Author: Clark Scally
Illuminated by the rainbow lights of lasers, KOXY presented a sizzlingly successful concert on Friday in Sycamore Glen, featuring !!! (pronounced “Chk Chk Chk” or “Pow Pow Pow”), Vice Cooler and student band Warmm. Much of the 175-person crowd was dancing throughout the entire show, and a formidable mosh pit formed with the unrelenting rhythmic onslaught. The energetic and undeniably fun combination of funk and punk music with an electronic dance music touch encouraged audience participation while remaining equally enjoyable for those who stood far away from the writhing pit of dancing revelers up front.
After a lengthy sound check, the show opened with student band Warmm. Jack Baker (sophomore) and Joey Weitz (sophomore), backed by drummer Will Saba, a friend of Baker’s from his native San Clemente, thrashed their guitars and belted out punk rock verses. The audience was sparse during the opening songs, but by the time that Vice Cooler took the stage, it had swelled to a crowd that filled half of Sycamore Glen.
The vibe virtuoso Vice Cooler played haphazardly but had a positive attitude and kept the crowd energized for another hour until the final act. Vice Cooler, whose real name is Christiana Vincent Richards Touchstone, has explored genre-blending between electronic dance music, punk rock and more mainstream indie rock for over a decade. Since 1998, he has played with improvisational new-wave punk band XBXRX that features a more deconstructionist lo-fi sound. It provides a unique juxtaposition when compared with Touchstone’s solo project Hanway Troof, a purely synthetic noisy electronica endeavor established in 2001. At the concert, he encouraged the entire audience filling the concrete patio to participate in the highly physical style of punk dancing.
Following Vice Cooler, the eight musicians that comprise !!! went onstage with electrifying intensity. Formed in Sacramento in 1996, !!! is usually pronounced “chk chk chk” but can be any monosyllabic onomatopoeic word repeated thrice. Their band name derives from the subtitles used for Bushmen characters speaking Khoisan in the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy.” Their style fuses modern dance music with post-punk instrumentation. The show was flawless, and the band appeared to hardly break a sweat as they went toe-to-toe with the crowd for an hour that felt like a week’s worth of fun. “We always love playing colleges, there’s always a lot of energy! Glad to see people having a good time!” a member of the group said. Smiles remained on their faces after the show as they put away their sophisticated labyrinth of equipment into their van.
It truly was an honor to have a world-touring band perform for Occidental students, courtesy of KOXY’s funding. !!! has earned critical acclaim worldwide, and their career seems to be making the jump to lightspeed. They played “Slyd,” a song from their upcoming April 30 album “THR!!!ER,” and the audience appeared to love it. Up close and personal live, all their songs blended perfectly together, creating an impressive wall of sound that the starstruck audience scaled with ease.
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