Mika Miko at Comet Ping Pong

It’s not often that, on your way into a punk rock show, you have to carefully skirt around the band members, for fear of interrupting their ping-pong match. Or that, while waiting for the bands to finish setting up, you join a roomful of families in a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” directed at a beaming girl seated in front of an ice cream sundae. Then again, Comet Ping Pong, the noted upper Northwest pizza parlor/ping pong establishment, isn’t your average venue. Recalling both the DIY ethos and multitasking charm of Chicago’s storied Fireside Bowl, Comet turns out to be the ideal venue for a band like Mika Miko, who are known as much for their involvement with L.A. all-ages performance space The Smell as their back-to-basics take on three-chord punk rock.