OVERVIEW:

2000 marks the fourteenth year of Bar/None's existence. We're dedicated to finding great songs wrapped up in innovative sonic settings. Bar/None recordings are guaranteed to intrigue even the most jaded of pop music aficionados. We're not as concerned with style or genre as we are with quality; hence Bar/None is the home of such diverse artists as Esquivel! (Space Age Bachelor Pad Music), Yo La Tengo (indie-rock), Peadar Ó RIADA (Avant-Celtic) and Edwyn Collins (Top Forty pop!). Bar/None is dedicated to the great song. We don't get too tied down in the details of style or genre; the main thing is the songs. Songs that will make you raise your voice and sing out even if you can't carry a tune. Songs that will uplift the ordinary citizens from the drudgery of the day-to-day. While other indie labels tend to explore a certain sound, Bar/None is dedicated to the great pop song - songs, at least, with the potential to be popular if they simply get the exposure.

HISTORY:

Tom Prendergast started Bar/None in early 1986. Having previously worked in pirate radio and booked and promoted bands in his native Ireland, Prendergast moved to Hoboken in 1982 and started Pier Platters record store, which subsequently developed a national reputation as one of the finest alternative stores in the country. With the store as a laboratory to try out records and to track the new and obscure, Prendergast figured a label was the next logical step.

The first release on Bar/None was by Rage To Live, whose leader, Glenn Morrow, soon became a partner in the label. Morrow had already built a network of contacts in the alternative music community having toured nationally with his previous band, The Individuals, and had also worked in the A&R department of Warner Bros. and as the managing editor of New York Rocker magazine.

The next act Bar/None signed gave them the success they needed to actively establish a roster of talent and worth. Though they've since gone on to a major, the Bar/None debut of They Might Be Giants sold more than 100,000 copies - a major feat for an indie rock record - their follow-up Lincoln more than doubled those sales and their major label debut Flood went gold.

Other artists that started on Bar/None and went on to the majors include Luka Bloom currently on (Warner Bros.), , Freedy Johnston (Elektra) and Tindersticks (London).

1994 proved to be a breakthrough year for Bar/None. Along with Freedy Johnston's Triple-A success on Elektra, Bar/None secured the U.S. rights to the Tindersticks just prior to the band receiving "Album of the Year" from Melody Maker, beating out a number of better funded (i.e. major label backed) independents. 

The real surprise of 1994 was the launching of a new musical phenomenon called "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music" based around the stereo hi-fi recordings of Juan Garcia Esquivel. Sales have hit 50,000 and continue to build week by week. Since the release of the highly successful Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music and the follow-up compilation Music From A Sparkling Planet, the major labels have cashed in with hundreds of "Cocktail/Lounge" reissues. An Esquivel Christmas album is due out in the winter of 1996.

The following year Bar/None grabbed their market share: K. McCarty's performance of "Living Life" was played over the credits in the Richard Linklater film "Before Sunrise" and Former Replacement Chris Mars joined the Bar/None family for a three album deal and Poi Dog Pondering chose Bar/None over the major label major route for their Pomegranate album. But the biggest breakthrough came with the summer release of the Edwyn Collins album Gorgeous George with soundscans of over 120,000 copies and the Top 40 single "A Girl Like You."

Often Bar/None has been too far ahead of the curve for their own good. We released a solo album with Bill Drummond who went on to sell millions with the KLF. Shrimpboat morfed into the Sea and Cake and helped revitalize the Chicago Music Scene (drummer Brad Wood producing Liz Phair and Veruca Salt). Chocolate USA founder Julian Koster set the aesthetic tone for the whole Elephant Six collective and ended up in Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control and the Music tapes.

In recent years Bar/None has become a haven for such well known acts as 10,000 Maniacs, Juliana Hatfield and Arto Lindsay  while we continue to expose Generation-Next kids like Joy Zipper, The Mendoza Line, Of Montreal and Lullaby For the Working Class. Bar/None will no doubt continue to spread like a lazy, happy virus: spreading slowly and surely and leaving no one who hears their recordings ever quite the same again.