Thanksgiving Day I injured one of my right hamstring muscles. It was a stupid injury. I have a tendency to just try and work/force my way through pain instead of trying to avoid it or stop before I legitimately hurt myself and in this instance I lived up to my own shortcomings. It was simply a matter of running when I could feel my muscle hurting with every step, when I should have just stayed off it for a day or two and moved on. It's a real shame because I had just topped off at nine miles and I was feeling really strong and confidant about this whole thing.I couldn't run or walk much on it for a while, but last Wednesday I was able to run on it for a little bit. Unfortunately, it hurt a lot more afterwards, so I haven't been running since. This is a real problem. Tomorrow I plan on trying to "run" on an elliptical trainer so I can at least work on the aerobic aspect of my training, but it won't help in preparing my muscles for the physical stress of running large distances. What's worse is such a sudden drop in physical activity is doing a number on my mental health. The lack of endorphins being produced by my system and my sleep cycle going to shit have started to take their effect. Those who know me know I'm normally a miserable wretch, but since I started this training I've been generally a lot happier and more energized. Just better able to function as a regular human being without wanting to blow my brains out at all times. To be back to moping around listening to sad-sack Brit-pop just sucks.
Since I don't have much else to say regarding running I'm taking this time to write about awesome music.
One of my favorite bands is Kill Holiday. They were around in the late nighties; the product of Unbroken guitar player Steven Miller, but they sound nothing like Unbroken. At first they were doing a Quicksand/Supertouch (minus the weed) kind of sound with heavy guitars and songs built around an unconventional groove, but with personal lyrics ranging from rejection to being a public figure. This style doesn't really connect with me, but the song Cold Shoulder from the Monitor Dependency 7" really rises above the typical; it has something special underneath the typical emotive heavy hardcore which is simply undeniable. I believe Lester Bangs called it soul. Their split with Dempsey (which I own a test press of... but nobody cares!) is more of the same, but the same soulfulness comes to fruition on their Meant To Let You Down single.
The song is by far their best. Frankly, it's perfect. A simple jangly punk riff pushes the whole song along, powerful enough to pull you in, but reserved enough not to play out like some U2 phony epic shit. The song doesn't deviate much from the same couple riffs, it just builds up steam until it climaxes with a pure, unadulterated, played-from-the-hip solo kicked off by the line "People change - well how hard is that to say?" Sometimes solos are just little flourishes thrown in by a seasoned guitar player to spice up an otherwise straightforward song (see: every Antidote song for the perfect example) and other times they're the centerpiece of an artist's work. The song serves only to package that burst of emotion (see: Eric Clapton or Jay Mascis's entire body of work). But other times they work as some crazy spiritual release. As if the guitar player, overcome with primal urges conjured up by his own music, can no longer bear it and throws everything against the wall, making whatever noises exploding fingers on metal strings make, and it is only by sheer passion that the noises coalesce into a beautiful sound. THAT'S the kind of fucking solo this song has. There really is nothing special in this song except a man with nominal musical talent singing his exceptional heart out. And that's what punk is to me.
Their final musical outing is an LP titled Somewhere Between The Wrong Is Right. It's a massive epic about love, loss, regret, and a newfound appreciation for what little tastes of happiness we can find in life. It sounds like Joy Division/New Order and The Smiths, mixed with Husker Du and Jawbreaker. But by straight edge hardcore kids. From what I understand, nobody liked it. And I can see why. I often describe the album as a train wreck of epic proportions. It has problems. It veers too often into broken-hearted high school poetry. The songs are mostly really long, which isn't always a bad thing, but every once and a while, the songs are too much. And it also has some of the best tracks on the CD version only. But where it falls short, it more than redeems itself by being completely emotionally exposed. It's the most honest album I've ever heard, and that honesty is really to blame for it's "shortcomings". It reveals itself to the point where you can see it faults, and that, to me at least, it better than any perfectly crafted, emotionally calculated album, any day of the week.
That's the other reason it's a train wreck. It's an emotional journey that will just ruin anyone with a heart. And I don't mean anyone with a facsimile of a heart, but too much of a carefully crafted image for the public to let themselves feel some unadulterated heart break. So if you're like me and you've given up on acceptance and you're miserable and you miss somebody, pick this up.
