify, so hooray! A new band to investigate on vacation!

everyone reps for moonhead, but spanish cave is a miracle, iffy production and all

Every album is great except to some extent The Ruby Sea.

I love The Ruby Sea, not a weak album in their discography imo. Sure it's their slickest, but on songs like Puppet Dog this works so well against the (still) gritty nature/intent of the material.

Well if it isn't about the time of year for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlVvfIV3eO4

just wish it went on for longer than 30 seconds

this is from the same session though and this is truly great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtRRxU5vddg

not seen this before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsrOX35dMGI

Yeah that was not there last time I searched them on YouTube.

Valley of the Bones is such a great song.

Really good '88 audience recording just gone up on D1m3

ooh no shit? I don't have a membership there but maybe it will appear on some other trrnt sites.

It's actually not as great as I thought quality wise, but it's still pretty smart, any live TWR seems to be often more enjoyable than the records.

only ever caught them once live in a festival tent but they were a mighty force of nature if that was anything to go by

Thin White Rope - December 2, 1989 Cattle Club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwwUWAtfq7Y

Wow, this has to have been one of the earliest threads in my ilm career. Thanks me for reminding me to listen to Thin White Rope tonight.

Brilliant find, thanks NB!

thx x 1000 !

oooh, there are 2 more shows on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uPMMPSEew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn33_mlrtEU

What does The Ghost remind me of? Can't put my finger on it, thinking of something Neil Young/Springsteen covering Woody Guthrie kinda thing?

it's amazing grace w/ new lyrics

Duh. Ok, thx

a surprise glimpse of twr on the guardian homepage this morning:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/mar/24/cult-heroes-thin-white-rope-were-scorched-alien-hostile

he sang as though his insides were clogged by some mighty existential furball and he was trying to cough it out song by song.

lol & otfm

as i've said before, any day where there's new writing about twr is a good day!

Last I heard, Kyser had formed some kind of demonic bluegrass band, which is a pleasing thought.

yeah i never heard about this either!

Supposedly as of 2014, Kyser had sold off all of his guitars and has been steadily rejecting reunion offers.

reunion offers from kunkel and the other dudes or...?

i love guy whether he ever plays/writes again or not. would love to get the chance to shake his hand though TBH.

Don't have specifics. Probably the usual suspects: Part Time Punks in LA, Primavera Sound, other band members.

what did ppl itt think of the Mummydogs album? I liked it, would've liked to hear them develop further

I don't wonder if TWR ever got hit up for somebody's Meltdown or ATP once or twice.

just noticed that MOONHEAD is thirty years old this month

Turned into a TWR sorta day. Found myself pondering the similarities between Black Hole Sun and the Triangle Song - not just the sonic similarities which are fairly strong imo, but the whole shared theme of astronomical bodies as some sort of solution to existential pain.

Thanks for the revive, that live clip of "It's OK" upthread just kills so much, it will always be to my lasting regret that I never got to see them.

yes that clip is a total monster

attempt at a twr pox:
it's ok
red sun
moonhead
crawl piss freeze
down in the desert
if those tears
wet heart
some velvet morning
fish song
triangle song

did this show ever get posted?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa8c2Ow988k

Groningen, 1990

One of those bands I've always meant to check out but never actually got around to... Listening to Moonhead and loving the spiralling guitars. Trying to work out if the drummer is that type who plays heavy and behind the beat or if he's actually slowing down?

i don't know really tbh. big thwacking drums are a big part of their sound though, also a feeling of being inexorably sucked into a bog

The Ruby Sea was my first TWR love. I know most people don't rate it so high, but... Such a great band. They deserve a massive boxset

THere are a lot of audio live sets around which show that at their best they were about as hypnotic as Television. LOve the band.
& some of the most oblique lyrics ever. Seeing them written down finally made sense of things I'd meticulusly gone over cassette tapes trying to transcribe back at the end of the 80s.

Yeah I remember looking up the lyrics to Come Around and being kinda repulsed and fascinated.

They had so much goddamn magic

Blasting The One That Got Away tonight. Bless 'em.
Think the link for this one was posted a long time ago and no longer working, let me put here for ya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VzUzKV_h-Y

THere have been a load of live sets upped to Dime over the last couple of weeks i think including a few i hadn't seen before.

what a beast of a band

Xpost argh these words taunt me

On D!m@dozen now! Has anybody heard these?

Thin White Rope
1986-03-xx
The Frontier Demos
recorded @ an unidentified studio

SBD >> ? >> unknown generation Maxell UR cassette >> Cool Edit 2000 (normalised both channels to 0 db and cleaned up the silences between songs) >> CD Wave >> Flac level 6 >> you

TT 46:20

1. Wire animals 4:05
2. Ants are cavemen 4:07
3. Come around 2:30
4. Take it home 4:48
5. Waking up 3:27
6. Not your fault 3:52
7. If those tears 3:18
8. Tina & Glen 2:59
9. Valley of the bones 2:39
10. Timing 3:56
11. Moonhead 5:30
(12.) Munich Eunich * Removed
13. Mother 5:07

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

How do us mere mortals who don't have access to exclusive stuff to upload get our hands on that kind of thing?

Pleaaaasssse ysi

Here 'tis. - https://we.tl/fOhnN10LMg

There's a mess of other stuff gone up over the last week too, live gigs and some more demos.

Hah, just noticed Steveolende's post upthread

wooooo! thanks!

Yeah I was just about to add comment about that stuff cos I don't think I have come across anything that early before.

"Tina and Glen" already demoed in 1986?

I'm happy to go through the rest of it and paste it up here.

Listening to the 1984 ones now. What a windfall

Are there any shows from right after moonhead in good sound?

Hoo boy this demo of down in the desert!!

THIN WHITE ROPE 1985-12-11 Berkeley (CA) USA -Berkeley Square - [SBD-recording] check for nice sound ->mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE - 1985-12-22 - KPFK Spin Radio Los Angeles - FM (Remaster) - From the valley of Lost Angels! -

THIN WHITE ROPE - Limit Club, Sheffield, UK, October 17, 1988 * Requested re-seed * w sample

THIN WHITE ROPE - Dingwalls, London, October 10, 1988 * Requested re-seed * w sample

THIN WHITE ROPE - Vera, Groningen, Netherlands, March 31, 1988, Sbd * Requested re-seed * w sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1984-1994 -"Hidden Lands" (an unreleased collection of Live Recordings.. Demos and Outtakes) - check mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1985-10-02 KPFK, 90.7 FM, Los Angeles, CA (USA) "Spin Radio" check mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1991-09-06 Odense (Danmark) Rytmeposten {very nice AUD} check mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1991-02-02 Davis (CA) USA - Veterans Memorial Theatre - [AUD-rec] - check mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1990-05-20 Hamburg (Germany) Markthalle - AUD master - check mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1986-10-24 San Francisco - CA (USA) Viz Club [SBD - recording] RESEED check mp3 sample

THIN WHITE ROPE 1989-07-03 Camden Town, London UK -The Falcon- (AUD) (reseed) check mp3 sample

Which was soon forgotten in the wake of the jaw dropping Munich eunuch that follows (xpost to self)
I want to talk about twr for a second. The recipe that made them so amazing. For one thing, these guys really knew how to drag the tempo to make shit heavy as living fuck. It’s that which distinguishes an inexorable tank from a limbered-up 80 foot sauropod

Wow that list

kind of depressing that even in 1989 at the height ov their powers they were playing grimy shitholes like the camden falcon. would have loved to have been there though

is there a reason for this sudden revival?

Yeah is there? it'd be amazing if there were a reason! Even a reason as modest as 'Guy told a dude it was fine to share a bunch of live tapes.'

kind of depressing that even in 1989 at the height ov their powers they were playing grimy shitholes like the camden falcon. would have loved to have been there though

I was there, it was a packed back room of a pub in the middle of a heatwave, the poor drummer passed out after a while as I recall it. Probably the hottest gig I ever went to. They got shitloads of press in the UK but never got past cult status. Too odd I guess!

moonhead and something else are getting a reissue (on colored vinyl) soon. glad to see this band getting interest again. would be nice for keyser to rise from whatever swamp he now inhabits and play some shows again.

he's just doing botany for UC Davis iirc (NB this may be occurring in a swamp)

is Sack the other one besides moonhead getting reissued? I could use a remaster of Sack. It's a weird kinda weak sounding album (well I guess they all are except Moonhead. But Sack is musically maybe their best one and I wish it had more roundness and oomph)

Wow at that list maresnest posted. Hope someone can hit me up with a wetransfer link when I get back home in a couple of weeks...

Wow at that list maresnest posted. Hope someone can hit me up with a wetransfer link when I get back home in a couple of weeks.....

So happy when I found a sealed copy of Sack in Copenhagen a couple of years ago. It was the first TWR record I bought after being mesmerised by a video that I saw on mtv's 120 minutes in 1991.

Yeah is there? it'd be amazing if there were a reason! Even a reason as modest as 'Guy told a dude it was fine to share a bunch of live tapes.'

I will grab them all from DAD and throw them up here and perhaps anyone misses the Wetransfer links folks can share them out again.

Gah *perhaps if anyone misses

As for a revival, quite often, on Dime, you'll get a seam of live tapes from a band simply because some collector has gotten around to archiving files from their cassette/DAT/quarter-inch tape collection.

Then often other folks see it and throw their hat in and you get a bit of a nice thing happening.

I will grab them all from DAD and throw them up here and perhaps anyone misses the Wetransfer links folks can share them out again.

1985-12-22 - KPFK Los Angeles Spin Radio
1985-12-11 - Berkeley SBD

https://we.tl/qtYulFafcq

http://mlcompton.blogspot.ae/2009/01/thin-white-rope-under-covers.html?m=1
A word about audience recordings. With the permission of the band, I always had a policy of allowing the audience to record any and all of the band's live shows. I actively encouraged live bootlegs. I've always felt that bootlegs were the ultimate tribute to a band. If no one cared, there would be no bootlegs. (Bootlegged studio recordings were another matter though and Frontier and I actively shot several of those down.) If I saw someone taping the show, I always introduced myself, told the person it was okay, and asked for a copy of the recording. This worked out great as we ended up with recordings of "Little Doll" and "Skinhead" that were used on singles. And there were no recording costs! To this day, if I see a listing for a TWR show that I don't have, I ask for a copy. Some of the best TWR recordings are on these tapes. (For example, I love the sound of the "drowning dinosaur" guitars on "Little Doll".)

thankig u again (xp)

Thin White Rope - Hidden Lands - a 2cd collection
Thin White Rope - 1986-04-30 Charlotte NC - aud

https://we.tl/qisyyF1Ox7

MaresNest for presidetn!

:)

Thin White Rope - 1988-10-17 Sheffield
Thin White Rope - 1988-10-10 Dingwalls

https://we.tl/ZE6tQbWdPi

Happy day!

Here are three I encountered over the years from various places :

1988-10-22 - Backnang, DE, JuZe (SBD) - flac, urschrei collection 009
1990-06-05 - Arena, Vienna, Austria (excellent audience, mp3) (from when the links still worked here: http://thenewdisease.blogspot.com/2008/02/love-i-could-have-known.html )
1991-09-21 - Ehingen, DE (Ehinger Festival 4) flac - spliced together from two AUD tapes, ok but not great

https://we.tl/ct1I282eoN

Thin White Rope - 1988-10-17 Sheffield
Thin White Rope - 1988-10-10 Dingwalls

did try to see them on that tour but I walked all the way across manchester in the rain only to find the venue shut down for the night and not another soul in sight. still don’t know what went wrong, but in the pre-internet era, that wasn’t the only time shit like that happened to me

There's an extensive, if patchy, piece on the manager's blog about TWR tours in the UK (one night was a TWR/MBV double bill!!!!). One was organised by an English guy and there were a number of planned gigs at places that turned out to be not booked by the time they got there - yours was probably one of those...

http://mlcompton.blogspot.com/2009/08/thin-white-rope-in-united-kingdom.html

2018 - the year Frontier Records finally reissues Thin White Rope's first five albums! The first two, releasing... https://t.co/6TG3ycJeEL

— Frontier Records (@frontierrcds) March 4, 2018

remastered, too

https://frontierrecords-thinwhiterope.bandcamp.com/album/exploring-the-axis-2018-remastered-edition
https://frontierrecords-thinwhiterope.bandcamp.com/album/moonhead-2018-remastered-edition

FUCCCCCK YESSSSSS

sweet!

Bandcamp versions of the third fourth and fifth LPs are currently the original tracklists (and presumably original masterings) - are we to understand that all of them will get remastered? (Sack + Cave + Ruby need it by far the most)

Because for a second I was caught by the Entire Discography bargain bundle but then looked at the other items in the bundle and was like oh wait no

I would expect so, they didn't explicitly announce that the first two would be and they are remastered

yeah, that bundle almost got me too :-)

Fucking exciting

Best American rock band of the 80s if I haven’t said that itt lately

Wow! I remember my cassette having the long version of Take It Home, nice one Frontier!

Thin White Rope 1985-10-02 KPFK L.A (CA) Spin Radio Show
Thin White Rope - 1988-03-31 Vera

https://we.tl/vzVH25PES8

willem/stan - thanks a lot for the heads up on that blog, hadn’t see it before - looks pretty entertaining from the bit I skimmed

Thin White Rope 1990-05-20 Hamburg Markthalle AUD
Thin White Rope 1991-09-06 Odense (DK) Rytmeposten AUD

https://we.tl/vwGDYqiFon

There's another five shows that have gone up over the last couple of days, I grabbed four (one was 'mediocre' in the descrip)

Thin White Rope 1991-02-02 Davis CA Veterans Memorial Theater AUD
Thin White Rope 1986-10-24 San Francisco Viz Club SBD

https://we.tl/IxwxA17sCQ

Yeah I've known ML for many years, and indeed he has tales galore about that any plenty of other bands, but obviously quite a lot about TWR.

And thanks obv to MaresNest for the heads up on all these new tapes. Great stuff!

there's a phrasing in that frontier records blast that is tantalizing me

'thin white rope's first five albums'

does that just mean 'the live album is the sixth album and we aren't reissuing that one?'

cause otherwise it implies there is... more

or maybe they're counting bottom feeders and red sun?

Thanks to MaresNest again x infinity !

xpost or Spoor, more sensibly

hmm

Thin White Rope - 1991-09-07- Aalborg.
Thin White Rope - 1989-07-03 Camden Town London (UK) aud.

https://we.tl/HbJU104Vqq

that camden one is referred to as legendary in the blog by the tour manager guy (i think)

IMPORTANT: I am listening to one of the '88 shows. I don't even know which one. The point is the extended coda of It's OK is peak humanity

Also... in the same show... the vocal performance on Some Velvet Morning... how is this possible

I'm just starting to dig into all of these myself, the Odense '91 gig is great, good weighty sound, some nice covers too, Silver Machine!

OMG now they are jamming the sickest possible jam over the peter gunn bassline (this song did not start as peter gunn)

<3 jon

i srsly love peoples continuing enthusiasm for the music of this crazy band

They are the only ones who combined all my favorite ingredients! They have intricate interlocking lead guitars, immense saurian heaviness, single-minded hypno drumming, and hilarious/heartbreak lyrics drawn from the natural sciences!

Really if they had hushed semi-ambient improvs and the occasional oboist I would need no other music.

This was the one I was listening to this afternoon btw:
1988-10-22 - Backnang, DE, JuZe (SBD) - flac, urschrei collection 009

HeartbreakING lyrics

That's the last of the recent ones, if you guys aren't fed up yet I can go back and cherry pick the better quality older torrents, let me know.

Thin White Rope 1990-06-02 Hanau Kulturbasar (aud)
Thin White Rope 1987-09-11 Siracusa FM
Thin White Rope - 1990-02-16 San Francisco

https://we.tl/AtHCjPHavc

I say keep em coming (perhaps selected according to decent sound quality) cause for me, some of the shows are a bit too shitty sounding for me to really dig, so the more good sounding ones the better!

Camden uploaded yesterday is indeed the one described in Compton’s blog and it slays. Sounds like track 12 at 2:20 is where Matt Abourezk passes out? Perhaps the two Guy solo songs prior to that are the band giving him a break.

I think there's another 3 that look like decent quality, the Hanau Kulturbasar '90 from the last upload is fantastic, nice long show, great sound.

are there Ruby Sea demos floating about?

Not that I've seen, just that one track, "Dinosaur' from the Hidden Lands boot.

That Camden gig, right at the end someone says 'sorry, but we're going to have to go and evaporate for a while...' :)

lolol i just heard that bit a half hour ago but couldn't quite make it out

Jon, which show would you recommend overall? I'd like to listen, but don't think I can go through them all.

Camden and Vienna of the ones I’ve been able to listen to so far. And both volumes of demos. Lots to hear still though

Sorry Backnang and Camden!

Thanks Jon!!

Thin White Rope 1990-06-02 Hanau Kulturbasar is a great, all-round later show too.

That ones next on deck for me!

there's also this 1992 ROIO (haven't heard or checked all the links yet) : http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=900

Thin White Rope - 1988-04-02 - Goez Beest, Amsterdam, NL - Sbd
Thin White Rope - 1988-09-29 - Vera, Groningen, Netherlands

Two remaining Dime seeds, the Amsterdam one is especially good. Vera is a different show from the one previously linked.

https://we.tl/3BWyMgZjXQ

1990 Hanau np for me. Great sound, on-it performance. Still in the first half

it makes me a bit sad that Guy never seems to have done that bellowing OHHH LORD YEAHHH live

A bit cash-strapped but gonna jump on these while white vinyl remains, feel like I'll regret it if I don't

(ok, that ROIO thing doesn't work 100% - sorry)

someone's weird fondness for relentless, crashing snare hits amidst relative calm nearly wrecks a bunch of songs throughout their career

― twerking for obvious reasons (contenderizer), Tuesday, July 9, 2013 11:52 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hoping someone will address this on the remasters but it's also sorta how the drums were played - part of the sound, I guess

These demos are great! Never really made the connection before (though maybe it's obvious given the region) but some of these early tunes sound like Savage Republic with Lemmy on vocals

definitely some shared dna with the SR guitarists, that death-surf snakecharming thing

Davis ain't the Mojave (say), but yeah, definitely California scene connections at work.

i tend to think licher, kyser, kunkel, verlaine all had their fair share of shadows and ventures LPs

I bet a great book could be written about this period (distinct from the punk scene covered in We've Got The Neutron Bomb, various books about X, etc), if it hasn't already. My southern California rock timeline / education is definitely a bit blurry. How much did bands like TWR intersect--socially or otherwise--with bands like Rain Parade, Green On Red, Bangles, etc?

I was trying to recall how I got into TWR, and I'm sure it was because I was chasing down Paisley Underground bands and I saw them - in the press - mistakenly lumped in with Rain Parade, Three O'Clock et al. But then, so were The Long Ryders and Green On Red.

I wonder if any of the desert rock/stoner bands of the very late 80's/90's dug these guys.

There was a great fanzine in the UK called Bucketful of Brains which provided an overview of those variously loosely connected scenes, they would write about The Plimsouls, Lyres, Rain Parade, Three O'Clock, Long Ryders, Baraccudas, REM, Fuzztones, TWR, Soft Boys that sort of thing.

The elephant in the room not named yet: Dream Syndicate.

with TV as the elephant's dad

this band is really good but man...the singer really tries my patience

Out

Haha! Oh man...

https://image.ibb.co/gWyfcx/acres_front.jpg https://image.ibb.co/kVTVcx/acres_back.jpg

^ This is how I first heard TWR, bought from a high street chain for £1.99 which in today's money is probably about two pounds. Zippo were a UK label that specialised in rootsy US rock, I think they started from a shop and then got bought out by Demon. Those sorts of bands were getting a bit of a push in the UK at the time, Green On Red would get on the cover of Melody Maker and Sounds but I don't think anyone really bought their records tbh. There's some good tracks on it (e.g. 'Pure Heart' by the Wild Seeds is a bit corny but gorgeous, and 'Thin Line Man' by Giant Sand was an early high-water mark for Mr Gelb and also kind of invented the Pixies imo), but honestly a lot of it is kind of meat'n''tatoes, riffy, strummy fare. 'Moonhead' really leapt out at me, majestic and mysterious and monstrous in equal measure. Was really getting into Television and the Meat Puppets' Up On The Sun at the time, and I felt it had more in common with that sort of thing than with the rest of the bands on the comp.

Was really getting into Television and the Meat Puppets' Up On The Sun at the time, and I felt it had more in common with that sort of thing

For sure.

Xposts I mean I get that if there’s one thing that might have militated against rampant thin white rope love all over the world, it’s Guy’s voice. Same thing with imo the other best band of that decade - there’s plenty of people who just can’t deal with MES vocals and I believe them.

But Guy’s voice is just so good, so perfect. I wouldn’t change a single node.

Also even with the distancing effect of the vox couldn’t they have at least been as popular as the fall? :(

Calling any underachieving band "underrated" is obviously an overused rock crit cliche (as is saying "'underrated' is an overused rock crit cliche") but if it ever applied to any band, it's this one. Really, the fact that they weren't even in the conversation after a certain point is mind boggling (see also: Lift To Experience)

Anyone with any insights as to why? Maybe it was personal? Drugs? Maybe they were dicks to everyone? None of those factors prevented scores of other bands (some even appearing on that comp) from getting recognition, at least for a little while (looking at you, Dan Stuart)

The record biz has always been cruel and unfair, huh?

Yeah idk

They put out a record a year which were all great and sometimes masterpieces, the records were readily obtainable, enough critics liked them, they toured like fuck and (I’m surmising from recorded evidence) played hard at every show, seems like they acted like clowns offstage while touring but not unusually so.

Am I right that they more or less stopped because of frustration + weariness with their sheer underratedness? It pains me. There could have been more of these songs.

It would have been interesting if they'd been able to persist for a couple of years more, with the weird Krautrock edges starting to resurface among newer bands at the time like Stereolab. But people will make their decisions.

am only semi serious here but they were never buddies with sonic youth unlike dinosaur jr or nirvana or mudhoney or whoever. mind you, the lunachicks were and it's been a long while since i heard them played in asda

I guess I forgot one factor
Bad band name, not catchy sounding and also pretty gross when you unpack it
But that never stopped (lists a zillion terribly formed names of successful bands)

Am I right that they more or less stopped because of frustration + weariness with their sheer underratedness? It pains me. There could have been more of these songs.

― when worlds collide I'll see you again (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, March 14, 2018 10:59 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's a cycle, though, innit? Like, you get called "underrated" and "overlooked" in enough reviews, that becomes your story, because every review thereafter just parrots the ones from the previous record that talked about how overlooked and underrated you are.

Still, from the looks of it, all's well that ends well. Guy seems to be doing OK, at least, and I bet he's happier where he is than he would be on the road in hellscape 2018

Wish I was around when these records were new, though. Never got to see these guys, had no idea they existed until it was too late

if anyone is still short of live stuff, this youtube channel has quite as few shows up of varying quality:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8tAnV9M2FKiJF2pDbXU0hw/search?query=thin+white+rope

https://preview.ibb.co/ggJoxx/twr.jpg

aww, maybe this was the final nail in the coffin for TWR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUKzXyB_9ZI&feature=youtu.be&t=2720

fuck, https://youtu.be/cUKzXyB_9ZI?t=2723

...i hate this business of visiting my hometown...

Cmon, fess up...you were in Mature Innocence

Jesus, maybe the name "Thin White Rope" isn't so bad after all. "Pause and Effect" sounds like a band Gob Bluth would be in

Phallucy was a rock/alternative metal band from Sacramento, California. The band's drummer, Abe Cunningham, later became the drummer with the band Deftones, which is now a worldwide success.[citation needed] Phallucy has reunited three times: in 1999, 2001 and finally in 2009 for the Chi Cheng Benefit Show in San Francisco along with Death Angel and other special guests. The band's name is a combination of the words "fallacy" and "phallus".

On Some days Puppet Dog is in the top 5 best songs ever list

By the way, the lyrics/credits booklet PDFs weren't included in the remastered Bandcamp downloads so I asked Frontier about them. They had been forgotten but have now been added. Redownload to get them.

Remastered Moonhead LP arrived today - sounding great! I still wish they could 'remaster' a new drummer on these recordings but hey

Think I just got asked to pass this on from the guy who's upping the TWR sets to dime

a note to user nicknamed MaresNest over at a twr forum
i am absolutely fine with you "wetransfering" the files for forum members
just keep track with updates like the 1989-07-12 Vienna Austria U4 FM sound-upgrade from 2 days ago as the pool should stay as clean as possible

sorry can I delete that last post and repost an edited version.

Thanks Steveolende, I will grab that next week and put it up for those that desire it.

OK I thought I'd posted a name I possibly shouldn't have. So everything's ok then.

yes please! xpost :-)

Ah, thanks for the nudge Stan, here 'tis...

https://we.tl/koO86us0Fv

Thanks x 1000 again!

http://frontierrecords-thinwhiterope.bandcamp.com/album/sack-full-of-silver-2018-remastered-edition

http://frontierrecords-thinwhiterope.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-spanish-cave-2018-remastered-edition

Shame they don't have soundfiles on the website.
Don't think I've really seen that on bandcamp before. Since i thought that was one of the main purposes of bandcamp.

they'll probably enable them on the release date, next Friday

and they're out - Mr. Limpet & Hidden Lands are the sample tracks on bandcamp.

oh wait, all the tracks are playable

Tempted to get the cds. I've all the original vinyl, but I'm playing more and more cds now

yeah played through all the lps on there yesterday and this morning.
Am tempted to get the cds again. I think i got most of them before. Don't think I got Ruby Sea though.
What's in the booklets?

The Ruby Sea hasn't yet been remastered, right?

Oh, thought it might be coming. Wasn't up as such when I listened to it last night. But thought they were doing them all in batches.

Yes I imagine you're right.

I may wait until Ruby Sea appears then buy them all....

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!

https://frontierrecords-thinwhiterope.bandcamp.com/album/moonhead-the-ruby-sea-live-in-gent

two songs live at their final show but not included on The One That Got Away. NOTE: Live versions on vinyl only, downloads are studio versions.

(I thought it was a remastered TOTGA but alas)

oh c'mon that's dumb! Why can't I pay money to download the live versions? I'd love to complete that show! Grrr.

IKR :-(

Here's a conversation with Roger Kunkel from last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vuuq13Ytl8

um, this year. anyway

Thank you! Just finished it. Any crumbs of insight or ephemera regarding TWR are like gold dust to me. And I never would have noticed this on my own.

Any more important live recordings come to light in the last year or two?

I'm not in dime myself & aren't aware of anything. Anyone?

In the interview above Roger mentions a 4 track recording of the 1988 Olive Pit show (where Guy only wears boots) that someone has and was willing to mix/master, though, I hope they release it.

The "The one that got away" remaster that was hinted at one time probably isn't happening, I suppose?

Idk but it’s been awhile since the studio album ones so seems doubtful.

I was a bit surprised when the hosts were talking about guy’s body of work and didn’t mention the Mummydogs album

Roger wasn't in that band though.

XXP - Just had a scan on D1m3 and everything has fallen off the tracker, but I think we got all the good stuff.

I know, there was just a “and then he withdrew except to play some bluegrass sometimes” thing

Mummydogs wasn’t nearly on TWR’s level of course so it’s not a huge lacuna

Xpost thanks mares!

yeah, thanks for checking, Maresn3st!

yeah, went and checked what was on myself a few hours ago. only thing that appeared was a band called Wand and they had song title parts that triggered the search engine response.

Thank you too :-)

FYI for anyone interested in correct information on their recordings: this one "1988-04-02 - Goez Beest, Amsterdam, NL - Sbd" doesn't make sense.

venue = Podium 't Beest
city = Goes (and that is 120 km / 75 miles away from Amsterdam)

Here's one I found that wasn't shared here last time around (have been looking for confirmation about the date (or if it's MM/DD or DD/MM?) but can't find that either) - it's one of the most impressive sounding ones yet imho. soundboard.

https://we.tl/t-M2QEIp9q5N

1990-11-09 RKCNDY, Seattle, WA

01. Wire Animals
02. The Ruby Sea
03. Astronomy
04. Eleven
05. Puppet Dog
06. Some Velvet Morning
07. Tina And Glen
08. Triangle Song
09. Elsie Crashed The Party
10. Valley Of The Bones
11. Munich Eunuch
12. Ants Are Cavemen
13. Fish Song
14. Roadrunner
15. Bartender's Rag
16. Hunter's Moon
17. Silver Machine

Ooh I definitely don’t have that one

(I could have fixed the last three tracks' MP3 tags but anyway)

or flac tags, whatever they're called when it's flac

This one is new to me too - thanks!

Amazing! Thanks

the only thing is... RKCNDY opened in 1991. Doesn't keep me from enjoying the show but it bothers me.

okay - it was 9 November 1991 (found it on this taper's list - among some other stuff that must be out there (on cassette at least) - https://digilander.libero.it/anti4it/bootlegscdnz.html )

Set list makes more sense with that date

Thanks for this StanM! Man I love TWR.

I'm just discovering this podcast has interviews with some interesting musicians. I listened to a 3 part thing with Gun Club drummer Terry Graham a few days ago and one with Stuart Moxham yesterday
This one is with Roger Kunkel, not sure if it was upped here before since its from April last year
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3O7WleGyOc1CgJee2IiMdr?si=61e5267c92f24b73

Thanks! while scrolling down to that one (I'm not on spotify) I noticed a lot of other interesting stuff on C86. Suicide with Martin Rev, Green On Red with Dan Stuart (and then a couple of weeks later with Chris Cacavas), Whipping Boy, The Seers,...

I may have listened to that Martin Rev thing. I know I heard one on Martyn Ware's podcast recently.
Can't remember what specifically turned me onto that C86 podcast

I think I was looking for the podcast Almost A Mirror, couldn't remember what it was called so started looking for the small groups scene in Melbourne or whatver the scene was actually called . Wound up with a show with Clare Moore of The Moodists turning up, got around to listening to it and maybe got an announcement about a new episode in the series appearing. But it is a very good series and goes back to 2018 and has some very interesting guests so glad I got to look through it. Don't think it has any more TWR but it does have a couple of Galaxie 500, Robin Crutchfieeld of Pere Ubu, Dark Day etc and a loa dof other interesting looking people who I may get to hear later.
I still haven't listened to the last couple of Almost A Mirror episodes cos I keep losing temporary playlists

They are no longer on Bandcamp. Glad I got those remasters while they were available

Ah. I'm mistaken. They're there under Frontier. Just not under TWR. Sorry...

Hey Stan/Jon and everyone, some new recordings gone up on D1m3, one a week before the last gig in Ghent, Wein 1990 & Munich 1988. All sound really solid, room for three more?

oooooooooh yes please

Cool, here 'tis - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/bdtwra5fqn09oi8yn677s/h?dl=0&rlkey=rueyq1ierm4dy3ygxfqdx23wm

Thanks indeed!

<3

No worries guys.

For fun, I downloaded that amazing Youtube footage of 'It's OK' from the last gig, matrixed the audio with the live album, pushed it around a bit to add a bit of low end, and made the guitars even more hellacious.

It's in the folder too, if you wanna have a look, just a pity the footage is fairly low quality.

<3 thanks so much MN!

great idea about that clip! thank you again!

(Vienna is June 5th 1990 btw - I had uploaded the mp3s earlier but this is an upgrade)

So here's an unjustly overlooked TWR obscurity. Quoting Skip King, whose longtime partner-now-husband ML Compton managed them:

While the band were touring in Italy their lead singer, Guy Kyser, was borrowed and utilized as the vocalist on a single track with a band named Avion Travel. The song, "On a Moonlit Night", was to be used as the theme song in the newest Lina Wertmüller film "In Una Notte di Chiaro di Luna" (AKA "Up to Date"). Starring Rutger Hauer, Nastassja Kinski and Lorraine Bracco, and featuring Faye Dunaway and Peter O'Toole, the film was released that year but was a huge flop internationally, and didn't even make it into cinemas in america, at least we don't think it did. To this day we've never seen the movie.

Decades later ML was able to get an audio copy of the track, and I found and bought online a region 2 (Europe) DVD of the film. I don't have a multinational DVD player so it has sat on our shelf for very many years. Just now I threw it into my computer's DVD player, for a lark, and I found that I can view it! It's a terrible copy, obviously transferred from a VHS or perhaps filmed secretly in a movie theater with a camera (!!!). but I don't care.

It is so eerie to have the DVD start up and immediately hear Guy's voice, the song used in the menu system. Then I started the film and there's the song again at the very beginning. And I fast forwarded to the end of the film and they used the same track during the closing credits. And here is Guy's credit. We didn't even know if Lina and company had credited Guy, until now.

I finally saw this credit, 34 years later.

Crazy.

And here's the track:

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