So brand new album, new live drummer, creepy new publicity shot—how has the transition been?

Gil Mantera: It’s been fun. I feel like I’m apart of a real tight-knit unit now that Tony is involved. In the past, we’ve been a bit sloppy from time to time, with performing and handling the business end of things, so it’s nice to have such a no-nonsense, greedy prick in the band to keep us in line. We’re becoming more and more organized across the board.

Is your heart still in Youngstown or are you adapting to Pittsburgh? Are you a Pittsburgh band now?

GM: The older I get, the less prideful I become. I still regard Youngstown as a very cool and unique place to hail from, but it obviously isn’t cool enough for me to be living there. I hate when people move out to L.A. or Brooklyn or wherever and want to talk about how amazing being from Youngstown is. If it’s so fucking great, move back! Pittsburgh is where I call home now. My brother, on the other hand, will never leave Youngstown. He loves it.  I love the ‘burgh. The cool thing is, I’m only an hour and half drive away. It doesn’t really matter to me where people consider our band to be from.

For Dreamscape, even though it has the touchstone sound of GMPD, it feels like you wiped the slate clean for this one. How did you approach the new record when you began?

GM: Over the past few years, I became immersed in Italo Disco from the early- to mid-80s. It’s not only some of the greatest dance music ever made, it also shares a similar bizarre kind of aesthetic with my band that is often neglected in the revival scenes. In my possibly subconscious or conscious attempt to disassociate with electroclash as it came and went, I strayed from disco beats. I missed out on a lot of good music from the past and present by being too stubborn. So, this record embraces the mid-tempo disco beat to the fullest.   

It appears that Donny has toned it down a bit and it works well. Is this him embracing his sensitive side or simply trying to channel his inner Pet Shop Boy?

GM: It’s funny how well he can directly ape the Pet Shop Boy’s vocal style. You don’t really hear it on the record, but one of the grouped vocal tracks on the chorus for the song “Dreamscape” is sung just that way. Donny has a tendency to want to belt it out like the macho man he is, and he does that very well, but we’re becoming more and more aware of what works best for the song.

More than anything you’ve done before this is much brighter, epic, and best of all, full of pop. I know this is a balance you’ve always strived for. What have you been listening to that influenced this?

GM: Besides the Italo stuff, which has a suprising amount in common with my favorite band New Order, I’ve been really into OMD, Sparks, Alexander Robotnik, Telex, Tangerine Dream, Ashra, Giorgio Moroder, Gino Soccio, Jean Michel-Jarre, Patrick Cowley, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ultravox, Simple Minds, Tears for Fears, etc….  I can hear all of that stuff in the new record.

How many times will this be at SXSW?

GM: This will be the third time.

What can we expect with the live show?

GM: I don’t know exactly. We just finished a long tour, which I’ve done jack shit since it ended about week ago. I ran into Tony at the bar a couple of times and saw that shitty Chun-Li movie. There’s no way to predict what kind of headspace the band will be in, but hopefully it’s a fresh and positive one.  We’re ditching our Spiderman tights we rocked the entire tour for something more sophisticated and tough, but maybe not. I gotta figure that out very soon. 

Is there anyone playing you’re excited about seeing?

GM: I’ve never been good about running around to see bands, referring to schedules, and waiting in lines. I can’t enjoy myself until my work is done anyway. The only day I’ll be able to check out bands will be Saturday. There’s that cool French chick Yelle that’s playing the same show as us at Emo’s, which works out conveniently for me. I’m actually really psyched to check her out. Devo and Echo and the Bunnymen would be a real treat, but I don’t think it’s gonna work out for me.

Any advice or life lessons you’d like to pass on to first timers?

GM: Mainly, it’s not gonna be like a “real” show. I don’t feel like our band, or most any other band, can really get down properly in the festival context, which ultimately demands for an over-enthusiastic crowd to compensate for the less than 100% quality performance. Now, when that audience is seeming way too mild, that’s normal. There’s more studying than rocking going on at this thing, but that’s mainly because it’s not entirely your crowd. That’s my experience as a guy in a band who’s still got a ways to go before shit gets cushy. Roll with the punches, take care of business, enjoy the weather, eat BBQ, and get drunk! 

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream play Friday night/Saturday morning at 1:00 a.m. at the Parish Downstairs and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. at Emo’s Main Room.

Hoping to avoid sunstroke, I’ve retreated to the cavern-like confines of Beerland. Dead Ghosts were on stage as I walked in. Their loud garage rock kicked my ass in gear and set the tone for what’s likely to be an afternoon of scoping out garage punk groups I’ve never seen before.

Earlier, I was at the Onion AV show. Chikita Violenta was just alright, kind of a gentler take on later Superchunk. The straightforward pop-rock of the Thermals was a bit better.

Searching for freebies (bbq, beer, etc) is becoming futile. Everywhere is running out before the one o’clock hour. Oh well, find places with cheap drinks and good bands and who’s complaining. I was urged to the Bay Area Takeover party just to see Thee Oh Sees, but was pleasantly surprised by the inside stage’s Two Sheds. The singer had the blues bad, and the others in the band knew their way around a similar kind of folk—so everything worked to their advantage. I’m not going out on limb to give them the Black Keys, but for 12:00 on a sunny Thursday, it was unique.

It was Thee Oh Sees, however, that cannot be missed the rest of the week. Setting up on the concrete, not the stage—for maximum effect? For start time efficacy? It gave the aura of a Lightning Bolt show… in 2009. Jon Dwyer remarked that he felt like a “condom full of dogshit” and that he was “sweating battery acid” before ripping through 20 minutes of the finest garbage punk I’ve seen so far. Thee Oh Sees seem like Dwyer’s vision coming to an apex, the noise and fury of everything he’s done before stretched into an all-star cast of stooges.

Again, on this day it was all about seeking out new bands. Once Ron and I made the loooooong walk east of Downtown (Little Mexico) to the Peacock, I discovered one such band. San Francisco’s Girls made the best of an awkward situation. The stage was nearly a half-foot lower than the crowd, and the tiny, cramped room in which they were playing was sweltering sauna hot. Hearing their first few songs, one could assess that they were similarly awkward, perhaps dressed in Oxfords and coifs that would not move with the wind. Upon closer inspection, of them and their music, geek-chic inspired pop is just one of their many colors. Yes, there’s the brilliant “Lust for Life,” a hand-clap, helium, confection, but from there they have plenty of Spacemen 3 psych-waves welling up and bursting into momentous epics. Be on the lookout.

Speaking of Wavves, Nathan Williams played again. My head is hurting thinking about it right now. Not sure if that’s bad or good.

Good for our bodies, We hiked it back West only to be pulled aside by the allure of Ms. Bea’s outdoor patio and the beginning of my deja vu. Thankfully it would be my first Nite Jewel show of the day. At dusk, in the calm wind, the two native Californians brought a breezy, West Coast vibe to their low-key bedroom disco. This was the perfect environment for their mellifluous beats and creeper synths as opposed to the actual night (seeing them at the Beauty Bar later was less inspiring). They do rock an Ipod for their backing band, but the ethereal Roger-esque treatment of the keys is the good stuff anyways, and it looks as if Ramona’s forever experimenting.

The Fader Fort was my portal from day to night. But there isn’t much going on there besides the personification of a Hipster Runoff universe. Skipped right through Wonderland. Have a feeling I’ll be back, with or without Tricky and Kanye.

The night portion of started at the Siltbreeze showcase with the rapid hardcore of Ratas del Vaticano and quickly followed up by Eat Skull’s continual blistered-blast of pop hits.

I had to split in order to see Gun Outfit at the Red 7. Later in the evening GO’s Dylan Sharp revealed this was only the third or fourth show they’d ever played. While the sloppiness showed through, it never discouraged the songs. Witty and incisive, ragged and loud. I like to think they are resurrecting grunge and making it better in the process. Grunge needs resurrected, but it also needs a little inwardness and terror riffs, which this trio dishes out in equal manor.

I would have let my brother down if I didn’t go to see Flower Travellin’ Band, yes the ‘70s monolith from Japan responsible for one of the great wonders of Psych in Satori. I had assumed this would be horrible, the Smoking Music venue (shoving American Spirits down your throat) didn’t help, but Hideki Ishima rolled out the classic record right from the start, tickling his 12-stringed tree-trunk into a dizzying haze. It did get a bit “polished” and a bit too blooze for my blood, but it was good to see nostalgia that didn’t make me cringe.

After that it was off to the Columbus Discount shebang—that’s going to require a work of semi-fiction. But for now I can include some words. Ron House on the Floor, Unholy Two taunting Wavves (again, yeah, again), Psych Horseshit in Popeye’s Apartment… and then…

...at 4AM at a campfire party in the park.