About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 2011)
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Pkwy. • Athens GA 30605 www.clubproperties.com ' out of Georgia and North Carolina in the early '80s, Atlanta-born quartet Guadalcanal Diary often gets a deserved men tion alongside R.E.M., Pylon and Let's Active. As a guitar-based, melody-driven, twang- infused power-pop band, guitarist and singer Murray Attaway, lead guitarist Jeff Walls, bassist Rhett Crowe and drummer John Poe provided their own brand of excitement in the coolest clubs in the region. Guadalcanal Diary formed in 1981. Their first gig was a friend's backyard wedding party. Attaway chose the moniker from a dook by Richard Tregaski about a U.S. campaign against Japan during World War II. Although officially from the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, the band was’lumped in as one of the major bands of the Athens/Atlanta underground scenes of the early and mid-'80s. "We always felt more akin to the Athens scene than the Atlanta scene, which is why most of us moved there," says Walls, currently of The Woggles. "It was silly when journalists asked us about the 'Marietta sound,' which didn't exist...Listening back, you definitely hear that Pylon, four-on-the-floor, Athens beat in a lot of bands. There were certain rhythmic ways of phrasing that sound very Athens-y to me." In celebration of their 30th anniversary, Guadalcanal reunites this week as one of the headliners at AthFest's main stage. Walls, Attaway and Crowe have already been prepar ing for the show. Poe will be coming back to Georgia from his home in San Francisco. "It'll just be the four of us—the four members that ever were," Walls says. "To me, once you've done a reunion, the shock is not so bad. The first reunion show we did in 1996 was tiie shock. At that time, we'd not played together in seven years. The weirdest feel ing came right before we went on, sitting in the same room with the same people, about to play the same songs we'd played a million times before. The only thing that will be a shock at AthFest is how young the people in the audience are compared to us [laughs]." Guadalcanal Diary's earliest recordings came out on the Athens-based DB Records label. In 1984 they released a full-length titled Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, produced by North Carolina studio wiz Don Dixon. The album earned critical praise and college radio airtime. In 1985 Elektra Records signed the band, reissued the album and sent them out on tour. "I remember when we signed with Elektra, that was one of the things they were bitch ing about. I remember [A&R executive] Kevin Patrick saying, 1 don't know about those glasses on Murray and Rhett... they might be too nerdy.' Well, we were nerdy." Their 1986 Elektra debut, Jamboree, bounced with a slicker, more mainstream production style, but 1987's 2x4 recaptured the band's signature rock rhythms and guitar an alternative-rock hit and enjoyed rotation on MTV's "120 Minutes" program. After they released 1989's Flip-Flop, the band endured several lengthy tours before amicably parting ways. "We didn't break up because we didn't get along; we broke up because we were tired of doing what we were doing," says Walls. "But we all stayed friends." Everyone dabbled in various projects and collaborations over the years. Walls stayed particularly busy, playing guitar in the theatri cal rockabilly-pop band Hillbilly Frankenstein and joining the garage rockers The Woggles. This week's reunion took shape in a round about way. "It really started in 2009 when . I began playing in a soul and R&B band," says Walls. "I put it together with Phyllis [Walls' wife] and Pat Patterson of Hillbilly Frankenstein on bass and drums, along with Doug Stanley on organ and guitar. We'd been playing around town. We became Bomber City with Murray on guitar and vocals and Diana Crowe on vocals and percussion. It was family thing when it came together, and it was fun." After Bomber City got going, Attaway and Walls started talking about the 30-year anni versary and tossing around the idea of doing another reunion. "You know how stuff like that is; you get offers for stuff, but none of it sounds like it'd be any fun," Walls says. "Then the opportunity to play AthFest came up, so everything lined up." Walls says the band plans to play the heavier fan faves from the catalog with emphasis on their earliest material. "We haven't reworked too many things, although I've adapted some of my own guitar parts," he says. "It does make you look back on som n of the old stuff and think, 'Man, that was such a goofy guitar part'—like an arpeggiated thing Andy Summers might have done. It's funny because I never liked to think of myself being too influenced by new wave bands. To me, they were my contemporaries, not influences. But listening back, I was more influenced than I realized." As for the show, "It'll be rawer than you know 'cause there ain't gonna be no sound check on that stage," Walls adds. "It'll be like being shot out of a cannon, you know? We do have a solid set list together, though. Murray and I wanted to put songs together for people to dance, have fun and rock hard—that was the only real doctrine we ascribed to. It's •mostly the uptempo stuff—the cheeky^ rockin' stufr m T. Ballard Lesemann 18 FLAGPOLE.COM JUNE 22,2011
