Dub dot dash

My radio, believe me, I like it loud.
Bill Adler started out as a radio DJ and music critic before landing up at Def Jam/Rush Management as their publicist in 1984. He left in 1990, and has since then has worked at Island Records, founded his own PR firm, created a record label, and in 1998-2000 he curated the hiphop exhibit at Seattle's Experience Music Project, which led him to turn his personal office into the Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery.

I've been reading a great interview with Adler in the latest issue of Wax Poetics magazine; there's photos of Adler with 3Rd Bass, LL Cool J and Fab Five Freddy, all sorts of cats. The gallery has had exhibitions like Riddim Driven: A 25th Birthday Salute to VP Records and Dancehall Reggae, URBAN BLIGHT - The Graffiti Photographs of Ernie Paniccioli, WORK IT! Images of Women in Hip Hop, and It's Like That: 20 Years of RUN-DMC-JMJ.

He talks about what's next for the gallery. "What's delightful and surprising to me is that people are now coming to Eyejammie with great ideas that I myself would never have thought of... there's a local painter named Jackson Brown who grew up in the southeast. He dreamt up a show with the working title The Heroes of Hiphop that will feature about a dozen life-sized oil portraits of some of the culture's greatest movers and shakers." Check the exhibition link below.
He's also released the first Eyejammie book, a postcard book of photos by Ricky Powell.
"Bill Adler's Eyejammie Gallery hosts 'til April 2nd Follow The Leader: Portraits Of The Hip-Hop Avant-Garde. If you can't make it down here's a preview". Via Spine magazine.
(Image above: graffiti stencil in Toronto).

Latest M.I.A. news... Billboard reports she's jumped labels. "Hotly tipped U.K. rapper M.I.A. has signed with Interscope Records, which will release her debut album, "Arular," by mid-April in the United States, sources tell Billboard.com.

"Arular" was initially due to come out Feb. 22 on XL Recordings, but the London-based label pulled the album less than a week before street date. XL, part of Beggars Group, claimed that the release was delayed due to a failure to clear unspecified samples. As of last week, XL was saying the album would be out in mid-March.

Beggars CEO Lesley Bleakley did not return a call for comment.

The Sri Lankan-born M.I.A., who raps over dancehall-inspired electronica, has been the subject of much industry attention the past few months. Her debut single, "Galang," has sold 800 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The artist has a handful of tour dates on tap this month, beginning March 15 in Seattle. She is also confirmed to appear on the second day (May 1) of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, California."

Coolfer has comments on the press she's been getting in the Village Voice... "M.I.A. Gets Poked, Prodded and Hyped. One article in the Village Voice makes for good publicity. Two simultaneous articles means the there's enough buzz on the street to merit a higher word count. Three? It's a mark reached by very few musicians, and it takes a combination of music aptitude, political importance and pop culture fascination to get three articles in the same issue. (Courtney Love scored the hat trick not long ago, but nobody else comes to mind.)"


End of the Century
The Ramones doco End of the Century returns from the Film Festival shortly, starting a run at the Rialto here in Auckland. Meanwhile, the DVD is out in the US soon... "Yesterday, Ice Magazine's Daily News Flash talked about the Ramones' documentary, End of the Century, that will be released on DVD in two weeks (by Rhino). I'll quote the most important part:
"Among the bonus features making their debut in the DVD are excerpts from a Joey Ramone radio interview, a deleted scene featuring Blondie drummer Clem Burke as 'Elvis Ramone' and interview excerpts from all Ramones. Also featured are extended portions of interview from Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and Joe Strummer, as well as Marky Ramone demonstrating his drum technique and Tommy Ramone explaining "Who Wrote What on the First Three Albums.'" Via Coolfer. There's also extra footage from the interview with Joe Strummer, one of the last ones he did.

AK05 is hitting it all over AK town - check out Transistor, free show in Aotea Square this friday/saturday/sunday, with performances from heaps of cats - the Feelstyle, Goldenhorse, the Nudie Suits, all sorts. More info here, plus running times.
I caught DJ T-Rock (from San Francisco) on the turntables on wednesday lunchtime in Aotea Square - it's not often you go on your lunch break and end up listening to a cat spinning tunes and cutting up Run DMC, the Monkees , The Jacksons and the Rolling Stones. He even rocked Joan Jett's 'I love rock n roll'. You can see him playing after Goldenhorse on sunday night.