Gotta find some way to get that attention, right?
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Initially, there is the fear that Fleet Foxes' music might be too precious to stand performance in a sweltering, concrete nightclub. They open with Sun Giant, a burst of spectral a cappella singing that, like much of their music, hymns an older, simpler, more bucolic existence. The effect is instantaneously spellbinding and transporting; until, alas, the spell is suddenly broken by the sound of someone banging open the door of the gents.
But as it turns out, that is the first and last interruption. You can understand why, not least when a beautifully delicate cover of Judee Sill's Crayon Angels glides into the album's closing track, Oliver James. After one particularly magnificent bit of harmonising, bassist Christian Wargo can briefly be seen above the audience's heads, turning to drummer Joshua Tillman and offering a deeply incongruous high-five. So they do look rather pleased with themselves after all. It is perfectly understandable.
· At the Social, Nottingham, tonight. Box office: 0115-950 5078. Then touring.
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High School Musical star Zac Efron says he finds it easier to make conversation with women than men.
The 20-year-old actor says he prefers discussing emotional issues with his female friends because they are “good at just being there for you.”
He says, “There have been things in my life that my mum could always do which my dad couldn’t even come close to, such as talking to me in a very personal way.
“You can be ‘real’ with guys, but not really emotional. Girls are good at just being there for you.”
Troubled soul singer Amy Winehouse will not face charges in connection with video footage that showed a woman bearing her resemblance taking drugs, a police source said.
The 24-year-old recording star was arrested after turning herself in at an east London police station last week.
She had been questioned by detectives for nine hours in relation to a video published by a tabloid newspaper in January that appeared to show a woman resembling the singer smoking what the paper said was crack cocaine.
"Following a CPS investigation into a 24-year-old woman ... no further action will be taken," a police spokesman said.
A spokesman for the Grammy-winning singer said in a statement: "Amy's bail date to return to Limehouse police station has been canceled, bringing this matter to an end."
He added: "Amy is pleased to be able to move on and concentrate on music and particularly looks forward to seeing her fans again at eagerly awaited festival performances this summer."
It was the second time Winehouse had been detained by police during the past two months over separate issues.
Last month, she was held overnight in a cell but released without charge after admitting common assault by slapping a man.
The latest Sunday Times Rich List said Winehouse, whose battle against drug addiction has often overshadowed her recording success, is worth about £10 million.
She did not attend the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in February, but still managed five big wins, including record and song of the year for the hit single Rehab and best pop vocal album for her breakthrough release, Back to Black.
Her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, 25, is due to stand trial in June charged with attempted obstruction of justice and inflicting grievous bodily harm.
Fielder-Civil, who is in custody, denies the charges, which stem from an East London pub brawl in June 2006.
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LOS ANGELES - Grant Show is proud of his moustache.
When asked about the authenticity of his facial hair, the former "Melrose Place" heart throb is quick to boast that it's 100 per cent real. Show sprouted the Burt Reynolds-style whiskers and a shaggy hairdo for his role as randy pilot Tom Decker, one half of a pair of suburban swingers, on the sudsy new CBS series "Swingtown."
"Anything else just doesn't look believable," he tells The Associated Press during a break from filming episode 10. "The whole time that you're wearing any kind of wig or prosthetic in a scene, you're thinking about it in your head. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can't make out with somebody. It's so much easier to just grow it yourself."
Show's real 'stache is only the beginning of the bona fide '70s vibe found on the set of "Swingtown."
While the sex and drugs on the lusty drama are completely simulated, just about everything else - from the gaudy home furnishings to the polyester threads to the Deckers' swimming pool - is entirely authentic.
"Most '70s movies and TV shows look like it's as if everyone went out and bought shag carpet yesterday," executive producer Allan Poul says. "We don't do that. We want 'Swingtown' to feel like the world as it was lived in for those of us who were alive during that time."
Not every actor on set is as thrilled as Show about the realistic approach to recreating the sexual revolution in suburban Chicago.
"I probably have the worst wardrobe," says Josh Hopkins, who plays square-but-curious dad Roger Thompson. "It's the most ill-fitting with the worst patterns and colours and the most nipple rubbage. There's bad chafing, and it's always tight in all the wrong places. What's sad is that I'm kinda getting used to it."
Some viewers haven't been so accepting of "Swingtown." The Parents Television Council and the American Family Association have urged CBS stations across the country to pre-empt "Swingtown" because, among other things, it "drives a stake through the institution of marriage and family."
"We were given the mandate to push the envelope," says creator and executive producer Mike Kelley, who based much of "Swingtown" on observing his parents and their friends when he was eight and nine years old.
"It was originally intended for cable, but it turns out all the explicit nudity and language weren't necessary," he said. "The content is the most important."
So far, the sex - and interpersonal drama - seems to be selling. Critical reception for "Swingtown" has been toasty. The premiere episode was watched by a respectable 8.6 million viewers, and was the sixth most-watched drama of the week, coming in second place behind the NBA finals during its Thursday timeslot, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Beyond the sizzling salaciousness, "Swingtown" drips with timely nostalgia.
The show's crew have transformed the Van Nuys, Calif., production facility where "Jericho" and "Beverly Hills, 90210" once filmed into an genuine representation of the Me Decade. Outside, sets simulate a commuter train station, department store and supermarket, alongside the off-camera remnants of the town of "Jericho."
The homes of the three families featured on "Swingtown" - the uninhibited Deckers, the straight-laced Thompsons and the somewhere-in-between Millers - exist inside the facility's soundstages. For every episode, the crew has about seven days to scour southern California prop houses and vintage shops to devise what will appear on screen.
Beyond their wardrobes and attitudes about sexual liberation, the families' differences are illustrated in their home furnishings. Middle-of-the-road couple Bruce and Susan Miller (played by Jack Davenport and Molly Parker) are starting mostly from scratch after moving into a new house and experimenting with group sex in the first episode.
The humdrum middle-class home of Roger and Janet Thompson (Hopkins and Miriam Shor) is bathed in various shades of green with several accessories from the '50s and '60s. Poul brought personal items from the house he grew up in, such a flowery tissue box and plastic pendant lights, to accentuate the Thompsons' stodgy abode.
Tom and Trina Decker (Show and Lana Parrilla) are at the other end of the spectrum. The swingers' lavish modern dwelling has a sunken living room, fully stocked bar and a heated swimming pool that had to be dug out of the soundstage's cement floor. Glass walls and doors separate the inside from the outside area, which appears to overlook Lake Michigan.
"We wanted to say metaphorically that these characters live their lives transparently," says Poul. "So that's why there's so much glass throughout their house. The marriage is open, and they're always open about it. They really do live in a glass house and have nothing to hide."
Of course, the biggest risks "Swingtown" will take in upcoming instalments have nothing to do with home decor or hairdos. For example, when Trina Decker's ex-boyfriend pops up around episode six with aspirations of rekindling their high school romance, he ends up bedding both of the Deckers.
"Trina and I pretty much do everything together," says Show, flashing a grin that exaggerates his 'stache. "That, I think, is the craziest thing I've done on the show. It's probably going to flip America up and down the most. It's sort of left to the audience as to how far that goes, but I think that's going to be controversial."
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On the Net:
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/swingtown/