Guadalcanal Diary (band)

Guadalcanal Diary
Genres	Alternative rock, jangle pop, college rock
Years active	1981–1989, 1997–2000, 2011
Labels	DB Records, Elektra Records
Members	Murray Attaway, Jeff Walls, Rhett Crowe, John Poe

Guadalcanal Diary is an alternative jangle pop group. They originated in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, but they were often billed as being "from Athens, Georgia" in the early 1980s. The band formed in 1981 and disbanded in 1989. They reformed in 1997, but never recorded any new material. After going on hiatus in 2000, Guadalcanal Diary temporarily reunited for a second time in 2011 for Athfest, where they celebrated their 30th anniversary.

Murray Attaway and Jeff Walls became friends in high school and had both joined a punk band called Strictly American. The two decided to form a new band under the name Emergency Broadcast System. At the time, Attaway was sharing a house with Rhett Crowe, who was learning to play bass from Walls. She joined the new band and suggested that the name be changed to Guadalcanal Diary, based on the 1943 memoir of the same name. After the drummer who had originally been recruited to play the band's first show quit, Walls' friend John Poe was asked to sit in. Poe was a bassist with little drumming experience, but he soon became a member of the band. This lineup remained the same throughout the length of the band's career. Guadalcanal Diary quickly attracted attention from its frequent live shows in the Athens and Atlanta music scenes and was signed in 1983 by DB Records, a small independent label based out of the legendary Wax 'N Facts record store in Atlanta. The same year, the band recorded and released a four-song EP called Watusi Rodeo, along with a low-budget music video for the title track. Meanwhile, the band began recording with Don Dixon and followed up the EP with its first full-length record, Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, in 1984. The album was well received by critics and enjoyed significant airplay on US college radio stations, drawing comparisons to fellow Georgia band R.E.M.. After touring heavily across the United States in support of their debut album, the band was signed by Elektra Records in 1985. Elektra wanted to immediately record and release new material, but the band convinced the label to first re-release Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man.

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