Abstract Science, Dubfix and Dubstep.fm Present: Smartbar – Big Bass Thursdays featuring: Mary Anne Hobbes – BBC Radio 1 “The undisputed First Lady of Bass… and one of its most influential selectors.”- XLR8R “Mary Anne Hobbs probes the more arcane corners of new electronic music…to suit every beat explorer.”- Time Out London Bio- Mary Anne Hobbs’ ‘Dubstep Warz’ show for BBC Radio1 in January 2006 is widely regarded at the show that broke the dubstep sound globally.. She followed this in August 2008 with the ‘Generation Bass’ special curated at her invitation by the original Dubstep Warz DJs.. Her mission in January 2009 to LA and San Francisco generated the ‘West Coast Rock’ special which set the world buzzing about the fast emerging Pacific Coast beat scene. She is set to release a 3rd compilation album ‘Wild Angels’ in September 2009 on the Planet Mu label.. following ‘Evangeline’ in June 2008 and her notorious debut for the label ‘Warrior Dubz’ in October 2006… Mary Anne curates her 3rd stage at Sonar Festival in June 2009 bringing with her Martyn, The Gaslamp Killer and Joker.. This follows her historic UK Dubstep Showcase in 2007, taking the sound out of small humid clubs and onto an international festival stage for the first time in front of 8 thousand people with Skream, Oris Jay and Kode 9 & The Spaceape.. Her 2nd stage in 2008 featured Mala, Flying Lotus and Shackleton, and compounded her success in Barcelona. Mary Anne left school at the age of 16 and went to work in an egg packing factory for the princely sum of 39gbp per week. She quickly ran away to London with a hard rock band and lived on a bus with them in a car park in Hayes, Middlesex for 12 months, working as their lighting engineer, record sleeve artist, wardrobe designer and mechanic. Her great ambition was to become a music journalist. She figured the next logical step would be to produce her own fanzine – Krush… She sent a couple of issues along with a demented CV detailing her adventures to the Editor of Sounds music paper and landed a job with them at the age of 19. At 21, having been profoundly influenced by a snapshot of Metallica, Mary Anne sold all her worldly goods and bought a ticket to Hollywood, where she lived in a garden shed… She spent a year in the dark underbelly of LA writing about the fledgling thrash metal scene, Jane’s Addiction, Guns N’ Roses et al… for UK music paper Sounds.. At Sounds Mary Anne met fellow teenager James Brown (legendary writer and publisher, not the Godfather of soul) who became a lifelong friend… James moved to NME as Features Editor and when Mary Anne returned to London from LA, he promptly poached her to work with him at NME. Mary Anne spent three years on the news desk and also worked as a major feature writer there, writing cover stories on everyone from Ice Cube to Nirvana… She went on with James Brown to form part of the original team he put together to launch Loaded magazine. She worked there as Music Editor. Mary Anne got her break in radio at the BBC’s local station in London GLR. And she presented groundbreaking shows on XFM (the UK’s first ever alternative station) during their trail broadcasts, which helped to win their licence… She was poached by Radio 1 in 1997 after a particularly confrontational interview with Radio 1′s then Head Of Production (Trevor Dann) was bootlegged around the BBC and found the desk of the Controller of the day, Matthew Bannister… Mary Anne’s time at Radio 1 has been hectic. She has hosted shows from all the major UK awards ceremonies: Q, NME, Brits, Kerrang, Mercury Music Prize and made documentaries about artists as diverse as David Bowie, Slipknot and The Sex Pistols She championed comedy god Ricky Gervais in his pre-Office days, hosted a movie review show called Cling Film, founded and fronted the award-winning Radio 1 Rock Show for five years… TV… there’s quite a lot, M.A. hosted a season of live coverage of the ‘World Superbike Championship’ for British Eurosport in 2005 she made a series about global biker culture in India, Russia, Japan, the US and Europe for BBC Choice, ‘Mary Anne’s Bikes’ fronted 27 hours of live coverage at Glastonbury Festival for the BBC and has guested on everything from BBC2′s ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ to ‘John Peel’s Record Box’ for Channel4…. Mary Anne can ride any motorcycle you care to park in front of her… Local Support From: MC ZULU – [Mashit / Ninja Nune / Dubfront] SEARCHL1TE – [PTS / Dubfront / Trillbass / WNUR 89.3] PHADED [Dubfix / Betamorph / Dubstep.fm] Doors at 10 PM / $10 Cover – $5 w/ Smartbar Text before 11:00pm / 21+ @ Smartbar 3730 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60613 http://www.smartbrchicago.com/text www.bigbassthursdays.com | www.smartbarchicago.com | www.abstractscience.net | www.dubfix.com