Hello, it's the westcoast coming up, Paisley Underground is an early genre of alternative rock, based primarily in Los Angeles, California, which was at its most popular in the mid-1980s. Paisley Underground bands incorporated psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and guitar interplay in a folk rock style that owed a particular debt to The Byrds, but more generally referenced the whole range of 1960s West Coast pop and garage rock. The term "Paisley Underground" originated in late 1982, with a comment made by Michael Quercio of the band The Three O'Clock, during an interview with the LA Weekly alternative newspaper.
Paisley Underground bands frequently shared bills, socialized and collaborated. Members of Rain Parade, The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate and The Three O'Clock joined together to form Rainy Day, releasing an eponymous album of cover versions of songs by The Velvet Underground, Buffalo Springfield, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Big Star, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. As "Danny and Dusty," Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate and Dan Stuart of Green on Red made the album The Lost Weekend (A&M, 1985) backed by members of each band along with most of The Long Ryders. Clay Allison was an offshoot band composed of David Roback and Will Glenn (Rain Parade), Kendra Smith (The Dream Syndicate), Sylvia Juncosa (Leaving Trains) and Keith Mitchell (Monitor).
Todays band was associated with the Paisley Underground music movement; of the bands in that movement,The Rough Guide to Rock called them "one of the few worthwhile traditional American guitar rock bands of their era. While most of the essential groups of the time were pushing back the limits of the form, they had the distinction of managing to breathe new life into the genre.. . . ....N'Joy
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The band was formed in Davis, California, during a period spanning 1981 and 1982. Founding members Guy Kyser and Jozef Becker were in a band called the Les Z Boys in 1981. Becker and Kyser split off during the 1981-1982 period, and posted an ad at Skip's Music seeking a bass player and another guitarist. Roger Kunkel answered the ad, bringing in bass player Kevin Staydohar. The newly formed band played some of the same covers as the Les Z Boys, and also began to introduce original songs by Kyser. The name "Thin White Rope" was derived from William S. Burroughs' description of human semen in Naked Lunch It was suggested by a friend of Becker, and agreed upon by the four original members during the 1981-1982 period.
Although the time and place of their formation aligned them with both the Paisley Underground and roots rock movements, the group quickly staked out its own musical territory, divining their own unique brand of dark, surreal, desert rock. Thin White Rope was led by singer/guitarist Guy Kyser, whose harsh, tightly coiled vocals and unsettling lyrics combined to give the band its edge; in the group's first incarnation, Kyser was joined by guitarist Roger Kunkel, bassist Kevin Staydohar, and drummer Jozef Becker. Steve Tesluk (bass) and Frank French (drums) joined the group in 1983, replacing Staydohar and Becker, both of whom left to join True West.
In 1984, a four-track recording with about 14 songs was sent to a number of labels, and an additional demo was recorded in December with Scott Miller producing. At this time, Jozef Becker rejoined the group, replacing French. Lisa Fancher of Frontier Records, who heard of Thin White Rope through a magazine review of the 14-song demo, signed the group to Frontier, and the band then recorded Exploring the Axis.
While Thin White Rope's 1985 debut flirted with neo-psychedelia, the 1987 follow-up Moonhead upped the ante by allowing the desperation of Kyser's lyrics to take full command of the music. Unrelentingly grim and harrowingly provocative, the album's best songs -- like "Crawl Piss Freeze" and "If Those Tears" -- were postcards from the edge. Following the addition of new bassist John von Feldt, 1988's In the Spanish Cave continued along the same path, albeit with a renewed sense of humor ("Mr. Limpet") and more oblique wordplay.
Though garnering little notice stateside, Thin White Rope earned a solid fan base in Europe, and even became the first American independent-label act to tour the Soviet Union. 1990's Sack Full of Silver, a collection of songs written while on tour abroad, featured new drummer Matthew Abourezk as well as a newly focused sonic attack; the album also featured a left-field rendition of Can's "Yoo Doo Right," a hint of things to come on the 1991 all-covers EP Squatters' Rights.
1991's full-length The Ruby Sea, a dense, atmospheric work highlighted by the riveting "Clown Song," proved to be Thin White Rope's studio swan song: in 1992 the band split, and while most of the players continued performing in various musical projects, Kyser devoted himself to a career as a botanist. The posthumous The One That Got Away 6-28-92 Ghent, a two-disc live set recorded in Belgium peppered with odd covers of Lee & Nancy's "Some Velvet Morning," Bob Dylan's "Outlaw Blues," and Hawkwind's "Silver Machine" appeared in 1993. Spoor, a collection of demos, remixes, and rare tracks, followed two years later.
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Thin White Rope's second album, Moonhead, is the edge-of-chaos masterpiece of the paisley underground, an album that sounds like Neil Young & Crazy Horse tackling Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures. All of the 14 songs, even a pounding cover of Jimmy Reed's blues classic "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," are so wound up and tense that they sound like they could explode at any point; the fact that they don't, not even on extended guitar workouts like "Crawl Piss Freeze" and the epic closer "Take It Home," gives the album an at times almost unbearable tension. The songs all start from basically the same point -- dual-guitar leads over Jozef Becker's almost Krautrock-like steady pulses and Stephen Tesluk's throbbing, minimal basslines -- but Guy Kyser's lyrics and vocals range from tortured wails to mordant, deadpan humor, providing the album with just enough variation that it doesn't become deadening. An intense, satisfying album, Moonhead is Thin White Rope's most substantial and powerful effort.
Thin White Rope - Moonhead (flac 367mb)
01 Not Your Fault 3:45
02 Wire Animals 4:00
03 Thing 2:54
04 Moonhead 4:45
05 Wet Heart 4:34
06 Mother 4:27
07 Come Around 2:19
08 If Those Tears 3:16
09 Crawl Piss Freeze 5:34
10 Walking Up 2:43
11 Valley Of The Bones 2:54
12 Atomic Imagery 3:36
13 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby 2:41
14 Take It Home (Long Version) 6:17
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The Rope's frame of reference (no surprise to longtime fans) draws from '60s West Coast folk rock (and like-minded '80s practitioners), but with darker underpinnings and with an unpretty lead growler in vocalist/guitarist Guy Keyser. As a songwriter, Keyser (with help from bassist John von Feldt and guitarist Roger Kunkel) is hip without being condescending and occasionally (e.g. "Mr. Limpet"'s Don Knotts imagery) show a wickedly funny sense of humor...They're more interested in challenging their audience rather than simply regurgitating the same tired riffs that have propelled many of their compatriots into hockey arenas. Not everything works here...but there's tons of good stuff...
Thin White Rope - In The Spanish Cave (flac 399mb)
01 Mr. Limpet 3:52
02 Ring 3:19
03 It's OK 5:16
04 Ahr-Skidar 1:35
05 Red Sun3:59
06 Elsie Crashed The Party 3:33
07 Timing 3:32
08 Astronomy 5:42
09 Wand 3:59
10 July 4:00
11 Munich Eunich 2:42
12 Ain't That Loving You Baby 3:48
13 Macy's Window 2:45
14 Waking Up 2:55
15 Valley Of The Bones 3:38
16 Atomic Imagery 5:58
17 Rocket USA 6:00
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Sack Full of Silver is, in many ways, one of Thin White Rope's most fully realized sets, blending the group's early alt-psychedelic influences and a growing taste for dusty Americana flavors. Having completed a 16-date tour of the Soviet Union, the group collected covers of Marty Robbins, Lee Hazlewood, and others for the Red Sun EP, followed shortly by this batch of originals penned during the trip overseas. Like all Thin White Rope releases, Sack Full of Silver is defined by the voice of Guy Kyser: the aural equivalent of the flat, parched, endless landscape his characters seem to inhabit. Sobering realizations, like dead ends, await them around every corner. In an environment where failure, desperation, and hopelessness are common currency, adding up one's losses and moving on feels like a great victory. It's clearly no easy task. "The Ghost" catches its subject in the moment before that turning point, looking ahead as a life of loss begins to flood in. Emerging out of the final chords of "Americana," it rises from the sound of wind-swept sand to a triumphant anthem in the mold of an old folk song. Revealing that they are working within a wider frame of reference, the group adapt Can's "Yoo Doo Right," distilling the original's 20 minutes into a compact, bursting rock number. Though the gray area in between these two styles produces less memorable results, Thin White Rope's brand of American roots has aged more gracefully than the work of some of their contemporaries. Sack Full of Silver remains as fine an introduction to Kyser's vision as any.
Thin White Rope - Sack Full of Silver ( flac 233mb)
01 Hidden Lands 3:00
02 Sack Full Of Silver 2:09
03 Yoo Doo Right 6:01
04 The Napkin Song 1:28
05 Americana/The Ghost 8:15
06 The Ghost 3:42
07 Whirling Dervish 5:36
08 Diesel Man 3:40
09 On The Floe 4:51
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Paisley Underground bands frequently shared bills, socialized and collaborated. Members of Rain Parade, The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate and The Three O'Clock joined together to form Rainy Day, releasing an eponymous album of cover versions of songs by The Velvet Underground, Buffalo Springfield, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Big Star, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. As "Danny and Dusty," Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate and Dan Stuart of Green on Red made the album The Lost Weekend (A&M, 1985) backed by members of each band along with most of The Long Ryders. Clay Allison was an offshoot band composed of David Roback and Will Glenn (Rain Parade), Kendra Smith (The Dream Syndicate), Sylvia Juncosa (Leaving Trains) and Keith Mitchell (Monitor).
Todays band was associated with the Paisley Underground music movement; of the bands in that movement,The Rough Guide to Rock called them "one of the few worthwhile traditional American guitar rock bands of their era. While most of the essential groups of the time were pushing back the limits of the form, they had the distinction of managing to breathe new life into the genre.. . . ....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The band was formed in Davis, California, during a period spanning 1981 and 1982. Founding members Guy Kyser and Jozef Becker were in a band called the Les Z Boys in 1981. Becker and Kyser split off during the 1981-1982 period, and posted an ad at Skip's Music seeking a bass player and another guitarist. Roger Kunkel answered the ad, bringing in bass player Kevin Staydohar. The newly formed band played some of the same covers as the Les Z Boys, and also began to introduce original songs by Kyser. The name "Thin White Rope" was derived from William S. Burroughs' description of human semen in Naked Lunch It was suggested by a friend of Becker, and agreed upon by the four original members during the 1981-1982 period.
Although the time and place of their formation aligned them with both the Paisley Underground and roots rock movements, the group quickly staked out its own musical territory, divining their own unique brand of dark, surreal, desert rock. Thin White Rope was led by singer/guitarist Guy Kyser, whose harsh, tightly coiled vocals and unsettling lyrics combined to give the band its edge; in the group's first incarnation, Kyser was joined by guitarist Roger Kunkel, bassist Kevin Staydohar, and drummer Jozef Becker. Steve Tesluk (bass) and Frank French (drums) joined the group in 1983, replacing Staydohar and Becker, both of whom left to join True West.
In 1984, a four-track recording with about 14 songs was sent to a number of labels, and an additional demo was recorded in December with Scott Miller producing. At this time, Jozef Becker rejoined the group, replacing French. Lisa Fancher of Frontier Records, who heard of Thin White Rope through a magazine review of the 14-song demo, signed the group to Frontier, and the band then recorded Exploring the Axis.
While Thin White Rope's 1985 debut flirted with neo-psychedelia, the 1987 follow-up Moonhead upped the ante by allowing the desperation of Kyser's lyrics to take full command of the music. Unrelentingly grim and harrowingly provocative, the album's best songs -- like "Crawl Piss Freeze" and "If Those Tears" -- were postcards from the edge. Following the addition of new bassist John von Feldt, 1988's In the Spanish Cave continued along the same path, albeit with a renewed sense of humor ("Mr. Limpet") and more oblique wordplay.
Though garnering little notice stateside, Thin White Rope earned a solid fan base in Europe, and even became the first American independent-label act to tour the Soviet Union. 1990's Sack Full of Silver, a collection of songs written while on tour abroad, featured new drummer Matthew Abourezk as well as a newly focused sonic attack; the album also featured a left-field rendition of Can's "Yoo Doo Right," a hint of things to come on the 1991 all-covers EP Squatters' Rights.
1991's full-length The Ruby Sea, a dense, atmospheric work highlighted by the riveting "Clown Song," proved to be Thin White Rope's studio swan song: in 1992 the band split, and while most of the players continued performing in various musical projects, Kyser devoted himself to a career as a botanist. The posthumous The One That Got Away 6-28-92 Ghent, a two-disc live set recorded in Belgium peppered with odd covers of Lee & Nancy's "Some Velvet Morning," Bob Dylan's "Outlaw Blues," and Hawkwind's "Silver Machine" appeared in 1993. Spoor, a collection of demos, remixes, and rare tracks, followed two years later.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Thin White Rope's second album, Moonhead, is the edge-of-chaos masterpiece of the paisley underground, an album that sounds like Neil Young & Crazy Horse tackling Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures. All of the 14 songs, even a pounding cover of Jimmy Reed's blues classic "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," are so wound up and tense that they sound like they could explode at any point; the fact that they don't, not even on extended guitar workouts like "Crawl Piss Freeze" and the epic closer "Take It Home," gives the album an at times almost unbearable tension. The songs all start from basically the same point -- dual-guitar leads over Jozef Becker's almost Krautrock-like steady pulses and Stephen Tesluk's throbbing, minimal basslines -- but Guy Kyser's lyrics and vocals range from tortured wails to mordant, deadpan humor, providing the album with just enough variation that it doesn't become deadening. An intense, satisfying album, Moonhead is Thin White Rope's most substantial and powerful effort.
Thin White Rope - Moonhead (flac 367mb)
01 Not Your Fault 3:45
02 Wire Animals 4:00
03 Thing 2:54
04 Moonhead 4:45
05 Wet Heart 4:34
06 Mother 4:27
07 Come Around 2:19
08 If Those Tears 3:16
09 Crawl Piss Freeze 5:34
10 Walking Up 2:43
11 Valley Of The Bones 2:54
12 Atomic Imagery 3:36
13 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby 2:41
14 Take It Home (Long Version) 6:17
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The Rope's frame of reference (no surprise to longtime fans) draws from '60s West Coast folk rock (and like-minded '80s practitioners), but with darker underpinnings and with an unpretty lead growler in vocalist/guitarist Guy Keyser. As a songwriter, Keyser (with help from bassist John von Feldt and guitarist Roger Kunkel) is hip without being condescending and occasionally (e.g. "Mr. Limpet"'s Don Knotts imagery) show a wickedly funny sense of humor...They're more interested in challenging their audience rather than simply regurgitating the same tired riffs that have propelled many of their compatriots into hockey arenas. Not everything works here...but there's tons of good stuff...
Thin White Rope - In The Spanish Cave (flac 399mb)
01 Mr. Limpet 3:52
02 Ring 3:19
03 It's OK 5:16
04 Ahr-Skidar 1:35
05 Red Sun3:59
06 Elsie Crashed The Party 3:33
07 Timing 3:32
08 Astronomy 5:42
09 Wand 3:59
10 July 4:00
11 Munich Eunich 2:42
12 Ain't That Loving You Baby 3:48
13 Macy's Window 2:45
14 Waking Up 2:55
15 Valley Of The Bones 3:38
16 Atomic Imagery 5:58
17 Rocket USA 6:00
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Sack Full of Silver is, in many ways, one of Thin White Rope's most fully realized sets, blending the group's early alt-psychedelic influences and a growing taste for dusty Americana flavors. Having completed a 16-date tour of the Soviet Union, the group collected covers of Marty Robbins, Lee Hazlewood, and others for the Red Sun EP, followed shortly by this batch of originals penned during the trip overseas. Like all Thin White Rope releases, Sack Full of Silver is defined by the voice of Guy Kyser: the aural equivalent of the flat, parched, endless landscape his characters seem to inhabit. Sobering realizations, like dead ends, await them around every corner. In an environment where failure, desperation, and hopelessness are common currency, adding up one's losses and moving on feels like a great victory. It's clearly no easy task. "The Ghost" catches its subject in the moment before that turning point, looking ahead as a life of loss begins to flood in. Emerging out of the final chords of "Americana," it rises from the sound of wind-swept sand to a triumphant anthem in the mold of an old folk song. Revealing that they are working within a wider frame of reference, the group adapt Can's "Yoo Doo Right," distilling the original's 20 minutes into a compact, bursting rock number. Though the gray area in between these two styles produces less memorable results, Thin White Rope's brand of American roots has aged more gracefully than the work of some of their contemporaries. Sack Full of Silver remains as fine an introduction to Kyser's vision as any.
Thin White Rope - Sack Full of Silver ( flac 233mb)
01 Hidden Lands 3:00
02 Sack Full Of Silver 2:09
03 Yoo Doo Right 6:01
04 The Napkin Song 1:28
05 Americana/The Ghost 8:15
06 The Ghost 3:42
07 Whirling Dervish 5:36
08 Diesel Man 3:40
09 On The Floe 4:51
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7 comments:
Thank you, brilliant band, totally underrated during their heyday.The EP'S Squatter's Rights, Red Sun, Spoor and the comp When Worlds Collide would be nice too.
I'm sure they would anon, however it wouldn't be Aetix anymore..
late to the game, alas. all links dead.
Hi,thanx for this great blogg*.
Would you please re-up this great band's music.
Thank you
Can someone reupload?
please reup the flac versions
All the links for "Thin White Rope - Moonhead (flac 367mb)" expired.
Please, re-upload!
Thanks!
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