Austin Music Scores--Guadalcanal Diary

 I was in Austin, Texas in late October and visited the great Waterloo Records, which is one of the best record stores I have ever visited. While I was there, I barely made it past the used CD section. I bought Meat Puppets' Monsters, The Lemonheads' Lovey, Guadalcanal Diary's 2x4, Bob Mould's Workbook, 10,000 Maniacs' The Wishing Chair, and Sloan's Pretty Together. When I was able to venture beyond the used CDs, I found The Rolling Stones new album Hackney Diamonds (which I had not been able to find in Lansing), and Alejandro Escovedo's A Man Under the Influence.

All of these albums have been on heavy rotation in my car the last few weeks since we returned. 

I suppose my favorite of the eight--so far--is the Guadalcanal Diary album. I've written about GD in here before and I love that band. Superficially, they are R.E.M.-like, but lead singer/songwriter Murray Attaway comes off as way more agitated than Michael Stipe (and Attaway's voice is closer to Mike Mills, if we are to continue with the R.E.M. comparison).

2×4 was released in 1987, which in retrospect was a great year for music. The album was also the pinnacle of Guadalcanal Diary's career. They'd release one more album (1989's Flip-Flop) before disbanding, only reuniting sporadically since. (Guitarist and songwriter Jeff Walls died in 2019). 2×4 has the toughest and most aggressive sound they achieved. John Poe's drumming--always powerful--is especially thunderous on this record, particularly on the opener, "Litany (Life Goes On)."  The second track, "Under the Yoke," has Southern rock swagger and comes off as sort of a "college rock" cousin of early '70s ZZ Top. And then there are the final two tracks: "3 AM," a quiet but intense song about a desperate alcoholic, and the psychedelic-tinged "Lips of Steel" that indicates the band may have listened to the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" just a few times. (The band also covers "And Your Bird Can Sing," so it stands to reason Revolver was in heavy rotation--or at least on their minds).

So there you have it: Guadalcanal Diary's 2×4. Even though I already have it on vinyl, there was no way I was passing up a CD copy of it.

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