Like many audiophiles, I’m always on the lookout for a deal.
Or make that value for the money. On the continuing time warp though my
personal CD collection, I finally mustered up the motivation to listen to
Guadalcanal Diary’s album “Flip-Flop” (1988). As best as I can figure, I must
have picked up this disc around 1998, when I moved away from the Los Angeles
Basin to the San Francisco Bay Area. For old time’s sake, I made a final visit
to The Wherehouse before leaving. If you came from L.A. in the 90s, you’ll
remember it was the record store as ubiquitous as Starbucks is now for coffee
houses. But I digress.
I found this particular music collection in the used closeout
section for—I kid you not—99 cents—the price tag was still on the jewel box
when I dug it out. I’d always been aware of Guadalcanal Diary in a vague sort
of way. Familiar with the name but not the music. They were probably in the
L.A. Times Calendar section a lot or in rotation on Alternative Music station
KROQ back then. So I thought, “What the heck, it’s only 99 cents.” But I dunno,
I could never get passed the album artwork—somehow a guy’s foot and a pair of flip-flops
as the lead image on a wooden pier background didn’t appeal to me. So there is
sat, unlistened to for those 16 years in my CD rack.
When I finally put it into the CD player in my car, I was
nearly amazed. I was immediately attracted to the track “The Likes of You,”
with its observations of the 1 percent living large at the expense of us in the
99 percent. It appeals to my “us vs. them” mentality. With images of Cadillac
limousines and high fashion magazines, Guadalcanal Diary burns the plutocracy
in effigy right before your very ears. Lyrics such as “If I never saw you again
| well then a thousand years would only be too soon” seared into my
consciousness upon impact. The guitar playing is also notable for its
inventiveness, with at times an almost bagpipe sonic quality being produced. Close
to when I started playing this CD, a woman in a convertible BMW passed me on a
side street and on the license plate was “HEIRESS.” I felt the irony was too
great to not crank up the volume on this one and serenade her.
I was almost as equally enamored of the cut “Whiskey Talk.”
With a catchy riff and a story of a woman slandering a man’s name all over the
South—Guadalcanal Diary hails from Athens, Georgia, the same stomping grounds
that produced REM and the B-52’s, among others—it’s hard to figure out why the
rock ‘n’ roll public didn’t take this group serious, to paraphrase the song
itself.
The only real quibble with this archival material was the
mix (I probably have the unremastered original). The final tape understates the
bottom end with the drums way down low. But this is easily remedied by upping
the bass channel. So keep a lookout in the Bargain Bins at your local vinyl
outlet—if you still have one. You never know what you can find for a few
pennies. As they say in the original “RoboCop” movie, “I’d buy that for a
dollar!
-Derek Handova
Appreciative Listener
Appreciative Listener
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