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