Mellowdrone

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indie, indie rock, rock, alternative, electronic… see all

Mellowdrone is a music project founded by Jonathan Bates in the late 1990s. The style varies from soul, hardcore, indie rock, and electronic genres.

If it weren’t for the snow, mellowdrone might never have happened.

During his three years of exile in Boston as a scholarship student at the Berklee School of Music, far from his Florida home, Jonathan Bates pulled further and further away from all that the city represented. “There wasn’t much to do except get drunk, do drugs, or get into fights,” he remembers. “And it always seemed to be snowing. So I started to write music.”

Beginning with … boredom never sounded so sweet, a home-brewed EP that he produced in 1999 and gave away to strangers on the street, Bates put together a body of work under the name mellowdrone. “I didn’t want to use my own name because people might come to expect me to do only one kind of music,” he explains. “With another name, I felt that I could do anything.”

The disc made its way to L.A., and Bates, convinced that “Berklee really sucked,” followed. Essentially homeless for several months, he crashed on the couches of friends, picked up odd jobs, but mainly concentrated on writing new material. Once he got his own place he pieced together a makeshift studio, with a bargain-basement computer, a tinny Casio keyboard from Radio Shack, and a few guitars.

From this jumble of mismatched gear came the second mellowdrone EP, glassblower, on January 1, 2001, which Bates sold exclusively on his website, mellowdrone.com.

Box
Mellowdrone
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A Demonstration of Intellectual Property
Mellowdrone
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Go Get 'em Tiger
Mellowdrone
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Glassblower
Mellowdrone
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Top Tracks

1	Fashionably Uninvited full track	310
2	Oh My full track	186
3	Orange Marmalade full track	117
4	Beautiful Day full track	111
5	And Repeat full track	109
6	Four Leaf Clover full track	83
7	amazing full track	79
8	C'mon Try A Little Bit full track	75
9	Madison full track	70
10	Fuck It Man full track	65
11	Whatever The Deal full track	61
12	bone marrow full track	55
13	Limb To Limb full track	51
14	Bonemarrow full track	34
14	Tinylittle	34

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dirtyharrold wrote:
last month

i'm the top-listener ^_______^

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kyrios69 wrote:
last month

nice.

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Frostmorn wrote:
last month

their music is unique...to my ear at least

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icedream91 wrote:
July 2008

;))))))) No words!!!!!!

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Fevered17 wrote:
July 2008

"You and I" ftw. Srsly

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PThomasAnderson wrote:
July 2008

Alguna canción me recuerda a EEls

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tdFMason12 wrote:
May 2008

orgasmic

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kkm20 wrote:
May 2008

they need to change their profile picture here. greg and scott are no more in the posse.

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Fevered17 wrote:
May 2008

I have to agree. I only enjoyed about half of Box. I gotta give it props for having Madison though. I fucking love that song.

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Alyfizzy wrote:
April 2008

Everything pre-'Box' was incredible.

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fernandom wrote:
April 2008

there's like a million mellowdrone songs out there and i only have the ones on albums. help a brotha out?

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Grungels wrote:
March 2008

when in the heck is the next album coming out? BTW i have a mellowdrone group you should join :)

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Undedicated wrote:
March 2008

Wow, I guess I thought they were more popular than they really are... Love 'em!

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Blue_Generation wrote:
March 2008

Love them... they're so underrated.

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silversurferfm wrote:
February 2008

the wet dog in you is impressive

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CatFromMars wrote:
February 2008

i love this band.. yeah, it's damn good..

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kiralove wrote:
January 2008

Mellowdrone in SF! Friday 1/25/08 www.cafedunord.com Mellowdrone with: Rykarda and the Tower Ravens Excuses for Skipping Cafe du Nord $12, 21+ 10pm!

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NieUwierzeZe wrote:
December 2007

♥ ♥ amazing ♥ ♥

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celestronica wrote:
December 2007

Official Mellowdrone group on Facebook: We’ve started an official group on Facebook – so if you’re there please join! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6586026438

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iamthenight wrote:
November 2007

That's funny, considering it was mostly made up of early stuff. those early songs were reworked so much that they should have just been new songs... ended up making awesome tracks worse. Unfortunately ever since John got signed he decided to shift away from what made glassblower and ADOIP so fucking amazing and start writing boring, band-based, trendy LA indie-pop. I miss the days of ridealong

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Recent Activity

kael_ach created the Spanish wiki page for Mellowdrone. 8 hours ago
siesahorasi, monophoniclove, Sierrawr and 6 other people added Mellowdrone to their libraries. yesterday morning
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