Burroughspeak for ejaculate, one would think that it was the band name that drew me to Thin White Rope’s “Red Sun” from their 1988 album In The Spanish Cave. The album, by the way, is merely so-so and if I’m being completely honest, most of the band’s catalog follows similar criticism.
But “Red Sun,” is a song so awesome that its snaky slide guitar loop is doing similar stunts inside of my head nearly twenty years later.
Featuring that aforementioned pattern, an-honest-to-goodness spaghetti western horn section, and the raked-over-the-coal vocals of Guy Kyser, it’s one of those songs that seem unique to the band’s cannon and unusual enough to warrant the question “What the fuck happened to Thin White Rope?”
Pegged to the “Desert Rock” movement, Thin White Rope featured a similar dual-guitar strategy that was more akin to Television than the Meat Puppets or Giant Sand. Regardless of what genre they were pigeonholed with, they remain one of those lost treasures from the 80’s and “Red Sun” may very well be their crowning achievement.
They strangely were swooped up from the awesome Frontier record label by RCA where they died an atypical major label death. The band folded in 1992, but “Red Sun” remains a song that would be perfect soundtrack fodder for some dusty western filmed on some remote Southwestern desert.
Inspirational verse: “I’ve become convinced that you’re the one/Because you never flinched under the gun.”
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