Where Pies Go To Die

It was the spring of 1998 when my good friend and I decided to take our interest in the Massachusetts band Piebald to the next level. We had been following them for some time, and we had both found interest in other (mostly hardcore) bands on Hydra Head records, when we found out that Piebald would be playing a show in a local legendary hall at a nearby community college. That same week, my friend found a bunch of satin butterfly collared disco shirts in a box on the side of the road. He coincidentally had an assignment in his graphic design class that required him to screen print an edition of shirts at that time as well. He took the opportunity to print the design found on the patch that came with Piebald's Sometimes Friends Fight 10" release right onto the back of the disco shirts.

Our girlfriends at the time were very good friends as well. There was a senior class trip to Europe the week of the Piebald show and since all four of us were fans of the band, my pal and I did everything we could to rub in the fact that we were going to get to see the band while the girls were in Europe. The girls eventually left the country and my pal and I went on to see the band. Before the show we harassed the band (as we usually did back then) and convinced them to play their entire set in the shirts that my friend printed. They agreed and the show was a great success. Once they were finished playing we cornered them with copies of their "Aftershave" 7". We requested that they wrote something to further our girlfriends' jealousy and they gladly complied. The girls would eventually come home and receive their gifts, along with the story of the night.

A couple of years ago I was doing my rounds at a local record store when I came across a very familiar record. It was an early copy of the same "Aftershave" 7" by Piebald. When I inspected it more closely I was stunned to find that it was the exact record that my friend had gifted his former girl almost a decade ago. It even had her name and personalized message on it. I brought it up to the counter and asked the guy working if he knew anything about the origin of the record. He replied: "Yeah, some girl was in here yesterday. She sold us some records to help her get some money up so she could move to Philly".