Band On The Run

Blood Thirsty Bastards

“Oh shit!” I muttered with all too much vigour, stumbling slightly on one foot away from the coffee table I’d run into with the other leg.

However the fact that I was going to have a rather large bruise on my leg wasn’t the most important thing at the moment. What was important was the fact that I’d managed to keep perfect hold on the vinyl I had in my hands, being particularly careful and sure not to scratch as I balanced it between my hands. They may be sore, but they had enough flesh memory in them to remember how to hold a record.

It was something that was ingrained in me, after all.

Giving up the cursing under my breath, I limped my way around – warily this time – the coffee table that I was considering throwing straight out the window. Although I sent the table one last dirty look all animosity for the thing fled away when I placed the needle carefully on the record.

Letting out a sigh, I let my eyes shift for a moment to the window.

The rain was pouring down against the window, letting even the bright lights of New York – because no other city’s lights could compare – being dampened by the downpour that was informing the inhabitants of the coming season. A person never truly accepts that fall is there until the first big rainstorm. But not even that could pause this city, nothing stopped or took a slight intermission. It didn’t even manage to dampen spirits.

As the static disappeared from the speakers that had begun playing the first disc of the White Album I watched the rain drops racing down the window for a moment. The darkness wasn’t deterring them from their games.

Shaking my head from the thoughts, I wandered back around the coffee table, only to collapse onto the couch without much dignity.

The album had seemed fitting for the current pattern of my thoughts. Tense in the making yet unbelievably adventurous, taking blinding turns within a blink of an eye – or the change of a song, with the traces from The Beatles excursion to India so strong that I could practically feel it on my skin. Not to mention the confusion that came from an abundance of drugs as well as enormous egos battling each other in the studio since by all accounts it hadn’t been the most pleasant of albums to make.

I sympathized, I truly did, although I wasn’t exactly John Lennon or Paul McCartney, was I?

However listening to it was actually perfect for me at the moment.

Staring up at the ceiling with the pillows I’d fallen upon creating very short walls about me, I ran my hands wearily over my face so I didn’t have to stare at the plain ceiling. However the moment I did that, I was reminded of the pain in my fingers as I grimaced, pulling them away only to hold them in front of me.

The fingertips on both hands were red raw, the skin having been pushed to the breaking point against guitar strings not for the first time. Even the callouses weren’t able to stand up against the pressure. However I’d finally got to the point where I could stop myself before I broke the skin and begun bleeding all over my prized guitars, there was a time where I wouldn’t have even thought of it until long after I’d been bleeding. Not when I was involved so deeply in something.

It was funny that pain was nonexistent in moments like that. Nothing mattered besides the music, it consumed and whether it built or destroyed was the question, because it had to do one of them.

What had been on my mind was the music, and I’d liked it that way, it kept other thoughts away. However I had to stop or else I’d be in major pain for the foreseeable future if I cut open my fingers, because every time they’d start to heal, I’d have to play another gig and they’d just open again. It could take months for them to get back to normal. It had happened before, and it was a self-inflicted sort of torture.