http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdLpua5cS3s

A Pretty Boy in His Underwear
By Hiya Swanhuyser
We had the privilege of sitting next to now-famous blogger Brock Keeling of SFist for a number of years when he was our clubs editor. So we can tell you authoritatively that he is stylish, sometimes cruelly so. Always subtle, sharp, and body-conscious, his clothing was better than ours, every day, as was his hair and skincare regime. We think he may attend the fourth annual Boxer Rebellion, since at least one of the designers at this underwear-focused fashion show has been known to use bare-crotched celebrities as a visual motif: This is right up Brock's alley. The designer, Improperazzi, also features "yes smoking" buttons (no diagonal line, just a picture of a cigarette), a generally slim fit, and blatant drug imagery — all very Brock. Other designers include Vintage Joy, owner of the half boring, half hilarious slogan "Changing the world of style, styling the world of change," Mei Lin, Dan Gallagher, and Cara Barnard. Murder of Lilies, the Catholic Comb, Ghost to Atom, and others provide the rock.

The Ant Show Indie Showcase  http://sfweekly.com/
August 31, 2007
Red Devil Lounge
Better Than: Sitting at home, lamenting that you're not a rock star, and checking your Myspace every five minutes.
Download: The Ant Show Myspace page

I think that great artists spit in the face of the adage, "history repeats itself," and that they instead believe humans can create new ideas infinitely. I also think that great art readjusts hierarchies. No matter what the future holds for The Ant Show, they successfully showcased this sentiment last night.

Also, they got some guy to strip down to his skivvies and shove a beer bottle in his crotch.

The Ant Show, a promotional vehicle for local bands that's regularly featured on West Add Radio and Live 105, celebrated their third anniversary last night (and even shared a birthday cake with the audience).

And we, their black-haired, Long-Island-drinking, Chuck-Taylor-wearing, exotically pierced music devotees, raised our glasses and kicked up the invisible dust of San Francisco.

The showcase was egalitarian—no real headliner, no premeditated encores, and plenty of cordiality and mutual appreciation. Ant Show architect Tin Fan played the MC, wearing a dress and a backwards baseball cap, and occasionally hyping up the crowd who responded with cheers. By the end of the show the crowd had received enough hype (or enough booze) to begin strategically placing beer bottles in their underpants.

The openers were a band called All Ages. They successfully created a melee of distorted guitars and crash cymbals with ghostly-catchy keyboard ditties over the top. The show, of course, was not "all ages," so the band's name seemed to make an intentional (or unintentional) statement about the lack of all ages shows in this town. My hope is that the band will play their next show under the name Free Parking.

Cervantes came next and delivered a raucus set that hit the audience something like a Jawbreak or a Foo Fight.

The aptly named Good City Lie Still captured the paradoxes of the city. Vocalist Ross Giffen's melodies were accurate and dripping with passion, but were more like ephemeral musings than catchy hooks. Just when you thought Giffen was going to craft a repeating theme, his voice would be swallowed by the ocean of reverb that swelled around the band's set (and at their best, it swallowed the audience as well). But Giffen's lyric's cleverly mirrored the band's oceanic sound: "and the powers that be / they saw us a sea / and they trembled at the sight / of the violent never letting tide."

Much like Good City Lie Still, closers Foxtail Somersault are not for the impatient listener. For those of us who waited long enough, Somersault read us a bed time story, gave us a little cup of warm milk, and tucked us in for bed, right at the perfect time.

Unless, of course, you stayed for the dance party afterwards. If you did, you probably got to see more drunk guys dance with beer bottles shoved in their underpants.

God bless The Ant Show.

Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: I was totally sober. Really I was.
Random Detail: All Ages' front man Derrik dove into the drum set.
By The Way: Check out all the band's Myspace pages:
Good City Lie Still
Foxtail Somersault
All Ages
Cervantes

--By Ty Callister

Hey Bands,

Thanks to everyone who submitted a cd and $$$  for the ant show comp cd.  I'm sad that Barbarasteele and Mister Loveless aren't on the cd....but hey there is always volume 2!  So to everyone who's been waiting I'm posting up the order of the tracks!  Stay tuned for the master copy which is still in the process and the final cut well......we'll see it at our first show @ Bottom of the Hill on April 26!

Track 1. Cast Of Thousands
          2. The Bruises
          3. Company Car
          4. Cervantes
          5. Mud
          6. All Ages
          7. The Sweet Revenge
          8. Sputterdoll
          9. Jumping Jacks
        10. 8Past
         11.  Love Like Fire
         12.   Foxtail Somersault
         13.   Good City Lie Still

Thanks,

       Tin Fan
THE ANT SHOW