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Red Stains
The Gospel
Thee Lucifer Sams
at the Creation Dream Machine night
AATMA Manchester
Oct 2022
Live Review
On a very busy gig night in Manchester where every venue seemed to have something on John Robb managed to catch parts of the Creation Dream Machine night and was suitably impressed.
Texas Bob is something of a legend in indie circles. Sometime member of the TV Personalities and sometime member of MGMT he is one of those jovial creative characters of no fixed abode or no fixed planet who just seems to pop up all over the place like a kinetic bundle of energy making things happen – we like those kinds of people.
Tonight is the first of his Creation Dream Machine nights in Manchester – Alan Mcgee has allowed Texas Bob to use his label name as a flag of convenience and there is a bill of bands cranking up the electricity in the cosy confines of the city centre AATMA venue. This event organised by the Liverpool Psychedelic Society (UK) and Creation Dream Machine (USA) is a unique get-together of artists from the UK, USA, Brazil, Russia, featuring live music, poetry, trippy visuals, and artwork by Syd Barrett’s nephew, Ian Barrett, besides a playlist paying homage to Alan McGee’s Creation Records as well as being an Official Night for Creation and paying homage to Tony Wilson’s Factory Records, two big influences for the acts performing on the night:
We miss Irina Schtreis due to having too much to cram in but everyone is raving about her atmospheric set but we get there in time for Thee Lucifer Sams who take their cue from St Syd Barrett’s classic track and swoop off into a thirty-minute jam of epic psychedelic proportions. They seem to work out every single permutation of the god like mantra of the d minor drone and Ivan Thunders guitar and the bass soar into outer space and it sounds hypnotic and stunning. There are no vocals – just tapes of voices and it creates a genuine interstellar overdrive.
The Gospel is a new project from LA renegade, Jimmy Sweet, who has just relocated to Manchester. This is truly something else – the greatest music comes from visionary thinking and from transcending your surroundings and as the band take the stage dressed to the nines looking like they have escaped from the set of a David Lynch film they ooze an off kilter style and a whiff of cordite danger and make a music to match. This is a deeply dramatic sound with Ivan crooning in his best tuxedo baritone dark and dangerous songs as the women who make up the band flank him pounding their toms and adding these audacious operatic harmonies. With their mix of pounding percussion, these dark energy melodies and soundtrack dynamics I’ve never seen a band like this before and I’ve seen many bands! The music is mind-blowing and with a deal struck with Mainman management, it feels like the Gospel are going to be making a big noise soon.
There are very few signposts to where this is coming from – I guess the closest would be Nick Cave at his most dramatic but that’s a lazy comparison. The Gospel have somehow found something of their own and something powerfully dark and dramatic that instantly connects.
In a world of mice like followers and the Gospel are leaders.
Because I had to rush off to another gig I missed our favourite post-punk act from Manchester, The Red Stains. Texas Bob reports that ‘last night’s headliners and showcased their new line up – now featuring a new drummer, a drum-machine and a guitar that sounds like a synthesizer. Charismatic singer Natalie and excellent bassist Sterling remain the core of the band – so in a way little has changed, really, the songs are still there and The Raw Punk Energy and Sounds Echoes of the Brilliant Honey Bane and Delta 5 and Lydia Lunch’s 8 Eyed Spies and sounded richer now carving their own Punk Chaos and Energy – with the added excitement and energy that a new lineup, indeed a new start, requires. The Red Stains were excellent and put everyone to dance in the end. Could we ask for more?’
