Day 8: Notta Comet gets shafted at Princeton

Due to me needing to become a real person, I left the Notta Tour for their Philly and Brooklyn shows. They were fantastic and all the people who went there were wonderful. But if a show happens in a venue and it isn't blogged about does it make a sound?

No it doesn't. I rejoined the tour and the Princeton show happened and was documented by pictures and videos. We knew little about the show going in. It was in a dorm room? The venue was called The Shaft? Did the RA know?

Then this happened:

Man touches ceiling as crowd touches man as Dan touches camera.

Apparently the last time, Princeton University had a dorm show it was in the 80s. Since Princeton is an old school, I am not quite sure what time period this refers to: 1980s? 1880? 1780? 1680? Who knows? But Notta Comet and Girl Arm played the first one in what the organizers of the show said was a while.

Also the promoters and staff of the show were awesome! Thanks for organizing the show, getting people in, and dealing with security when they came. Shout out to Harrison, Chester, Nick, Arjun, Jun, and whoever else I am forgetting.

Oh yeah security came to bust up the show.

the shaft 'staff' t-shirt. it is a little vulgar. the sun is a dong fyi.

I am terrible at taking pictures with my smart phone. Sorry Jun!

GIRL ARM made the crowd dance. Like booty-shaking. There were shaking butts and a really fun pit.

Evidence of GIRL ARM's ability to cause booties to shake.

Alex of Notta Comet and I were both rejected from Princeton but we aren't bitter or anything about it at all.

Evidence of Alex not being bitter about his rejection from Princeton three years ago. There is no evidence about my lack of bitterness.

Notta Comet played an encoure due to popular demand, yay democracy by mob rule. Although I didn't get video of the encore however I got video of the breakdown at the end of Paradoxical Undressing. Sadly blogger won't let me upload so I am saving the footage for the tour doc! Also listen to the Minutemen if you don't already bc they are part of Notta's musical DNA and are an incredible band. 

This picture was a happy accident. Sorry to the person in it.

After the awesome show, we loaded up the cars and went to Alex's house where we grilled and ate steaks (Zakir and Eli had tofu).

 This was once an animal and morally we shouldn't eat it.

Vince, Connor, Tristen, and Alex eat while standing up.

I hope the Shaft happens again. A DIY space like that would be wonderfully beneficial to Princeton and touring bands.

SHAFT! SHAFT! SHAFT!

The next day GIRL ARM and Notta Comet (pictured) were interviewed by Ali from Toronto and WPRB

All hail the rising of the Shaft!

Best,

Daniel 

Social Media Guru at Notta Comet.

Day 6: PGH/the burgh/Pitt

The consensus was Pittsburgh (PGH to the locals and on t-shirts) was 'rad' (Alex), 'rad' (Eli), and 'fun' (Crawford).

Alex is awed by the Cathedral of Learning

We woke up late and then parted ways to do real person things. I sent emails and Facebook messages, Alex wandered, Crawford read Montesquieu, and Eli read esoteric philosophy. We rendezvoused and got Chipotle, a American delicacy which does not exist in Montreal. Then the fellowship broke apart. 

Eli is the pope of the Cathedral of Learning. Crawford is a cardinal. 

GIRL ARM stayed with Meghan, a friend from school who was super awesome about hosting them. Apparently some GIRL ARM members got tattoos? Equipment was dropped off at Area 52, several 5 dollar pizza pies were eaten, and then music was played.

The flyers were posted all around the city

Stephen Lin opened with poetry. I was eating a pizza pie so I missed some of his set however the ending I caught was wonderful. I love readings at shows because it opens up venues to alternative forms of expression! Check out Stephen's stuff, all you alt-lit people you will enjoy it.

The Fledglings were up next! I could tell by their warm-up bass riffs (American Football and Weezer) that I was going to like them. Post-rock slash indie rock I guess would describe them not that well. They are opening for Speedy Ortiz and were both fun to listen to and nice dudes.

Crawford makes an intense face while singing but the lighting was bad-2014

The Notta and GIRL ARM set was the final proof Pittsburgh was awesome. Tons of people came out on a Tuesday night to catch the show and were really into it throughout. I think it helped that we were exotic and Canadian.

After Notta Comet and GIRL ARM was The American Classics. I overheard a story about how they got their name but I am not sure I believe it. Garage slash psych slash surf rock! I have loved all the garage/psych/surf bands Notta Comet has played with and this was no exception! Exclamation point!

The one set of the night I totally missed was TH0USANDZZ of BEEZ. Dreamy smoky vocals over minimal arrangements mmmmmm. I needed a set like that last night and was sorry I missed it.

Tomorrow we are going to Philly where we will eat cheese-steaks and vegetarian lasagna!

Tonight I rest,

Dan

P.S 

Here is the evacuation plan for the Cathedral of Learning, a really tall Pittsburgh landmark which is part of the U of Pitt campus. The plan involves going down a bunch of stairs a bunch of times.

Here is the Cathedral from the outside for context.

Day 4-5: Windsor, Detroit, Pittsburgh.

DAY 4

Notta Comet inWindsor 

This blog post will be part apology. My prose as of late has been lazy. For instance, in my previous blog post "GIRL ARM had a great set...Notta Comet played next and had a really good set" 

This is lazy music writing. So I have copied two recent pitchfork reviews and replaced the bands name with the bands I am touring with:

"Before their rich, sad new album Alliums, it would have been difficult to imagine the Notta Comet song you'd turn to in a time of crisis. “Suburban Beverage”? “Let’s Rock the Beach?” The New Jersey band's first two albums were simply not places to which you brought problems—they were escapist havens, Tiki-torch grottos leading you away from your worries and gently towards the pool raft. The lyrics, meanwhile, were mantras best understood with a beer koozie gripped in one hand: What you want is just beyond your reach; keep on trying. Whoah, it's real. Budweiser, Sprite."

"Club music is easy to mock. Most people know someone skeptical or dismissive of it, a class clown-type who'll derisively mimic a cut by huffing "uhnt-chk-uhnt-chk-uhnt-chk" while goofily nodding his head. Heed this warning: GIRL ARM's "Crimean crimes; will be a boon to this person. Shrill and stone-stoopid, the song's refrain repeats as such: "Feel my moth-er-fuck-ing bass in your face/ Feel my moth-er-fuck-ing bass in your face." The rhythm, composed on a then-cheap, probably discarded drum machine, goes "uhnt-chk-uhnt-chk-uhnt-chk" except when it goes "unt-uhnt-uhnt-uhnt." The bass line sounds like...well, there is no bass line. But if you dropped this little chunk of rhythmic coal on the South or West side of Chicago in 1994, or if you drop it just about anywhere in Europe in 2014, people go wild."

NOW THE MOMENTOUS EVENTS OF THE PAST TWO DAYS!

Yesterday, we woke up and went to Toronto's Chinatown to eat dim-sum.

This is not China- this is a Chinatown-2014

Alex's first dim-sum 2014

Then we drove past Toronto's condos and  through the wind-mills of southern Ontario while listening to Radiolab/This American Life to Windsor. The episode of Radiolab we listened to was mediocre. What it boiled down to was one segment which was mildly interesting about Game Theory in game shows, one segment which involved someone yelling at a man with schizophrenia and 'curing' him, and an segment about violence in people who are left handed. We have started calling this the 'dork tour.'

We played Milk Coffee Bar which serves absinthe. Andrew Brandt put on the show and is a really nice man who is moving to Toronto for a little bit and we wish him luck. I did not have any Absinthe. The two local bands we played with were Life as Love of Water and Pseudopod. These two math duos were tight. One day someone will write an oral history of the math rock scene in Windsor. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of either band however Pseudopod had one fan wear a squirrel costume during the show and I got a photo of that. 

People were really into GIRL ARM and Notta Comet. There was dancing.

Notta Comet performs with laser-sights pointed at them (Tristan made this joke first but I stole it)-2014

We hung out in the bar and the bartender gave us left over birthday cake which brought from her previous job, we didn't eat but Andrew did. We did not get shawarma. Eli's hair caught on fire by accident. I yelled at people after a low blood sugar incident which was remedy by an emergency peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Bartender laughs/is concerned at Eli-2014

Notta Comet and GIRL ARM then stayed with Windsorians Grace and Summer.They talked about Oshwa with Alex and had cool speakers with water fountains inside which moving to the bass. Everyone slept on their floor and snored. I also read book one of the Scott Pilgrim saga, liked the fact it was set in Toronto but did not particularly care for the rest of it.

This is puzzle on the bottom of a beer cap which we couldn't solve. If you tell me the answer I will mail you a Notta Comet CD-2014

DAY 5

We woke up got coffee and then crossed the border. This was an elaborate process which I can't fully get into. Ask me about it on facebook. 

Alex and I had a twenty minutes long conversation with the border guard about urban planning. We discussed Post-Fordism production, comet induced suicide, butter shaped guns, and BBQ. I would have taken a picture of him but that is illegal. Alex and I were driving the equipment and our car was full, my legs had a bass between them, and I hadn't eaten yet. 

Notta Comet and I at a Detroit Diner-2014

Eli is sleepy

We then did the thing we do best. Drove through plains, looked a trees, and listened to Air. Every area we drive through prompted a discussion of the forces which shape the area. Outside of Detroit we passed by Ford plants, billboards promoting veganism, and suburban enclaves to where Detroit's tax base fled long ago (where is bolded on purpose).

Heavy manufacturing in action

We entered Pittsburgh at 11:00PM and are now staying with one of Crawford's friends. Bridges and PNC banks abound! Also, Alex and I got into a debate. I need your option, which sounds better:

" Outside of Detroit we passed by Ford plants, billboards promoting veganism, and suburban enclaves to where Detroit's tax base fled long ago (where is bolded on purpose)"

"Outside of Detroit we passed by Ford plants, billboards promoting veganism, and suburban enclaves to which Detroit's tax base fled long ago (where is bolded on purpose)"

I think the distinction between the sentences is preference based not out of any syntactic merit. 

Best,

Daniel

CFO at Notta Comet

P.S. Here is the most Toronto picture from Day 4.

P. P. S. I wrote my name on the cash box at Windsor.

Day 3: Trahno

We left Ottawa and began our drive through the belt of grey which was the prairie between Ottawa and the Toronto suburbs. It was really grey, Alex got sad because of the weather and he was also hungry. We stopped at a gas station to get food but it was really expensive because they extracted monopolist's rent and maximized their production according to their marginal profit curve.

Eli at gas station-2014

So we then got sandwich materials from a Kingston, Ontario supermarket to save money and live a crust-punk life style. The band and I were the weirdest people in the supermarket and all the good people of Kingston keep looking at us so we bought bread, meat, jame and stole little free packages of ketchup/mayo and quickly left before the good people of Kingston could drive us away from their town and daughters.

Then we got to Trahno! Holy shit is the sprawl outside of Toronto massive and confusing. High rises and nothing else then suddenly the downtown core.

Eli, Crawford, and Alex on Bloor St-2014

We got to The Central, our venue for the night, and dropped off equipment. Then explored Toronto (a three block radius around the venue). We went to a record store and debated which had worse album covers, metal or rap music. I think metal bc of a more complete lack of self and societal awareness and Crawford said rap. Also one metal album cover used Papyrus as a font. 

Crawford finds the best album ever-2014 (can someone send me a torrent of this polka album)

The show was put on by Darryl of Perpetual Stress. Darryl is studying to be a nurse, is in two bands, promotes shows, and works by repairing movie lighting. Pretty cool dude.

The first band was blackbelt. Toronto hardcore is wonderful and all post-genre. They were a lot of fun and I wore earplugs. In regards to Toronto hardcore only know Career Suicide and Fucked Up so seeing this band made me excited and brought me back to being 16 and listening to Damian Abraham scream on my iPod.

GIRL ARM had a great set and there was one guy who was moshing and really into it. Whenever Zakir stage-bantered the guy yelled at him to keep playing but in what was hopefully a good natured albeit aggressive way.

Notta Comet in Honest Ed's Alley-2014

Notta Comet played next and had a really good set. Alex and Crawford made jokes on stage and were disappointed that the audience did not know who Ray Kurzweil is. If you do not know please click on the hyperlink.

The headiner was Trahno post-punks Life in Vacuum. They were awesome (did I use that adjective to describe this day yet?). I don't have much of a reference for T-dot punk but they reminded me of (you guessed it!) Career Suicide but with some more post-rocky parts. They made me want to play in a hardcore band, if anyone wants to play with an inexperienced bassist hit me up.

After the show Eli and I explored the bar and stumbled upon an event going on upstairs. Two DJs were spinning beats as a back and white Japanese film played in the background. This film was Tetsuo: The Iron Man which was a kind of Cronenberg-ian body horror film. A businessman and his lover have surreal sex. His lover has a metallic snake penis in a hallucination, his face falls off like in Poltergeist, and then his penis becomes a drill (graphic content) and he becomes a monster filled with rage. 

TETSUUOOOOO-upstairs at The Central-2014

Eli and I were entranced and freaked out. We then left to eat shawarma which is much better in Toronto than in Montreal. 

 Eli gazes at Korean BBQ restaurant on Bloor-2014

Erin, a friend from University, let us crash at her place and now I sit in boxers on her wifi typing this long-ass post. Tomorrow we are getting dim-sum and then driving to Windsor.

If by some chance you are near Windsor, you should come to Milk Coffee Bar to see us play!

Love and shawarma and drill penises to you all,

Daniel

Blogger in residence at Notta Comet dot com

Day 2-Canada's Capital Region: Gatineau/Ottawa

**In previous blog post I espoused free-market values. Since then, I have undergone an internal audit of my politics and have now realized that well-regulated capitalism with an extensive social welfare net is the way to go**

Montreal is a black hole. It took us three attempts to actually leave the city yesterday. We needed to pick up equipment, gas money, and drop off a key to a locked out roommate.

We then listened to the Talking Heads and drove to Gatineau! Gatineau was confusing to all of us Americans who were confused by the geography. Why are there all these drunk 18 year olds? Why are the signs in French? Why can’t we make a right turn on red? Oh we must be in Quebec.

*CORRECTION: IT IS ONLY MONTREAL WHERE ONE CAN'T MAKE A TURN ON RED. This explains why everyone behind us was honking at us at red lights.*

There were so many cop cars in Gatineau. Also there were so many drunk kids running around yelling and slipping and getting into fights. Also so many cop cars! From an urban systems background, Gatineau development seemed to hinge on liquor laws and the region's proximity to Ottawa. 

We played at Le Troquiet, which is a really nice bar! Weird Canada put on the show and everyone was really nice and awesome! We were so stunned by everyone's niceness we are considering setting up in Ottawa. 

This is my cousin Ostap, we got hamburgers before the Notta Comet/GIRL ARM/BONNIE DOON show.

 This is Phil. He did old school psychedelic projections with oil and dye like they did in the sixties. I talked with him about his art but didn't have the gumption to ask to try making trippy shapes on screen.

Here is our merch! We sold our first CD. We have patches, shirts, tapes, and CDs! If you ask Crawford nicely he can give you a Notta Comet stick and poke.

This is me and Boyan, my other cousin, he came to the show and hosted us at his house. We ate bagels at 3am and talked about how animals reproduce. According to Crawford to Boyan, chickens do some filthy things to make babies.

GIRL ARM!

Eli wore my Black Flag t-shirt to drum in. It felt intimate like watching an ex-lover's wear your flannel or sweatpants or retainer.

BONNIE DOON! Jangly surf-punk native to Ottawa. The lead singer had a luchador mask! They were bilingual on stage and made a joke about pooping oneself and poutine which I needed to ask them about after the show. We talked about St-Henri punk shows and I mainly discussed the one show I went to were I got kicked in the face without bringing up the fact I got kicked in the face at that show.

I leave you with this photo of Crawford playing the piano!

Toronto bound!

-Dan