THE FRONT ROW

In preparation for the release of their eagerly anticipated debut album Thank God! It’s The Dream Machine, Wirral band The Dream Machine are embarking on a short three date residency at Liverpool venue Jimmy’s. On Thursday I went along to the middle episode of the trilogy to see what all the fuss was about.

First band on the bill were north-west newcomers Idyllic. With influences stemming from both ends of the M62 Idyllic’s sound displays elements of Manchester’s feel for rhythm and Liverpool’s love of melody, without ever obviously favouring one over the other.

The band’s sound had a solid rock rhythmic foundation that allowed it’s two standout features to flourish – the lead guitar virtuosity of Megan Lee, and the powerful, soulful vocals of Niall Doolan. A very promising outing from a band with bags of potential.

One of Liverpool’s best kept secrets are Bright Town. We need to stop keeping them so secret and start spreading the word. People are trying. When artists of the calibre of Michael Head and the Red Elastic Band and The Dream Machine want you to support them then you must have something about you. What they have is a great sense of melody and harmony. They just want to write great songs.

Perhaps it’s a quirk of geography but there has always been a rump of Liverpool bands who face westward and take their inspiration from the likes of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Bright Town fit into that category. They played a great set of songs including Ghosts, Smother, and my personal favourite on the night My Little Accident – a song lush with brushed drums and three part harmonies. Bright Town may be from Liverpool but their songs owe more to Laurel Canyon Boulevard than Walton Hall Avenue.

The evening’s headliners The Dream Machine entered the stage to the strains of what sounded like a Rocky movie soundtrack and came out punching with the heavyweight I still Believe (in Jim Jones). It’s difficult to pin down the sound of a band that The Coral once described as ‘Demonic choirboys’. There’s a psychedelic quality to it without the frippery. There’s a punkish energy and passion mixed with a Nuggetsy garage-rock fuzziness. It’s a wild heady mix.

Second song was the frantic Doors influenced Baby Run with it’s trippy Ray Manzarek keyboards. Singer/guitarist Zak McDonnell has a rich pedigree he was briefly in an early incarnation of The Mysterines and spent some time making tea for James Skelly while working at Parr Street Studios. Skelly’s influence can be glimpsed in jangly, up-beat tunes like Wild One and the beautiful Lola, In The Morning. McDonnell’s resonant vocals seem to bely his slight frame in a young Steve Marriott type of way.

The Dream Machine were taking a trip on the psychedelic train again with Om Kring and TV Baby/Satan’s Child before pulling into garageland with a brief cover of The Stooges I Wanna be Your Dog. The climax to a pulsating show escalated with the band’s most streamed tune to date Too Stoned To Die and the excellent Children, My England – a song that McDonnell has said is about ‘growing-up in northern English towns 50 years past their sell-by-date’.

Thank God! It’s The Dream Machine is released via Modern Sky on April 28th and you can catch The Dream Machine on the last leg of their Jimmy’s residency on April 26th, supported by Frog Dylan and Mondo Trasho. Buy the former, see the latter.

Ian Dunphy.