Where's the Cocaine?

Sacramento dance punk septet called "!!!" (pronounced "Chk, Chk, Chk" or any other series of repeated monosyllabic words) have modest goals for their first show at the Casbah. For a few years they've played the Ché Café and other San Diego venues where attendance can be hit or miss.

"I think if we've played to more than 30 people in San Diego I'd be shocked," says guitarist Mario Andreoni. Even a Vice Magazine street-fair party they played here a few years ago was disastrous.

"We played with Beehive and the Barracudas -- I like their band, and that was the first time I'd ever seen them live -- but they played for almost two hours," Andreoni says. "I was expecting all this rampant cocaine and craziness. I think we played to 15 people at two in the morning. It was the polar opposite of what I thought a Vice party would be."

Andreoni and the rest of !!! have been writing a new album, tentatively due out this spring. They'll debut some of the new material at the December 12 Casbah show, the last date of their West Coast mini-tour.