Appetizer/Soups On

Johnny Lunchbreak | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 25, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: ASTERISK
• ASIN: B000V8MR34
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,039 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. A Very Papal State

2. Tinsel Days

3. The Same Could Happen To You

4. Never Found

5. It's Got A Hold On You

6. Take Me Baby

7. Amazing Pain

8. Not A Dry Eye In America

9. The Best That I Had

Editorial Reviews

After an obscure acetate turned up in Connecticut in 2004, Zero Street Records issued a 300 copy limited edition LP of the complete works of Johnny Lunchbreak. The non-album was a mélange of post-Velvets New York mixed with the up turned collar of the Modern Lovers New England. Oddly enough, the band was shooting for the Bee Gees, and their horrible miss was our gain. That LP was perpetually on our office turntable during the spring of 2007, needle drop, flip, needle drop, flip, over and over. It had Asterisk written all over it. A few months later we had the original tapes, a stack of unpublished photos, and one of the five lunch boxes the band had made in their brief existence. The nine song album has been completely remastered and is housed in a gorgeous tip-on style replica sleeve, and comes with an oral history of the group's all-too-short career.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The band ALMOST FAMOUS should have been about, January 7, 2008

By 

Jimmy Jazz-Baby Smithman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Appetizer/Soups On (Audio CD)

I really hated that film ALMOST FAMOUS. I think a really interesting film could be made about one of the hundreds - maybe thousands - of talented bands lost to history for one reason or another, but Cameron Crowe blew it when he turned his film about that very subject into a sitcom in which the band in question curiously never seemed to play its own music. One listen to the album made up of 33-year-old demos by the "ghost" band JOHNNY LUNCHBREAK does this subject more justice than a 24 hour marathon showing of that over-praised piece of cinema. This is truly quality rock and roll, by a band that obviously had influences (comparisons have been made to the Rolling Stones and early Bee Gees; I personally hear alot of Jefferson Airplane in it) but also had enough talent and vision to make music which - like all great rock music - is grounded in rock history while revealing a unique personality. And like all great rock bands, this one is the sum of its parts. The players show
amazing versatility, whether backing Andrew Merritt's songs of ethereal sweetness and fragility or Tom Ekwurtzel's grittier soulfulness. I call this a "ghost" band because they never recorded an album, just these demos, which captured a moment that it seemed wasn't meant to be shared with the world, as the band evaporated not long after that. But fate must really be a tangible thing, as it put these recordings into the hands of the right people, who cleaned them up and put them out as a package that includes interviews with the surviving band members. It's haunting music, in every sense of that word. But the best way to listen to this - at least at first - is to just completely forget about its back story and revel in some absolutely great rock and roll.