They could be the carefree sound of summer but CSS have fallen through some tough battles, Priya Elan discovers

Much like the bowels of heaven opening is how Lovefoxxx, the doe-eyed singer of CSS, describes the next thunderstorm eventually year's Glastonbury (we're paraphrasing). "Or like Hurricane Katrina had hit and rather than everyone getting depressed these folks were partying," adds the befringed guitarist Carol Parra.

This is what the Brazilian quintet are just like - a mad mix of high-octane fun and bad taste jokes. Remember those early Spice Girls interviews when members finished off one another's sentences? They're like this, having a wry touch of added sitcom.

Sitting backstage before their headline slot on Glastonbury's Park Stage, this rock band are relaxed; cracking jokes about James Blunt and basking inside a rare day of Pilton sun. The next wind storm was, obviously, different when they played in 2007. Nevertheless, CSS's mid-afternoon set then was obviously a ray of sunshine amid the grimness. Remembered largely for Lovefoxxx's rainbow sequined catsuit, the highly charged new wave of Off the Hook and slinky electro of indie-disco staple Let's Have sex and Tune in to Death previously mentioned had many disregarding their sodden tents.

It turned out the pinnacle of the amazing year. Having an effortless and non-ironic joie de vivre, CSS were embraced by the UK because of their camp punk attitude. Their self-titled debut's mix of fuzzy, lo-fi electro pop ranked one of the better of 2006. It absolutely was also clear from their of his latex clothing shows this was the type of loveable, scrappy, surreal gang which everybody seriously considered part of.

Their reappearance this season may have been overshadowed by Jay-Z's Noel Gallagher tribute, nevertheless it was significant to CSS for entirely different reasons. Behind the camp glamour of catsuit numero deux (black with large blue flowers) and the deceptive jaunt from the new single Left out lay a tale of adversity that almost cost this rock band their career.

The lyrics ("I'm gonna hop on for the table and dance my ass off till I die/ Then I'll hopefully forget you and also quit those nightmares I have been having") were penned in the event the band were at their wits' end, desperately trying to keep it together following a financial meltdown along with a personal bust-up.

CSS began in 2003 when six friends (guitarist Luiza Sa, drummer/guitarist Adriano Cintra, bassist Ira Trevisan, keyboardist/ guitarist Ana Rezende, drummer/guitarist Carol Parra and singer Luisa Matsushita aka Lovefoxxx) bonded more than a shared passion for US celebrities, avant-garde art and female singers.

Naming themselves after having a Beyonce quote (she said she was "tired of being sexy", in Portuguese "Cansei de Ser Sexy"), this guitar rock band started gigging inside their native Sao Paulo. And songs for instance I would like to Become the perfect J-Lo - which combined a skeletal reinterpretation of Eighties pop with funny, knowing lyrics - attracted a neighborhood following.This rock band were part of a wave of unconventional bands; at the same time when Baile funk was coming out of the streets, CSS were also redefining what it really intended as a Brazilian band. "People have an picture of exactly what a Brazilian band should appear to be. It is extremely weird for somebody who's not Brazilian to be aware of what made us, us," Parra says. "The Brazilian band i liked the most, As Mercenarias, weren't at all like traditional Brazilian music. They sounded just like an all-girl Gang of 4," Cintra adds.

It didn't take very long for that band's popularity to spread. They released their debut independently in 2006. An agreement while using US label Sub Pop followed, by which time we were holding touring non-stop. They went from co-headlining NME's New Rave tour with Klaxons (to whose guitarist, Simon Taylor-Davis, Lovefoxxx is engaged) to playing virtually any big UK festival in 2007. But something was awry.

Time and energy to get real with all of this fake stuff

REMEMBER if the only things women faked were orgasms? Those were innocent times, my pal. Because now, female fakeness has exploded. Tans, hair, teeth, nails, boobs, brows, bikini lines, lashes, lips ... there are numerous solutions to fake the way you look it's getting ridiculous.

Or perhaps is it? Maybe these procedures are simply just a fantastic equaliser. Together single guy I understand puts it: "Now even ugly girls looks hot." In case you translate this sentence from Pig into English, I think what he's saying is you no longer must be born a natural beauty to be considered attractive fashion latex stockings. Hell no, you'll be able to just pour time and money into as being a fake beauty and quite a few men won't have in mind the difference.

Self-tanning certainly sits on the soft end in the fake spectrum (fake lips and boobs with the other). It's cheap, acquireable and DIY. But what started being a healthy substitute for the sun has morphed into a truly alarming phenomenon through which a lot of women have started to resemble tandoori chickens.

And are you wanting fake teeth your? Nothing cause your fake tan as effectively as whitening. That fluorescent whiteness is more epensive plus much more permanent compared to a tandoori tan nonetheless it can delete many years of red wine and caffeine within an hour.

Is fast enough for you? Since the dependence on such speed is integral to Fake Nation '07. Why clean your teeth when you're able to zap them white? Why improve your hair when you can command your hairdresser: "Longer please" leave the salon with a lot of length? The truth that said length was outsourced to your poor Russian farm girl or Indian beggar? Well i guess, look the way it swings once i walk!

Before I get too comfy inside the saddle of my extremely high horse, I figured it only fair I take an inventory of my own fakeness. Hairless legs? Fake. Eyebrow shape? Fake. Hair colour? Fake. Tan? Natural right this moment but often fake.

Once I even had hair extensions. One morning quite a while back I woke up and realised something didn't have from playing. On that day it had been long hair. Long, long hair.

Within hours I'd booked myself into some specialist salon the place where a patient woman sectioned my head into hundreds of tiny clumps and bonded real hair extensions to all of them with glue. I left the salon $800 poorer and looking like Alanis Morissette throughout the Isn't It Ironic years.

The thing that was truly ironic was the amount I hated my hair extensions. The rot from virtually just after I came home. My then toddler son took one look at me and burst into tears. "Mummy! Hair away," he sobbed, covering his face from your evil sight of your mother who had morphed in to the lovechild of Cousin It and Neil through the Children. My better half was equally enthused. He kept getting tangled within my new hair during the night. Spoons were impossible.

Eventually I needed to wear a hat to bed so he could sleep and round the house so my son would stop crying. So far so competent.

Within 24 hours I used to be having my extensions cut to some more manageable length - which surely defeated the reason - but anyway. I quickly developed a sort of nervous hair claustrophobia and began furtively looking to yank them out one-by-one. Occasionally I dislodged extra time from the bond, along with a nice clump of my very own hair. This hurt.

She's said to be the support act, but Cheryl Cole have been stealing the show as she tours with chart toppers The Black Eyed Peas. And now you are able to see why!

In the nude-look catsuit embellished with sequins, the 26-year-old X Factor judge looked every inch the star at London's O2 arena on Wednesday night.

Her space-age outfit was tripped by daring flesh-coloured fetish wear tights which revealed the barbed wire tattoo at the top of her right thigh.

Snakeskin To not be outdone, lead singer with the Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, 35, did not disappoint inside wardrobe stakes either.

The blonde star - real name Stacy Ferguson - poured her curves in to a black leather, snakeskin-effect body suit.

The band's world tour kicked off last September in Japan, taking them on to Australia along with the US ahead of the European leg started in Dublin last week.

We'd draw the curtains tight and I'd cook this heady beef broth packed with the dark sweetness of slow-braised onions under the tanned pungency of your golden crust of melty bubbling cheese. She liked it.

Anyway I digress. Let's get time for the story -- me, the girl I really like, a romantic winter within the capital of scotland- Paris, and French onion soup.

Stars twinkled in the Eiffel Tower, the beams of low-slung headlamps of old Citroens bounced up from your wet cobbles and boutiques filled with chic exuded the nice and cozy glow of affluence.

``Let's opt for lunch only at that swanky three-star Michelin gastrodome the location where the waiters all seem like Alain Delon and also the meals are as seductive as Carla Bruni inside a wet-look leather catsuit,'' I'd suggest.

``Do they've got French onion soup?'' came like a reply that translated as ``they obviously don't why don't we not go there whether or not the cute waiters themselves wear the leather catsuits''.

I'd proffer a smaller bistro for the Left Bank; a sentimental favourite because that's where my mother would take her French boyfriends when she was studying at the Sorbonne.

It absolutely was somewhat of a pilgrimage but one fore-shortened by the fact that a menu of crudites, leeks a la greque and tete de veau was no replacement ``soupe a l'oignon gratinee''.

Instead there were to go to the tourist quarter packed with prix fixe menus that offered the ubiquitous soup and steaks that looked suspiciously like they once whinnied instead of mooed.

Even though I suggested going to the miscroscopic market on Rue Buci to post a picnic crazily stinky farmhouse cheeses from Normandy, baguettes fresh through the oven along with a dozen fresh shucked oysters from Brittany that we'd eat resting from the trunk of Marie Antoinette's favourite beech tree within the gardens at Versailles; all she desired to know was whether we're able to please take a thermos of French onion soup.

Sure this trip didn't deliver the earth-shattering, cry-with-gratitude, can-I-marry-your-mother-for-the-recipe kind of food that I'd come to Paris to nibble on nevertheless the smile on her behalf face was worthwhile.

One word of warning, when you attempt this recipe. Remember that you might risk making a French onion soup obsession within the one you love and share this soup with, and also this could ruin the next culinary adventure in Paris!Although not associated with the united states leg in the tour Cheryl's popularity in the usa seems to be on the rise.

She is thought to happen to be approached to style a variety of clothing for La store Kitson, a popular of celebrities for instance Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

In the Entertainment Focus on a cool weeknight, Alecia Moore becomes ready to be with her show.

The artist formally known as White -- or P!nk, as her merchandise department prefers -- is getting ready to launch right into a hugely entertaining two-hour spectacular of dance, song and acrobatics.

White will dangle from the ceiling in a very purple court jester outfit. She'll skip around -- actually skip -- in super-high black heels. She'll pay homage to the household gods of babedom in a skin-tight body suit of nude fabric, criss-crossed with white ribbon -- it is the granddaughter of these black seat belt Cher wore in their Turn Back Time online video (although tonight's crowd is so young believe that Cher is one area regarding illegal downloading).

The catsuit-ancestry is no coincidence: Pink's costumier, Bob Mackie, will be the sequin svengali behind Cher's behind, and Pink coloured includes a clear sense of pop history. This 29-year-old can be a complete performer. She sings like Steven Tyler, dances like Beyonce, charms like Robbie Williams, cracks wise like Bette Midler, touches small like Chrissie Amphlett and yowls with the voicebox -- as well as the tight latex catsuit pants -- of your young Robert Plant.

Also, she markets like Coca-Cola -- which is the building blocks of the 58-gig roadshow she's trundling across Australia. A van beyond your Entertainment Centre is where Pink's sales force makes it all pay: a five-deep queue of early-teen girls and their mothers, sales are robust, although there's plenty of please-mum wheedling and counting of pocket-money.

T-shirts are $50. Socks are $40 some. You'll have a key-ring for $10 or even a lanyard that appears sort-of-not-really as being a roadie's backstage pass for $20. For your studious Pinkette, you can find library bags for $25. This also is the best: panties for $50 a pair. Little girls' panties, in black and, obviously, white.

Usually the one item of merchandise that isn't for sale is recorded music: there won't be any CDs, no vinyl, no iTunes vouchers. Development of the child depressing economics of recent rock. Piracy, streaming and file-sharing have all shredded traditional revenue sources. Fans are determined recorded music is effectively free -- as we buy music at all, it's with a grudging sense of old-fashioned values or the kindness in our hearts.

Which includes forced musicians out on the trail; the internet has restored live music to its rightful position on top of the authenticity register. Music's intimacy isn't between you and the headphones, it's between your idol, so long as you can ignore the cellphone-waving hordes. I buy that. I'm not really blaming White to the web, or suggesting she's different from Madonna or Coldplay or Green Day or other pop juggernaut.

One would believe sharing the final festival of the season slot with all the mighty Bestival might be problematic, but for End from the Road, certainly the gentlest event of the summer, it does not apparently do much harm. The Wiltshire-based affair prides itself on its idyllic setting plus a line-up full of the creme de la creme of independent music. The sole shadow were only available in the shape of a cancellation with the Horrors "due to illness", though a disco in the woods, peacocks roaming free, luxurious (by festival standards) latex clothing showers and also a double-decker bus doling out endless pints of cider, news in the sick Horror, although sad, didn't leave anyone devastated.

The lower Anthem proved that there's more for many years compared to a little music business buzz which has a soulful Saturday set stuffed with bittersweet musings. The Broken Family Band got the crowd shuffling with their combination of uplifting folk-rock a single of their last appearances before they meet their moniker and breakup in October, while Emergency first aid kit 's observational lyrics and heartbreaking harmonies gave the viewers a case of the lip quivers.

It was as much as fellow Swedes Wildbirds & Peacedrums to lift the atmosphere with an energetic, percussion-filled set of perfectly formed experimental pop. As for beardy pin-ups Fleet Foxes , we were holding so well received that the main stage area was closed to anyone looking to wander in. Still, as those mesmerising harmonies rang out, punters seemed more than pleased to stand in the queue, listening.

Sunday gave us mean slide guitarist Bob Log III , whose bizarre blend of gold catsuit, crash helmet and crude lyrics had the target audience eating dinner out of his hand. The country-rock singer-songwriter Steve Earle brought the sun back, while octogenarian bluesman T-Model Ford 's performance was an honour to try out, particularly the secret gig with the piano within the woods because the sun set over the past weekend and, indeed, summer time.

'I used to go to a normal state school that you just were required to take a look at somebody the wrong way and so they would start you,' he admits that. 'I was so miserable. I did not have much that is similar to anyone else i really sat in class, while individuals were throwing things, and just seriously considered dancing. Towards the end during the day I'd rush off to my ballet class. My parents aren't from your ballet background in any respect, but they'really supportive of the things I'm doing and wish me to consider it.'

NYB's impressive list of patrons, including Matthew Bourne, Carlos Acosta and Darcey Bussell, is really a further inspiration towards the dancers. Last summer the bear's understudy, Lucas Hunt, 15, met his hero. 'On my in the past coming from a rehearsal I saw Carlos Acosta coming out of Sadler's Wells theatre,' Lucas grins as they stretches out at the side of the party area. 'I tapped him for the shoulder and told him I had been at NYB and the man allow me to take his picture. I had just finished going through his biography with his fantastic story inspired me because I associated with his childhood - at all like me he's black and wasn't one particular kids who's done ballet since they were three. That's why NYB is excellent - I couldn't have walked around him otherwise.