Songs For Your Day

Rob turns to Dick and under his breath says, “I will now sell five copies of ‘The Three E.P.’s’ by the Beta Band.”

Like a kid to a magic trick and with a slight quiver, Dick mutters, “Go for it.”

‘Dry the rain’ (side one, track one of the aforementioned record) floods over the record store and customers begin to bob heads in unison as the groove takes hold.

“Who is this?” asks one bobbing patron.

“The Beta Band,” responds Rob.

“It’s really good.”

“I know.”

High Fidelity sums up the trendy record store lifestyle that so many of us hate to love to be a part of. Watching this scene play out is amusing because we’ve all seen it go down in real life – as the rabid vinyl freaks flip through stacks of records in search of new and used treasures, the clerk puts on something obscure but able to maintain it’s pop-sensibilities and the indie kids slither to the counter find out more. I’m so bad about this trap that I picked up ‘The Three E.P.’s’ after watching the process go down in the movie.

That all said, the album is incredible. It’s not one that I typically think to scroll to on my iPod, but when the Beta Band pops up via ’shuffle,’ I feel like I’m bobbing my head in Championship Vinyl, circa 2000.  The record is repetitive, airy, muttered and obscure enough to please all the strange-ranger vinyl geeks of the decade. Even digital versions of the recordings are laden with vinyl scratches for the purists guilty of owning an iPod.

I’ve got it on my ‘Top Five Records Thanks to John Cusack’ list. Put on ‘Dry the Rain’ for a friend unfamiliar with the movie and relive the scene as said friend bobs and asks, “Who is this?”