Murray Attaway

Name: Murray Attaway
Start: 2025-05-08T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-05-08T21:00:00-04:00
Location: Eddie's Attic

Schedule

Thu May 08 2025 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Eddie's Attic | Decatur, GA

**Murray Attaway live at Eddie's Attic!**
Murray Attaway is a phantom. After years of silence, he's resurfaced with a new album, *Tense Music Plays*. The legendary Guadalcanal Diary lead singer and songwriter explains, "I kept meaning to do another record, but I'm easily distracted. It took me a while to focus."
With their four classic albums on Elektra Records, Guadalcanal Diary cemented their place in the pantheon of 80’s alternative bands. Rolling Stone described them as a "great second-generation Georgia band" defined by “searching earnestness”. Trouser Press opined, “"Guadalcanal Diary distinguished itself from any smart, tuneful American guitar combos” with “Attaway's songs which reflect a bizarre variety of far-flung interests … with provocatively twisted lyrics.”
For *Tense Music Plays*, Attaway teamed up with veteran engineer and sometimes producer Mark Williams (Southern Culture on the Skids, Joe Walsh, Pat DiNizio, Tammy Faye Bakker.) "When Mark got involved, that's when I knew it would become a real record. Mark is a consummate pro, with credits on countless albums, so I had to get myself ‘back in shape’".
Murray spent two years writing and arranging the songs or *Tense Music Plays* with no timeline in mind. The whole album was tracked in his home studio with Attaway playing almost all the instruments. “I wasn't targeting any particular listener during the sessions. I was thinking of a record that, if I heard it in passing, I would want to hear more."
The album features three bona fide rockers: "Breath", "Hole in the Ground" and "You Were There”. Attaway states, "Any of those three songs would have been at home on a Guadalcanal record. Robert Schmid (Swimming Pool Qs, Glenn Phillips) played drums and bass on those three and brought the stomp to them. Robert is the real thing."
*Tense Music Plays* has it’s slower and somber moments, though Attaway often can't resist a dramatic end, even on a ballad. "Stars Behind the Moon” is an acoustic song inspired by the myths of Delta blues music. Ana Balka brings a haunting violin piece to this song, but in the last verse, I couldn't help but bang it all up again! It's a predictable reaction with me."
Four more songs round out the album; "Never Far Away," an electric solo track about a loved one's mental decline; "Stranger," a solo acoustic song about lost identity; 'Better Days' (co-written by Layla Attaway), a wistful track about nostalgia and joy; and: ‘Old Christmas’," the oddball track. "That one was pulled from Appalachian folklore about the Epiphany (the 12 days after Christmas). It was the first song I wrote specifically for *Tense Music Plays*, and it's probably the most unusual. I started with a Max Fleischer cartoon sound but took some definite detours. Somehow, it rocks, too."
*Tense Music Plays* wanders through Murray Attaway's unique landscape, always staying close to the styles he's known for but creating a few new ones along the way. “It's always been my goal to do music that goes somewhere different, but it invariably ends up in my yard," Attaway says.
And that's a very good yard.