One day, back in 2004, I was cruising through one of the
online bulletin boards I was a member of.
This particular board catered to those who had a love of psychedelic
music or “psych heads” as we were beginning to be called. One particular post caught my attention for
some reason that day. It was a cry for
help. The author had come across an old record
labeled “Johnny Lunchbreak, Acetate: 1974/1975.” Included in the jacket was a photo (shown
above), presumably of the band, and a psychedelic drawing. The poster had no further information on
Johnny Lunchbreak and he wanted our help in finding out more, maybe even
locating one of them.
For the record (pun fully intended), an acetate is a type
of record that can be easily made, one at a time, from any audio source. This gave record companies the ability to release
one or two copies of something without having to set up the vinyl process
involving plates to be used in pressing, etc.
The acetate material was placed on a round aluminum disk and a lathe,
looking like a phonograph, would cut the groves into the material. It would then be lacquered to preserve
it. The downside was that these records
didn’t last and were temporary at best.
The author of the post also included a download of an mp3
he had made from one of the songs on the acetate, Tinsel Days. I listened to
this mp3 file and it was a bit crackly but not too bad for a 30 year old
acetate. Despite the noise, I could hear
the music of two guitars, one acoustic and one electric. The bass and drums were tight and the singer
had a very pleasant voice. The distorted
guitar solo in the middle was very reminiscent of the psychedelic 60’s. I was hooked.
So who were these guys who left behind nothing but a
photo, one temporary record and an almost embarrassingly silly name, “Johnny
Lunchbreak?” The author of the post had
come to the right place. I posted the
story to my blog at the time and another DJ friend I knew did so too. This guy had unknowingly called up a beast, as
this massive network of radio DJ’s, recording engineers, record producers and
musicians put the word out. Who is
Johnny Lunchbreak? Does anyone know
anything about them?
It didn’t take long to get an answer and it came from a
rather unexpected place, Sweden. It was
a guy there, looking closely at the psychedelic drawing. He noticed that the artist had signed it and
was able to make out the name. Believe
it or not, with a bit of detective work, he contacted the artist who in turn
was able to contact at least one of the band members to let them know that
their acetate had been found 30 years later.
Johnny Lunchbreak had been found in just a couple of days thanks to a
global effort of music industry professionals and groupies.
Johnny Lunchbreak had been a band from Connecticut that
only existed for less than two years back in 1974-1975. They had only played on gig outside of the
city of Hartford but were obviously serious about pursuing a recording contract
or why cut the acetate? The bigger
question, I think, is why didn’t these talented young men make it? Why hadn’t we heard of them over the previous
30 years? Maybe it was that silly name
that destined them not to be taken too seriously.
In about 2007, a record label, Zero Street Records, would
take the acetate and release a limited edition, just 300 copies, of a Johnny
Lunchbreak LP. As time when on, the
music industry network would locate the original master tapes and the Numero
Group would officially release Appetizer/Soup’s
On by Johnny Lunchbreak on CD and now as an mp3 download on places like
Amazon. Johnny Lunchbreak finally made
it and have their recording contract.
We would also learn that the look and sound they were
going for was the Bee Gees. Looking at
that picture, I can see that and listening to the music, I can hear the
influence there too. Join me tomorrow at
a Woman’s Touch from 2-4 PM and you can judge for yourself. I will play the original mp3 of the acetate
that I downloaded in 2004 and then I’ll play the whole album as it has been
released.
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