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Independent Crossword

Christina Patterson: Prejudice and the pursuit of 'cool'

I don't know if it's common for people in fashion to talk this way but I do know they're not the only ones in our society to be confused over race

Album: Bootsy Collins, Tha Funk Capitol Of The World (Mascot)

In a world of shifting values, it's comforting to encounter an oasis of stability – which, despite his flamboyant musicality, is what one gets with Bootsy's Tha Funk Capitol Of The World.

James Brown: The Agent Saboteur

Magazine industry veteran James Brown's Sabotage Times is a hit online. But that doesn't mean he's going to follow The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast in selling out, he tells Ian Burrell

Ian Burrell: HuffPo's writers may be overplaying their importance

Did the contributors to YouTube claim a windfall when the site was bought by Google for $1.65bn?

Album: Charles Bradley, No Time for Dreaming (Daptone/Dunham)

Sharon Jones sings backing vocals and the Menahan Street Band provide the grooves, but something about this soul remains distinctly ordinaire.

Album: James Brown, The Complete JB Christmas (Hip-O)

As a boy, the Godfather of Soul didn't get toys for Christmas.

Album: James Brown, The Complete James Brown Christmas (Polydor)

Nobody works the festive angles the way James Brown could: not many acts have managed to crank out three complete Christmas albums, as are compiled here along with a smattering of bonus singles – including the not entirely festive-spirited "Believers Shall Enjoy (Non Believers Shall Suffer)", on which the Number One Soul Brother doesn't seem to have quite grasped the notion of goodwill to all men.

My Fantasy Band: Russell Watson

'Slash might clash with James Brown as they are both flamboyant stage-hoggers'

Catfish Collins: Guitarist who laid down the rhythmic bedrock for James Brown, Parliament and Funkadelic

The Godfather of Soul, the late James Brown, was a hard taskmaster, fining his musicians for every mistake they made on stage. In March 1970, when most of his band quit after failing to get a pay rise, he didn't panic. He simply asked his right-hand man Bobby Byrd to put the Pacemakers, a young group from Cincinnati he had jammed with at King Records, on the next plane to Columbus, Georgia, where they backed him the following night. Among the musicians who became "the nucleus of a very good band" – as Brown put it – were bassist William "Bootsy" Collins and his older brother, the guitarist Phelps "Catfish" Collins.

Story Of The Song: Fool's Gold, The Stone Roses, 1989

"Fool's Gold" lolloped out of the backend of the Eighties with a loose-limbed strut and an attitude to match. Merging northern English, pasty-faced guitar rock with urban American dance music, it was recorded a world away from the Stone Roses' native Manchester, at Cornwall's small Sawmills studio, a 17th-century stone building set in its own tidal creek.

Album: James Chance, Twist Your Soul – The Definitive Collection (Dumb Angel)

James Chance was a crucial component of the No Wave/Ze Records strain of early-80s new-wave endeavour in New York.

Album: James Brown, Live at the Garden (Expanded Edition) (Polydor)

A rowdy live album from 1967 which was not actually captured at New York's Madison Square Garden and therefore should not have been subsumed by booming audience mayhem – it was actually recorded in a nightclub in New Jersey.

Album: James Brown, Live at the Garden (Hip-O-Select)

Dating from 1967, Live at the Garden was one of James Brown's less auspicious releases, which is why it's taken so long to be reissued in this expanded format. In the first place, it wasn't actually recorded at Madison Square Garden, or even Kew, but at the Latin Casino, a New Jersey supper-club. To approximate the ambience of the larger venue, faked crowd noise was liberally ladled all over it, including a version of "Let Yourself Go" taken from an after-hours rehearsal. To squeeze the 150-minute show on to a 40-minute album, several of the best performances were either truncated or left off entirely, most notably a storming nine-minute version of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", which captures the Godfather on the cusp of his new funk sound, with Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Starks's double-drum alliance locking into an ingenious syncopated propulsion of the kind that would, just a few weeks later, produce the seminal "Cold Sweat"; and an extended "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" – though the microphone placement on the strings is so bad they're left buried in the back of the mix. Both are restored on a second disc that also dispenses with the fake crowd noise, leaving one better able to track the lock-tight changes of rhythm, and appreciate the interlocking rhythm guitars of Chank Nolen.

My Fantasy Band: Brody Dalle, Spinnerette

Vocals - Kathleen Hanna
My teenage years were filled with the sound of Bikini Kill. I love Kathleen's voice. I would want her shouty shrieks and screams all over this band. Her politico-sexual female empowerment is just what this band needs.

Career Services

Day In a Page

Ten things we’re looking out for at E3 2012

Ten things to look out for at E3 2012

From Wii U to The Last of Us we consider this year's show
Come dine (online) with me

Come dine (online) with me

Move over TV chefs, hello YouTube stars
Next in line – but public just can't warm to idea of Charles in charge

Next in line – but public just can't warm to idea of Charles in charge

'Independent' poll finds less that half want him to take throne as ministers moan of interference
Nothing's sacred: the illegal trade in India's holy cows

Nothing's sacred: the illegal trade in India's holy cows

Andrew Buncombe reports from Kaharpara on a bloody war between rustlers and border guards
Mogul grounded: Desmond gives up his jet deal

Mogul grounded: Desmond gives up his jet deal

Media tycoon's company pays £1m to cancel his order for a £36m private jet after drop in profits
How Ai Weiwei built a pavilion in London – by remote control

How Ai Weiwei built a pavilion in London – by remote control

The artist tells Clifford Coonan how he used Skype to escape confinement in Beijing
Nature, nurture... or neither? The new twist in an age-old argument

Nature, nurture... or neither?

The new twist in an age-old argument
Radio 4 to shed its cosy image with a 'sexy' Ulysses drama

Radio 4 to shed its cosy image with a 'sexy' Ulysses drama

New station controller wants to reflect the current period of 'turmoil and uncertainity'
Alcohol: I drink therefore I am

Alcohol: I drink therefore I am

New guidelines warn Britons to drastically reduce their boozing. But is a life without liquor worth living? Hell no, says John Walsh
The Cable News Nightmare: CNN (and Piers Morgan) in audience crisis

The Cable News Nightmare

CNN (and Piers Morgan) in audience crisis
Like a barbie, but better: The Big Green Egg can griddle, roast, and smoke food - and even make pizza

The Big Green Egg: Like a barbie, but better

It can griddle, roast, and smoke food - and even make pizza...
The 10 Best chopping boards

The 10 Best chopping boards

Whether you want to dice veg, chop meat, or just slice up a salad, there’s a surface here to suit every culinary need.
Flat and fabulous: From wraps to foccacias, our appetite for new and exotic breads knows no limits

Flat and fabulous: Exotic breads

Lucy McDonald visits the bakeries of Tel Aviv to to find out what we'll be eating next.
Brendan Rodgers: Just like Mourinho... only different

Brendan Rodgers: Just like Mourinho... only different

Obsessive, ambitious, eager to learn and with no playing career; can the Northern Irishman be Liverpool's Special One?
Gary Lewin: Players need winter break

Gary Lewin: Players need winter break

The England physio tells Patrick Barclay that this spate of injuries is due to the non-stop demands of the Premier League