Tuesday, June 17, 2008

GMPD heads to Warped Tour

By Sarah Poulton

Caution: may contain sarcasm.

A local band is about to go to the party of their dreams.

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream is packed up and headed for the 2008 Vans Warped Tour. Brothers “Gil Mantera” and “Ultimate Donny” are leaving for Los Angeles Wednesday and will be staying with friend and former Party Talk member, “Gage,” before boarding the bus for a three-month tour.

According to the official Web site, the first Warped Tour show is June 20 at the Pomona (Calif.) Fairgrounds. The tour will hit various cities throughout the United States and Canada. Warped Tour will swing through Cleveland’s Time Warner Cable Amphitheater at Tower City on July 17 and hit Pittsburgh’s Post Gazette Pavilion July 29. The final tour date is Aug. 17 in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson City at the Home Depot Center.

While on Warped Tour, Gil and Donny will not only travel via tour bus, but on the same bus as Warped Tour creator, Kevin Lyman.

“We’re on THE bus, meaning Kevin Lyman’s bus,” Donny said “Bus One. He is Mr. Warped Tour.”

Donny said Lyman personally invited them on the tour after catching a live show at this year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas. The duo played a show at Emo’s Annex and before they knew it, they had an on-the-spot invite to one of the nation’s biggest festivals.

“I was pretty drunk walking around, I think by myself, and ran into Kevin,” Donny said. “He personally invited us to do the entire Warped Tour... He was giving us spots, two spots, on his bus which is insane. It’s out of control.”

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream is set to perform their shows on the Skullcandy Stage, which was described by Donny as “a tiny stage.” The brothers aren’t sweating that though, and have a plan up their sleeves.

“Our goal is just to kick so much ass at our little stage and hope some band gets sick one day and can’t play so they put us on the big stage,” Donny said.

He wasn’t kidding, either. Collectively, their goals are to gain popularity, make new connections and sell a lot of new merchandise. For this tour, he said they ordered about $5,000 in new merch.

This isn’t their first experience with Warped Tour. In 2006, Donny said they played two shows on the tour. The first was an after-party show for Bus One in Camden, N.J., and the second was in a tent in Scranton, Pa.

“That experience was really weird because we were outsiders,” Donny said. “This time’s going to be different.”

While they’re looking forward to the tour from a business aspect, Donny said the hype and excitement is pretty cool too.

“Just seeing how far we can take it is something I’m looking for,” Donny said. “Like, how much of a buzz we can create. Hopefully, some bizarre shit can happen that bumps us up to a bigger stage.”

Like every tour he’s been on, Donny said there’s a certain nervousness in the pit of his stomach that he can’t shake. Unlike most local musicians, performing and making music is their primary source of income. If the show flops, he said, they flop.

But if they don’t, you may not recognize The Ultimate Donny if you catch the act at either local show.

“I’m going to act a lot cooler,” Donny said. “Like, if we’re doing really well, I’m going to act like a big shot asshole.”

But he never plans to act like that, just like they never plan to do a lot of things. Anyone who’s ever seen the show knows the brothers like to strip, but Donny said that’s never a planned venture.

“I never plan to be an asshole, there’s not even a plan to take my clothes off,” Donny said. For this tour, though, he said he plans to never wear a shirt, get a tan and look a lot more like Bruce Lee than he does now.

Along with new merch, Gil Mantera’s Party Dream has been working on some new material. Donny said their newest single, “Ballerina” is about to drop any minute and a three-song EP on vinyl will come out at some point during the tour. The vinyl will include remixes of “Elmo’s Wish” and “McCoojah & Kizmit.” Also featured is a Detroit techno-style version of “Super Plus Ice Festival,” all from their 2005 LP Bloodsongs.