Youngstown, Ohio, may be known for its once-thriving steel industry, but nowadays, the city's most popular export is Gil Mantera's Party Dream. The band — made up of brothers Gil Mantera and Ultimate Donny — plays New Wave-ish synthpop with kitschy, drum machine beats and wildly emotive vocals that sometimes cross the line into vocoder-fied robotic buzzings (think Depeche Mode meets Kraftwerk). The live show is one part pseudo-performance art, one part indecent exposure set to music, and just the sort of deranged spectacle you'd get from a couple of musicians who enjoy entertaining themselves as much as the audience — assless chaps and Viking helmets included. The show at Crowbar kicks off with performances by The Nein, Velveteen Pink, Poetry n' Lotion and Ryan Wendell Bauer. Sat., Jan. 21, 8 p.m., Crowbar, 1812 N. 17th St., Ybor City, $8, 813-241-8600, aestheticized.com.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2007.