Beta Band :: Dry the Rain
Chicagoan-to-be Karen and I listened to this on repeat for days back in 2001, attending a conference in Tzachadzor, Armenia. The town had been a ski resort for the Soviet apparatchik; our Armenian friends told us enviously of Tzachadzor’s lavish opulence and single operating ski lift in the country.
The hotel looked like a scale model of the Barbarella set had been dunked in a pot of coffee, dropped on the floor, kicked into a corner, left in that corner for 12 years, and then enlarged and rented out to foreigners for tremendous profit. The ski lift was a lawn chair welded to rusted wire and covered in weeds. It turns out that Soviet decadence in Armenia was on par with a Knight’s Inn outside of Toledo.
We were suspended in space, living in the woods and the Inn, being Americans together in a faraway place. That’s what I think of when I listen to this song, that and 1000 other things, and I feel hopeful and also really sad. It’s nice to hear that it will be alright because I always forget. Therefore: THIS is the number one song in heaven. I was shocked to recognize it in the John Cusack movie High Fidelity; I really thought it was Karen and I’s secret, possibly created out of Camel smoke and deepest sentiment.
It turns out that John Cusack physically gave birth to this song, recruited a group of Scottish hooligans to pose as “The Beta Band” combining (according to AMG) “post-grunge balladry to funk and ambient breakbeat to Madchester acid house.” Hello? None of those things exist. If that phrase isn’t a Cusackian ruse, I don’t know what is. Conveniently for Mr. Cusack, the Beta Band is no more, and their secrets are lost forever in the maze of their impenetrable accents. We have the song, though. We have it and they can never take it away from us.
Dry the Rain
Beta Band (homepage)
johnny said on thursday, may 29th, 2008
claire said on thursday, may 29th, 2008
you can in fact sell this record just by playing it (as they do in high fidelity). and we did where i worked in college many, many times.
a. i love this song
2. we just heard this in urbana and i made everyone in the car stop for a second, turn it up way loud, and get lost in the manchestery ooey gooey goodness that is the beta band.
III. one of the best songs to play either air shaker or air tambourine with.
Last, i’d like to state that you always pull something like this on me where im forced to stop fake hating you. damn you katy. damn you!!!!!!!