C O M P A N Y press

and jagjaguwar.com

press release: NOVEMBER 29, 2007

COMPANY announces OLD BABY, their second CD on Brah Records, East Coast Tour in February

press contact: David Janik david@abancalledcompany.com

"Old Baby" is the latest record from Company, a songwriting collective and rock band rooted in folk, punk, country, and psychedelic traditions. Brought together by a shared commitment to writing songs that don't "pussyfoot around", to borrow Dylan's phrase, Adam Davison, David Janik, Stephanie Rabins, and Christopher Teret formed Company in 2001. A number of self-released records and a string of shows with the likes of Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Bright Eyes, Arbouretum, Oakley Hall, and Oneida followed.

The 2005 release of "Parallel Time," their first album on Brah Records, led to a collaboration with Oneida drummer and Brah co-founder Kid Millions as producer and Barry London as recording and mixing engineer. The result is "Old Baby," a rich, layered work, and something of a departure from the live feel of previous recordings. Evocative guitars, dynamic rhythms, uplifting harmonies, and lyrics by turns incisive and insightful interweave to create a homespun sound that is as striking as it is familiar. In these songs, simplicity shimmers, dreams pack the punch of hard facts, and the human heart is laid bare, weird, defiant, and lovely. From contemplation of the everyday in "Poison Ivy" to meditation on guilt in "The Sad Businessman" to the allegorical in "Old Crow's Complaint", Company navigates deep waters here. And throughout are unconventional songs about relationships, such as the manic ode to friendship "Shine", the dreamlike "Ain't That Bad", and the lament "I Guess I'm Lonely". This is a band at home in their craft but still charting new territory. Listening to the closing track, "Hard Choice", with its bittersweet tale of loneliness, we can console ourselves that, no matter where we are, we now have "Old Baby" to keep us company, and that ain't bad.

Tour: In conjunction with the release of the new album, Company is planning a two week February tour of the eastern United States. With Company's members currently residing in New York, Portland, ME, and Los Angeles, these performances will provide a rare opportunity to catch the band's compelling live show in New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, Portland, Baltimore, and other east coast cities. (Further U.S. dates will follow intermittently across 2008.) Company's concerts feature their exuberant renditions of three talented singers' songs and invariably include old favorites, fresh material and the same eclectic but focused spirit that graces their recorded work.

check the shows page for the latest updates. Write to adam@abandcalledcompany.com for information about bookings.

Radio: Company is available for live radio performances and interviews. Write to Stephanie Rabins at ussr2002@hotmail.com for more information or bookings.

Index Magazine- "The best folk singers have the power to rivet a room’s attention on the cadences of a vocal inflection or the change of a single chord, and each member of Company has this power in spades."

TimeOut NY- "A group of musicians who are deeply at ease with their sound. . . expect another series of impressive performances from a generous, chilled-out band."

Pat Sullivan (Oakley Hall)- "I once got so drunk with some old friends that I hopped into some mob guy’s convertible idling on the southside of Williamsburg, grabbed the steering wheel and revved the engine, although I have no recollection—I had to be told this. I had come from a Company show. One of many in their incredible stint at Pete’s Candy Store. Where were you? You missed the best band in New York writing new chapters in the Great American Songbook right before your eyes. Certainly without hyperbole their generation’s best additions to the pantheon. They get together occasionally and play a killer set with-somehow-new amazing material and then drop a record like Old Baby. I’d just quit bourbon too. I guess I’m going back. Where will you be? Don’t make the same mistake twice."

http://www.myspace.com/abandcalledcompany http://www.brahrecords.com http://www.jagjaguwar.com/artist.php?name=company

Previous Press clippings:

Company: Parallel Time

By Mathias Askholm

from undertoner.dk

In spite of the long Indian summer, the colors of nature have now begun to turn golden. The trees are dropping their leaves, which gather in heaps. The birds are heading south and gradually the world is getting colder and darker.

However, in a cold and dark world it is possible to find consolation. This could be hot chocolate, woollen socks, and now a band called Company.

This band, and its special folk-rock, which is almost as psychedelic or Joy Division-punk as it is folkish, has put together 13 songs that are sure to keep you warm in the cold months of the year.

Thematically, the album circles around melancholy: lost youth, alienation, and finally, ever-threatening mortality.

On "Dragon Is The Mother Tongue," this new awareness first seems to bring peace of mind: "I can see it all so clear / Heaven is right here in my mind / When I get home I take off my armor and lay down to sleep with lions." Later, it turns into a tribute to life: "All is one and one is all / And we are not so very small / Life is grand, so have a ball." It is this party at the end of life, which is the essential in this album.

It is a pleasure to listen to this album. The sad atmosphere is mixed with an almost naïve underlying optimism. ‘Even though everything moves towards the end, you may as well celebrate the day,’ seems to be the motto.

Ear-catchers, besides "Dragon is The Mother Tongue," are especially the whispering and pleading "Deliver Me," with its suppressed melodious-ness, and finally, the emotional storm encapsulated in "The Wooden Hall." As a listener, one is drawn through mysterious landscapes and ends up in strange yet beautiful corners.

Parallel Time is Company’s fourth full-length release, but the first on a record label. With an indefinite mixture of folk, punk and psychedelia, the Brooklyn band might not be the natural candidate for a major record contract. But now, four years after the band was formed, it has finally happened. The fortunate discoverer of Company is the newly started Brah Records.

Brah Records was founded by none other than one of the past few years’ most prolific creative bands, Oneida.

At first it doesn’t seem as if there are any similarities between Company and Oneida. The expressions on Company’s release seem to be played down and discrete, but the thoughtful and intelligent songs are an obvious common denominator of the two bands, as is the general high level of quality.

It is rare that an experienced band such as Company gets an album debut and it is even rarer to listen to such a perfect and completely beautiful release. This album is without a doubt going to be the soundtrack accompanying this fall. It is exactly balanced between folk, rock and rebellion.

This album is refreshing and innovative and at the same time it is bizarre and sad.

All in all, this album is absolutely fantastic.

Translated from the Danish by Linda Nielsen

In the NOV/DEC 2002 issue of index magazine.

FOLKIES GO ELECTRIC

PAT SULLIVAN

The members of Company are not the odious kind of folk singers. That is, Chris Teret, Stephanie Rabins, and Adam Davison don’t sing a song for every cause, write frantic open-chord confessionals à la Ani DiFranco, or whisper melodies like a thousand Will Oldham knockoffs. They love the Slits, Burning Spear, and David Allen Coe. They used to have a hardcore band called World War XII, the hardest shit you’ve never heard. They have been known to talk about revolution and are prone to the occasional onstage polemic, but they relish all-American pursuits like cheap beer and baseball.

They also happen to write amazing songs, to harmonize quite sweetly, and appear to genuinely enjoy themselves on stage. And, in No Wave- and Electro-obsessed New York, their free monthly shows at 9C Bar in the East Village are a welcome musical alternative, a gem of the city’s live scene.

It was at 9C about a year ago that I first saw Company, and I’ve spent a good deal of time since then trying to sort through their unique synthesis of folk, rock, country, and postpunk sensibilities. I’ve been a friend and a fan, but now as a journalist, I realized I needed some back story. When I e-mailed them some questions, Chris responded with a bunch of stoned limericks (thanks, funnyman) and Adam with a three-page autobiographical tome ("I learned guitar from an illegitimate daughter of Leadbelly"). Nevertheless, I was able to piece together some history. Chris, Stephanie, Adam, and drummer Dave Janik became friends at Bard College (although the first two go back to their youths in Baltimore). At Bard, they played together in different hardcore/punk bands as well as the notable Folk Underground Collective (FUC), which foregrounded their common interest in folk traditions.

By the summer of 2000, all four were living in NYC. Chris and Stephanie honed their live chops playing original songs on the streets. The exposure got the duo gigs, and they released the striking full-length Chris and Stephanie Predicted the Whole Civil War on the Mountain Collective for Independent Artists label. At the same time, Adam recorded and self-released three blessed-out psych-folk CDs and Chris issued his stunning, cassette-only Fight Like Hell. With a back catalog of great songs at their disposal, the next move was obvious: Chris, Stephanie and Adam recruited Dave on drums, plugged in, and became Company.

Like all good bands, Company can’t be labeled. They remind me of ‘60s California acts like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Moby Grape--bands of former folkies gone electric, each with three gifted songwriters. It’s the band as songwriting collective. But Company are decidedly urban, even as they shuffle through Adam’s country stumble--Letter to My Brain, Chris’s semi-mystical "Driving Tonight," or Stephanie’s "Move Away." Dave’s shambolic rhythms and loose accents--seemingly changing with every measure--dynamically drive the songs, while Adam ups the rock ante with piercing Johnny Thunders-meets-Jerry Garcia leads. Folk rock is the label closest to Company’s sound, but their rock references are more Clash, Joy Division, and Meat Puppets than ‘60s California.

Although rock elements sharpen their acoustically conceived songs, Company derive their musical muscle from the folk side of the formula. The best folk singers have the power to rivet a room’s attention on the cadences of a vocal inflection or the change of a single chord, and each member of Company has this power in spades. Like many great singer-songwriters--Bob Dylan, Neil Young, or Willie Nelson--Chris exploits a limited vocal range by digging his distinctive voice into the song’s emotional core. Adam’s voice runs the gamut from pure country tenor to mewling punk whine, most notably in the band’s live staple "Satellite," which climaxes with him howling at a manipulative paramour, "You’re fucking with my emotions." The true heroine in the vocal department, however, is Stephanie, whose strange way of expanding in and out of a melody mesmerizes like a slow Doppler effect. She’s as powerful as a young Linda Thompson, and her voice is the key component of Company’s joyful harmonies.

As the beat is to Electro or sonic attack to NYC rockers like the Liars, so Company hand their hats on the song. They relish tight, hook-oriented songwriting and the timelessness of lyrics, melody, and emotion combined in just the right way. I guess that’s why they can get away with covering Joy Division’s "Love Will Tear Us Apart" right after Willie Nelson’s "You Were Always on My Mind." In their own songs, Company have the combination of elements just right--whether it’s Stephanie’s sultry power-ballad "Driving Machine," Adam’s menacing "In the Jaws of the Lion," or Chris’s sweeping narrative "Rude." Their repertoire is all the more impressive considering their average age is twenty-five.

When I listen to great rock albums by ex-folkies like Blonde on Blonde or Time Fades Away, I’m drawn in by the singer’s narrative vision as well as the guitars. I want to live in the singer’s world and know its characters. Company’s repertoire has the same effect on me. They are currently putting this thrill to wax, but in the meantime, the best place to catch them is at 9C bar once a month. That’s where I find myself, just drunk enough to sing along, whenever they’re playing. One of Adam’s best cuts is simply titled "Company." Although he doesn’t mean it self-referentially when he sings, "I could use some company," I can’t help but nod and agree.

In December 4-11, 2003 edition of Time Out New York

The Brooklyn-based folk-rock band Company formed in 2001. Nailing down a sound, though, took a while longer. The four members, all friends since college, had played with each other in seven previous configurations, including an acoustic folk duo and a hardcore outfit called World War XII. Accordingly, a war of sorts played out at Company’s earliest shows, where punk elements clashed with relaxed melodies and folksy guitars.

Company spent the past two years refining its identity, and the results are gorgeous. The band has clarified its relationship to British Isles folk and American country traditions, moving into the rich real estate occupied by Fairport Convention, Neil Young and Dylan. But the best move that Company made was to embrace psychedelia, following the lead of contemporary friends like Oneida and Oakley Hall. In a wash of Byrds-like guitar jangles, freaky Jefferson Airplane jams and lyrics about getting high by smoking rainbows, Company’s laid-back songwriting has found its ideal form.

The band has never been fond of big clubs, preferring long runs at intimate venues: An 18-month stand at 9C ended only when the East Village country bar shut down last winter, and this December’s monthlong residency at Pete’s Candy Store will be Company’s second. Last August, the band’s phenomenal weekly concerts in that back room showed a group of musicians who are deeply at ease with their sound. At this month’s run, expect another series of impressive performances from a generous, chilled-out band that’s no longer at war with itself.

- Sara Marcus

c 2007