Adam Gates

With bassist/engineer Craig McFarland Gates started the studio project Madame Blavatsky Overdrive, which was a return to performing “progressive pop” music. As the chief songwriter, Gates and Bassist/Engineer McFarland (along with drummer Jeff Gomes) recorded a full-length album “Idiot Jones Will Have His Day” as well as the “Eris Cycle” a 5 EP Box set. They also released 3 other albums, The Courier, The Anonymous Troll, and Winston King! The albums gained considerable international attention and MBO briefly played as a live act (with guitarist MIRV, Bassist- McFarland, Drummer-Gomes and Keyboardist-Tom Muer). In 2015 all online indicators of MBO were removed from the internet (including the entire MBO catalog and a considerably sized Blog that Gates had kept for over 5 years). The MBO catalog has since resurfaced on SoundCloud.

In 2014 Adam, released a solo album called The Occult which was posted on the MBO and can now be found on youtube. In an online interview, Gates mentioned his latest project "The Black Pope Of Lafayette County” - which is a song cycle consisting of 23 songs about death”. As of this writing “The Black Pope" remains unreleased.

Gates played Keyboards, Guitar and sang for the SF Bay Area band MIRV. The band (with line up Marc “MIRV” Haggard, Craig McFarland and Jeff Gomes) played local San Francisco shows to MIRV’s considerable home following and toured nationally with Les Claypool. The band would record one album with Gates (The Million Pound Bomb) which remains unreleased. Gates formally left MIRV in 2006.

With interests in diversifying their creative output, Primus members Les Claypool and Larry LaLonde and Gates started a freelance graphic design company “Prawn Song Design”. The small graphics house focused on the exploding opportunities of Web-based design in the mid-1990s, creating numerous sites for Interscope Records, Mountain Bike Magazine, and CBS Records among others. Gates left the Graphic House in 1998 and introduced emerging Artist Zoltron to his role as creative director at the company. Gates then became the Creative Director for Internet startup Liquid Audio. Gates is currently a Creative Director at Pixar Animation Studios.

Gates originally met Les Claypool at the radio station "The Quake" while both musicians tried to secure air play from DJ Big Rick Stewart. Gates' band Monkey Rhythm and Claypool’s Primus would play countless shows together in the SF Bay Area. Gates also shared bass duties with Claypool for the “Thrash Metal” band Blind Illusion on a national tour in 1988, where Gates met future Primus guitarist Larry LaLonde.

In 1987 the original band dissolved and Gates, keeping the name Monkey Rhythm, played with various local musicians and friends (Wire Trains Jeff Trott and Brian McCloud) while continuing to study Graphic Design at San Francisco State.

In 1981 Gates sang and played bass for Monkey Rhythm, a band started (with British guitarist Graham Clarke and drummer Chuck Risby) while attending Miramonte High School in Orinda California. With the band's musical references clearly at odds with local suburban musical tastes, Monkey Rhythm ventured into the San Francisco club circuit, playing numerous shows at The Mabuhay Gardens, On Broadway, The Stone, Berkeley Square and many others. The band constantly toured (nationally with The Fine Young Cannibals among others) until securing a record deal with Howie Klien’s 415/CBS Music. Their debut album “This Must Be The Place” (produced by Matt Wallace) was released in 1985.

With his involvement in the music industry growing in the late 1980s Gates found the opportunity to explore one of his other major creative interests: graphic design. Gates worked on graphic treatments/layouts for many major label acts (Geffen, CBS, Warner), employing his lifelong fascination with graphic design (particularly focusing on the entertainment industry).