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In This Town

by B Pictures

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1.
In This Town 02:57
Standing tall and silent I've seen every brick I feel young and old I feel sick I hold a photograph It slips through my hands I think of looking forward Instead of back And sometimes love is a compensation A slow current under the bridge You and I have crossed it In this town In this town In this town In this town A smokestack gray Is laughter in the rain A train track rusted Won't carry me away And sometimes love is a compensation But I might ask whose it has been? These awful times in a dulling fog That live and die and crawl In this town And sometimes love is a compensation A slow current under the bridge One street might belong to a selfish man You and I have crossed it In this town In this town In this town
2.
Warm summer showers And a child will laugh Imagine yourself on a train Leaving, looking back As pretty flowers die in a day As all those blank nights Now quietly lay Lay down… Down at the head of the bed Pale and dull and lifelessly said good-bye Said good-bye Listen to raindrops Dayton is mine This forsaken hole Is 20 years behind Those pretty flowers die in a day Betray, betray Wilt and decay Away… Love and luck have all been said Pale and dull yet handsomely dressed Prove me wrong Please prove me wrong A life full of bad luck is all I've had And I'll trust in love again and again But I'll trust in love again And again...

about

In the latter part of 1984, B Pictures sprang noisily to life on the suburban, eastern fringe of Dayton, Ohio. Assembling in drummer Kevin Fennell's basement, guitarist Jim Harper, bassist Paul Payiatas, fledgling singer and lyricist Jeffrey Bright and Fennell hammered out a series of raucous original songs that would propel them into 1985 and culminate in a number of memorable performances at Dayton's Canal Street Tavern. Midway through the year, Payiatas relocated to Florida and Paul Comstock took over on bass.

The band's approach followed the ethos of late 70's punk and new wave, but their sound grew from the post-punk and neo-psychedelic movements of the era, bearing sonic similarities to such acts as Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Dream Syndicate and cow punk practitioners Rank and File. Eventually, on the back of Bright's rust belt romanticism and eccentric stage mannerisms, the band stretched into territories pioneered by literary song stylists such as the Smiths.

In both cuts here, Dayton takes a lead role. "In This Town" plays out like a noir-tinged western against ghosts of the city's more prosperous industrial past, and "Pretty Flowers Die in a Day" unfolds as a sprawling, melancholic's lament built on Fennell and Comstock's loose 3/4 time, intensifying to a brilliant and brutal guitar crescendo. Harper's guitar work on both songs is remarkable, adroitly interpreting and annotating Bright's dead-ended emotional landscapes — crumbling, grey wastelands of decay and lost hope.

B Pictures's stake in the long rush of 20th Century American pop culture, minor at it was, was to create a compelling, dramatic, existential musical poetry. Their's was a brief but poignant splash on the Dayton alt rock scene, a scene that would within the two decades following produce a handful of noteworthy bands and artists, among them, Fennell, as drummer for Guided by Voices. Bright would go on to front influential Dayton indie group The Pleasures Pale before leaving for San Francisco in 1988 where he would write and perform in Darke County, Myself a Living Torch and Jeff Bright & the Sunshine Boys, a retro act popular in late 1990s California.
credits

credits

released November 11, 2018

voice, keyboards – jeffrey bright
guitars – jim harper
bass guitar – paul comstock
drums – kevin fennell
additional sounds – jeffrey bright

initial recording:
produced & engineered by b pictures
various basements
dayton, ohio
1985

additional recording:
san francisco, california
2018

cover art & design – jeffrey bright

c) 1985 B Pictures
p) 2018 JABMA
Fugitive Music Publishing / BMI

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B Pictures Dayton, Ohio

Featuring future members of The Pleasures Pale and Guided by Voices, B Pictures made a brief but vibrant mark on the mid 1980s Dayton OH indie music scene. BP's sound grew from post-punk and neo-psychedelic movements of the period — a la Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen and Dream Syndicate — and eventually stretched into territories inhabited by literate song stylists such as The Smiths. ... more

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