It's been awhile since I've posted but for no specific reason, apart from being busy as usual. From looking at my files, it looks like I had the intent to do a post back in January and somehow forgot? Hmm. Part of old age, I guess. Well, maybe another day I'll get back to that one.
For now, though, is a classic album from the late 80's that possibly few people today would ever stumble upon. Guadalcanal Diary was an Athens, GA, band (I believe) that came onto the scene in the mid 80's amongst the influx of what I'd call "R.E.M.-ish Bands" amid the "College Radio" days, basically a period of time when new more independent radio stations burst onto the scene playing music that apparently appealed greatly to college kids, or at least that's how I think this all came about. They were grand ol' days in music, in my opinion, but I was still hovering around 8th - 9th grade myself so it wasn't actually tailored to my age group and yet it spread like underground wildfire. What I really loved about those days and that music is that there was a sound and there wasn't, meaning you were free to do pretty much whatever you wanted to do within a fairly wide range, and music and art in general felt very alive and wide open. This changed almost immediately in 1990...but that's another story.
If you know me well, you know that one of my top 3 best live shows of all time was seeing R.E.M. during the "Pageantry" Tour for the album "Life's Rich Pageant", more or less mentioned in my post for that album. The opening act for that show, though, was actually Guadalcanal Diary and I went into it skeptical for some now unknown reason but they really blew me away that night. I was all of just days away from turning 15 years old and it was literally the first time I was completely alone in public at a show (because my mom drove me down there and dropped me off), and in all honesty seeing live shows was still very much in its infancy for me, having seen probably only a handful by then. It was a rare night in Mesa, AZ, on September 23rd, 1986, where it actually was pouring rain so many people either didn't show up for the show or left quickly, leaving only a small amount of diehards, me being one of them. I distinctly remember both the rain and the whipping winds, of course fused with desert dust and dirt, and thinking, "...what am I doing here...?" But, the music was intoxicating once it started and the atmosphere beyond belief. I remember Murray Attaway of Guadalcanal Diary saying something like, "Well, we probably shouldn't play this song right now...but here's 'Pray for Rain'...", and again the atmosphere was simply magic. I swear...no joke...that during the song the thunder and lightning cracked right in the middle of it, as if on queue. By the time R.E.M. took the stage, I knew I was living a moment I'd never forget, and even though I was cold, wet, and dirty, it felt like "home" to me, meaning the music and the crowd.
Seeing this performance prompted me to buy Guadalcanal Diary's album "Jamboree" which is what they were touring for at the time. I absolutely loved (and still love) their guitar sound...wow. I can only describe it as a hard distorted Rickenbacker sound with Hi-Gains, not Toaster pickups (again, I will never understand why people buy Rick's with Toasters...but I digress), and I don't remember what guitar Attaway played but it was mainly Jeff Wall's Rick that really shined through. Walls had such an unusual way of moving when he played which is hard to describe, and then Rhett Crowe on bass was almost as indescribable due to her movement, size, etc., and I'd say that the physical size of the bass was twice as large as Crowe herself so it was quite a sight. The energy they had as a band was remarkable, to say the least, and whereas I never thought "Jamboree" was a great album all the way through due to lots of filler and such, I did wear out that cassette, listening to it over and over. I can't tell you how many times I've hummed "I see Moe!" to myself.
The follow-up album "2x4" really got them to chart finally but I didn't buy it until later on, and I'll also say that I found it a more challenging album to get into. They almost fell off the map for me at that point and then "Flip-Flop" came out. I don't remember how exactly I decided to buy that album but for whatever reason I did and it turned out to be their crowning achievement work, at least in my opinion. I think every GD album has a large amount of filler material but "Flip-Flop's" filler was almost unrecognizable because of how high quality it was, and also the production and mix of the album is top notch in my opinion. In fact, the whole reason I dug this album out last week is because I use it as a model for my own mixing now.
The opening track "Look Up!" is classic GD, building off of the sounds they had already established, with thunderous drums, a slight off beat feel, etc., and how anyone could not find that song infectious is beyond me. "Always Saturday" was the first single, and whereas it was a bit more unusual in structure, it grabbed me right away and I just loved the sound of the track. "The Likes of You" is a great harder rock tune, again with that classic GD sound, and then there's "Barometer", probably my favorite GD song of all time due to it being so different. I got to see GD again in either late 1989 or early '90 on their own at what I believe was then called After the Goldrush in Tempe, AZ, and they were even better than in '86. "Barometer" in particular was awesome because they turned the disco ball on, if I recall correctly, and it was just a fantastic moment.
"Flip-Flop" I would argue has literally no weak material on it at all and is a perfect album. I mean, I dream of making an album this perfect, again coupled with the production value. It ends with the slightly strangely funny "Vista" which I also distinctly recall from that live performance due to Crowe's intro. And, let's not forget "Pretty is as Pretty Does", I believe the second single from the album that I can't get out of my head this week after hearing it, which I had somehow completely forgotten about. I ended up giving "Flip-Flop" my own personal "album of the year" moniker that year, and that was a bit strange for me since up until then I didn't think of GD as one of my absolute favorite bands, but the album was so strong that it stuck out and was an easy decision to make.
It looks like "Flip-Flop" is still widely available on CD whereas the other albums are a bit trickier to find. If you like that Colllege Radio sound, you really can't go wrong with this album. I also always thought that Murray Attaway had one of the great late 80's rock voices, one that cuts right through the mix and is so enjoyable to listen to.
On the sad side, Guadalcanal Diary hung it up after "Flip-Flop" and I would never get to see them again, which was not something I would have guessed back in early 1990. Hearing this album today brought me both incredible joy and sadness, the latter due to remembering how exciting music was back then and now truly missing it in this modern world of a music industry run amuck. I guess at least we had it for awhile (sigh) and at least I can still revisit it.
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