Feeling more like disco dance-friendly Studio 54 crossed with punk dive CBGB than indie SA hotspot Paper Tiger, !!!, pronounced Chk Chk Chk, made dancing, grooving and pogo-ing cool again.
In support of their newly released sixth studio album, As If, !!! slicked up the fun-loving disco genre while trampling it to a bloody pulp with their punk influence.
Looking like a Juno-era Michael Cera with moves like Richard Simmons doing a Mick Jagger impression, frontman and founder Nick Offer put the chk chk boom in !!!. Hardly breaking a sweat, Offer danced as effortlessly on the stage and in the audience as his transition into a smoother-than-brandy falsetto.
To put the punk in dancepunk, Offer put the microphone head into his mouth while holding a tambourine, possibly paying homage to punker Lux Interior of the Cramps who performed the same act when punk was still a wild child. It wouldn’t be a show without costume changes and for the encore Offer changed out of his tee shirt/gym shorts combo and came out rocking a mini gingham dress, complete with subtle flashes to the front row.
!!! put on the kind of show where the too-cool-to-dancelooked like assholes while the awkward-but-fuck-it came out as rulers of the discotheque kingdom.
This article appears in Project Censored 2015.