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 upturned collar of Modern Lovers-era New England. Oddly enough, Lunchbreak had been 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 an asterisk—and Asterisk—written all over it. A few months later, we had the original tapes, a stack of unpublished photos, and one of five actual lunch boxes the band had made during their brief existence. Johnny Lunchbreak existed for less than two years and played outside of Hartford, Connecticut only once, and yet somehow, they reached graduate levels in merchandising.
