Down in the desert with the thin white ropes

In the early 1980s the university town of Davis, near Sacramento, was a quiet hub of California's Paisley Underground: Game Theory and True West rehearsed there, and their members drifted in and out of each other's bands. Thin White Rope grew out of exactly that network, yet within a couple of years they sounded like nobody around them. Where their neighbours revived the sunny jangle of the 1960s, Thin White Rope made music that felt scorched, uneasy and very far from home.

A sound from the edge of the Mojave

The centre of gravity was Guy Kyser, who grew up in Ridgecrest on the fringe of the Mojave and came to Davis to study geology. His voice — a gravelled, quavering howl critics compared to a possessed Dylan or Tom Waits — sat on top of an unusual guitar partnership with Roger Kunkel. Taking their cue from Television, the two refused the usual lead/rhythm split: both played lead, one through a Marshall and one through a Fender, weaving lines around each other while a shifting rhythm section held the ground. Into that mix went Quicksilver-style acid rock, the Stooges, krautrock pulse, country twang and a Morricone sense of space; on stage they might cover Suicide, Lee Hazlewood, Marty Robbins, Can and Hawkwind in one night.

The press called it "desert rock", and the desert does recur in Kyser's songs. But it was mostly an inner landscape — isolation, revelation, dread — and Kyser resisted the literal label; Kunkel recalls the band leaning into ocean imagery partly to shake it off.

Where to start

Signed to Frontier Records by Lisa Fancher, they debuted with Exploring the Axis (1985), raw and spiky. Moonhead(1987) is darker and slower and, for Kunkel, the definitive record; "Crawl Piss Freeze" was written in rage over a young friend dying of cancer. In the Spanish Cave (1988) lets humour in, and its "Red Sun" was the nearest they came to a hit. Sack Full of Silver (1990), produced by Tom Mallon of American Music Club, is their most crafted set, crowned by a cover of Can's "Yoo Doo Right". The Ruby Sea (1991) closed the studio run, but the essential document is The One That Got Away, a double live album of their final show.

The Italian connection

Italy made them. In Kunkel's account, it was the first European country to ask for them: Paolo Bedini of AZ Music in Rome invited the band for a week of mostly open-air shows in public parks, starting in Bari, and peaking at a benefit concert in Reggio Emilia alongside Billy Bragg, X and 10,000 Maniacs — where, to their surprise, the crowd already knew the songs. For roughly six years they returned twice a year, playing many small towns, and Bedini's bookings carried them on to Berlin, Scandinavia and, in 1988, a surreal tour of the Soviet Union whose Moscow opener went out live on national television. Kyser even wrote the lyrics for an Avion Travel theme in Lina Wertmüller's 1989 film In una notte di chiaro di luna

Why they vanished

The success was real but never broad: a devoted European following, little traction at home. US tours barely broke even, and Kunkel jokes that the T-shirt seller out-earned him on the last one. Kyser, an introvert who steadied himself for gigs with cigarettes, coffee and drink, decided to quit; Kunkel persuaded him to do one farewell tour in summer 1992, including a couple of Italian dates, ending in a 300-capacity club in Ghent on 28 June. The irony is sharp: they recorded The Ruby Sea in Los Angeles at the same moment Nirvana were making Nevermind, with Butch Vig, whom Thin White Rope had turned down.

Afterwards

Kyser went back to science, working in plant sciences at UC Davis; he later formed the Mummydogs with his wife Johanna and, more recently, played banjo in a bluegrass group with Kunkel. Kunkel led the instrumental Acme Rocket Quartet (three albums, 1996–2004), now plays solo and improvised guitar around Sacramento, and has recorded with last bassist Stooert Odom, who went on to the Graves Brothers Deluxe. Jozef Becker rejoined Scott Miller in the Loud Family, John von Feldt spent time in the Walkabouts, Stephen Tesluk moved to Los Angeles after Moonhead, and drummer Matthew Abourezk, also a photographer, helped film the final tour.

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