Blustery winds and damning skies loomed over the city. Public transportation shut down in early preparation of Sandy, the angry-mother-of-a-sea-monster tearing along the eastern seaboard.
John Rambo, the DJ, band manager of Total Slacker, and booker for Brooklyn’s Cheap Storage, is mysteriously covered head to toe in glitter by some unexplained accident from the previous night, and looking quite pensive.
A miscommunication with my language-differed roommate brought a cheap Chinese cab service to my front door in the lower east side befalling Sandy’s landfall. With a few meager supplies thrown into my rucksack I was on my way to visit my bartending pal with a sofa, and prepping for my own birthday falling on the same day as a natural disaster. Brooklyn’s Legion Bar gathered a small crowd in anticipation of Mother Nature’s ravage, while Rambo threw on some songs.
“This is gonna be a weird week,” I lamented.
“I’ve had a bad week. Shit, I’ve had a bad month,” Rambo exhaled in characteristic deep voice.
“For one, my friend Terence Connor passed away,” said Rambo, referring to the horrible accident that took the life of Total Slacker’s drummer.
He continued, “My friend’s house got broken into. I had to move. And, I mean, there’s other stuff too. I’d rather not publish though. But things aren’t all bad. I got word that [Connor’s] family received the $2,700 we raised at the Cheap Storage show for Terence’s brothers’ college fund.”
“How have you been getting through it?” I asked.
“Whenever I get in a funk, I listen to the same song over and over again,” he responded.
“And when going through a bad month, I recommend hanging out with friends on the Internet, but not so much in real life. Because you drink too much, you stay out too late and you talk way too much about your problems. Which is exactly what I’m doing right now.”
As the nor-east readies for the forming nor'easter and deals with Sandy’s after-wrath, Rambo sets the tone for this week’s mixtape by revealing the light at the end of the tunnel. Adding a dash of melancholy pizzazz from Real Estate, the playlist sweeps it up with the light-hearted “Alright,” by Supergrass, and adds the confidence boosting jammer “Midas Touch,” by Boards of Canada. If that’s not enough silver linings for you, now that Obama’s re-elected we no longer have to worry about Big Bird going off the air. To celebrate, listen for “Monster in the Mirror” and “Wet Paint” of Sesame Street notoriety, streaming at the bottom of the website screen.
John Rambo's Bad Month Mixtape
Tracklisting:
01 Shelley Duvall – He Needs Me
02 Ted Lucas – Plain & Sane & Simple Melody
03 Boards of Canada – Midas Touch
04 How Now Brown & The Moo Wave – Wet Paint
05 Talking Heads – Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
06 Real Estate – Municipality
07 Supergrass – Alright
08 Dan Deacon – Snookered
09 Grover – Monster In the Mirror
