Sunday 17 March 2013

When Life Hands You Lemons

When Piebald released 'When Life Hands You Lemons' back in the late 90s, it caught my attention. I had a couple of their previous releases, which I would describe as pretty typical 90s emo fare. But their debut LP marked a change of style and one that I was really into. I loved that they were lyrically still very much an emo band, but their playing style had more melody and less screaming. Heck, this was a record you could sing along to. In fact, it even sounded rock-ish and upbeat a lot of the time. I guess it was just catchy, but maintained a very DIY sound. It totally sounded like the singer couldn't really sing, but I liked that. Anyway, this album quickly became one of those records that I couldn't stop listening to. There were songs for every mood, and for a period of a few weeks there was nothing else I wanted to listen to. In my mind it always was and always will be their best record. So when I saw a test for sale recently, I knew I was going to take it.

It's not much to look at. Like a lot of tests, it comes in a plain paper sleeve and has blank white labels. Not that it matters too much of course.

I dug out my regular copy of the record to make the photo a little more interesting, and so that those of you unfamiliar with the record could see what the regular cover looks like.

One of the biggest disappointments of my life was when the band stayed at my house. This was later in their career when they were touring their third LP. I brought up the subject of this record, but their basic feeling was that it was awful and embarrassing and they didn't want to talk about it. I think I went off them immediately at that point. Fools.

2 comments:

MB said...

Just curious. I know your record collection is enormous. Any way you can take a few pictures of your storage area? Also, Piebald ruled my life for about 3 years, great band.

mcs said...

Hey MB, I'm not going to take a new photo, but there is one on my instagram that I took last year which you can see HERE. My collection isn't all in one place so that's not all of it, but that's a big chunk.
Just out of interest, what's your favourite Piebald record?