!!! Ponder Alternative Punctuation

It's not easy having a band name that is spelled using just punctuation. Right before their Monday night show at the Mezzanine in San Francisco, !!!'s Nic Offer told Spinner that he was "totally bummed" because a recent iTunes upgrade changed the way iPods alphabetize bands -- names beginning with numbers and punctuation are now listed at the end of the music library instead of the beginning. "We lost out on all these other things because the name held us back," Offer said. "But that was the one thing where it was like, 'Well, at least we're first on everyone's iPod.'"

The three exclamation marks that the band uses as its moniker is pronounced "chk-chk-chk," but Spinner asked Offer to ponder alternative punctuation-only band names. "I kind of like the idea of it being three question marks, because then it would have to be silent and it would just be kind of a look in your eyes," he said, making a humorously confused face. Three periods would either necessitate a "stoic look" or a "hanging pause." But, by this logic, wouldn't !!! just become an excited facial expression as well? "Not really, because it is a lingual thing," Offer offered. "In a lot of languages it is an actual sound whereas I don't know of any language that has the question mark as a sound."