Commercial Interruption

Commercial Interruption formed as a side project of "Sunnyside" a New Haven, CT area band playing mostly at local bars and college mixers. Playing Zappa, Beatles,Traffic, Jethro Tull. Don played guitar, John played bass, Carl laid down the drums and Glenn handled the flute, sax, and keyboards. With the addition of Paul, Commercial Interruption became mostly a studio band who left behind reels of original music. After only one gig the band members gave up the idea of live performance...
In september of '05 John dusted off a box of reel to reel tapes and a 4 channel Teac tape deck and began to assemble the compositions. After a year of recovering the songs he called Paul.
In September '06 Paul, Glenn, Carl and John all agreed to reunite for a informal Jam session in the former Mansion recording studios in West Haven, CT. They liked what they heard and plans were made to rehearse and book some gigs.
The 1st gig was at Daniel Street in Milford, CT
the night was captured and is packaged as a CD titled "Live at Daniel Street 2007".
In October of 2007 the band were honored to open for Zappa-tribute band ProjectObject in Hartford.
The next 2 years were scattered with numerous appearances at a little watering hole tucked in an east side pocket of New York City called Otto's Shrunken Head Tiki Bar Lounge and Grille. Commercial Interruption, sponsored by the globetrotting and legendary Unsteady Freddie as well as New York local impresario with the wolf man pipes Frank Wood, shared the tiny postage stamp sized stage with a collection of true musical giants such as Paranoid Larry and his Invisible Band, The Priscilla's, The Hudson Dusters and The Tarantino's NYC among others. Something in the water inspired Commercial Interruption to begin to integrate the underground wave of modern surf sounds into their repertoire. Spearheaded by Connecticut's own 9th Wave, The Clams and The Octomen, CI were accepted into NESMA(the north east surf music alliance) and have performed at several Bobby D. surf nites! In May of '09 the band traveled down I95 to North Carolina having been invited to play in Wilmington and Winston-Salem by Vicki Venus Moon at two of the cities coolest retro bars. Another 2009 highlight for the band was an invitation by Bill Popp to play along with him and his band The Tapes as part of a tribute/benefit for his father and to support the American Heart Association.
The band continued to play at some of their favorite venue's in 2010 including The Delancey, Daniel Street, the Zen Bar and the beloved nest of the south seas in New York City, Otto's Shrunken Head Tike Bar where a back room fire closed its doors for a few months.
CI ventured into Brooklyn for the first time in August to play at The Trash Bar. Another exotic locale new for the band was the north shore of Long Island where they were joined by Strange But Surf and The Tarantion's NYC at Oyster Bay's Homestead bar and restaurant.
Most memorable was an out-door performance at Babb's beach amusement park on the Connecticut/Massachussettes state line.
A gorgeous late August afternoon overlooking a lake, with the songs of CI and Cold Shot transmitting from state to state.
On July 4th, the day Joey Chestnut continued to defeat all challengers at the annual Nathan's hot dog eating contest, CI were delighted with the opportunity to perform at Cha Cha's on the Coney Island boardwalk.
CI rang in 2011 like kings, being invited to perform for the ubiquitous Unsteady Freddie at his surf shindang and birthday party. What an honor.
The band are once again looking forward to another trip to Brooklyn in March when they will play at CoCo 66 and also in April for another gig at the Homestead in Oyster Bay, Long Island, again with the great Strange but Surf and The Tarantino's NYC