Madame Blavatsky Overdrive - Information and Discography
Summary:
Madame Blavatsky Overdrive was a band consisting of Adam Gates, Jeff Gomes and Craig McFarland (however "The Courier" was credited to Gates alone) with occasional help from a variety of musicians (including Derek Greenberg, Geoff Marx, Thomas Muer, MIRV, among others).
The band last released music in 2012, last performed live in 2008 and all sites were deleted sometime in 2015. See bottom of this page for a collection of links.
2007 ?? - The West Oakland Theosophy Center, Oakland, CA, USA
2007 ?? - Haight Street Fair, San Francisco, CA, USA
2007 August 1 - Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA, USA (with Oslo and Statutory Grape / or with Whisper In The Noise?)
Setlist: Idiot Jones Will Have His Day, Kicking The Can, Drowning Not Waving, My Secret Life Is Killing Me, These Days (Jackson Browne cover), Stay, Occam's Razor, Spaceman Time To Go
Based on the name, Card Walker Studios is likely Derek's home studio.
Artist: Madame Blavatsky Overdrive
Title: Take The Long Way Home
Format: MP3 (160 kpbs)
Release Date: September 14, 2006
Tracks:
Take The Long Way Home (5:48)
Adam posted: "We left it off the album because I felt it was slanting things in a "pop" direction, which the album didnt need, plus it sucks to sing this one."
Title: Our Condolences And Apologies: An MBO Primer
Format: Digital Download
Release Date: May 6, 2011 (Bandcamp)
Tracks:
I Buried Paul (3:12)
Ambien (3:40)
Drowning, Not Waving (5:08)
Frankie, Falling Asleep (2:37)
Motherhood (4:10)
Occam's Razor (3:39)
Anjuna (4:56)
Oh The Aphids! (4:24)
Self Replicating Machine Elves (8:48)
Solomon Grundy (8:37)
The Armies Of The Dead (4:15)
The Chopping Song (3:11)
Your Time To Lose (4:06)
The Belldog (7:16)
Notes:
A collection of songs from the MBO catalog. Compiled to enhance, titillate and engorge. We hope this collection of MBO songs from the "Eris Cycle" and beyond will act as a simple way for new listeners to experience MBO's sonic statement. A "Greatest Hits" without the hits, if you will.
Musicians:
Adam Gates: Vocals, Guitar, Keys, Uke, Treatments
Craig McFarland: Bass, Trumpet, Keys, Vocals
Jeff Gomes: Drums, Percussion
Thomas Muer: Keys
Trey Sabatelli: Drums, Percussion, Vocals
Robert Ferris: Keys, vocals
Mirv: Guitars
Derek Greenberg: Guitar
Geoff Marx: Keys, Drums
Thomas DiMuzio: Treatments
Kosta Cross: Keys, Treatments
Wobbly: Treatments
Larry LaLonde: Guitar
Brain: Percussion
Selected Tracks Mastered by Thomas Dimuzio and Vinne Wonjo
Illustration, Design: Gates
All Songs written by Gates except:
"The Chopping Song" written by Gates, Muer.
"Ambien" written by Gates, McFarland
"The Belldog" written by Brian Eno, Moebius, Dieter; Roedelius, Hans Joachim.
Mastered by Vinne Wonjo. Except: "Roosevelt Dime" and "Me and Joe" which was recorded and mastered by Gates and "The Anonymous Troll", which was mastered by Craig McFarland.
Engineered by Craig McFarland.
Illustration, Design: Gates
All Songs written by Gates except: "The Anonymous Troll" and "23" written by Gates, McFarland.
MBO is one of the listed contributors to Air King Sound's generative audio system Autopilot - http://www.airkingsound.com/autopilot/ (site disappeared sometime after 2014), but specific details are not documented.
The music sharing statement originally posted at http://madameblavatskyoverdrive.com/audio/idiot/idiot.html
"Madame Blavatsky Overdrive thinks Digital Rights Management (DRM's) schemes suck.
DRM's are made to control how and where you play your music. The record industries pathetic kicking
and screaming into the online digital age is nothing but the death knell of a outdated distribution
model, a model that keeps artists in servitude, that continues to make the 1% of the music industry
extremely wealthy and that keeps new music in a perpetual state of imitation and stagnation.
But surprise! The labels are choking on their own vomit.
Check out what others think [dead link].
So we are trying something different.
We don't think our fans are thieves, we trust our fans and want them to give our music away to their
friends. So you can download our first album (and all of our albums) for free. No questions asked.
IF you like the music enough and feel it's worth something then send us some money (whatever amount
you think is "fair"..totally your call) via the Pay Pal link on the top of this page.
If you don't want to pay that's fine to. If you want to put our music up on every server on the net,
that's fine as well. You are our distribution model.
We only ask you to adhere to this simple guideline:
Don't sell our music. We use the Creative Commons license and our music is copy-written and protected.
If you distribute the full album please use the same archived ZIP file that you download from our site.
That's it.
We hope you enjoy the music."
Site created in 2002, <spentpoetsfan at gmail dot com>, Copyright 2002-2025, This page last updated: 15 January 2025
This site is not sponsored or endorsed by the musician(s) or their current or former record label(s).
