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"I was always a really big fan of EPs," Buckley says. "Sometimes, local bands don’t quite have it together yet to make an album, and these bands I picked specifically were all really young bands — Tuesday-night bands, so to speak. I wanted to help them get to weekend status, as well as put out their first recordings, where they start flexing their muscles in a studio. It’s a proving ground, and I think Four by Four can leapfrog a band along in the process."

Morning Theft singer/rhythm-guitarist Rob Holmes, who grew up in Boston before moving his band to New York City last year, had never set foot inside a proper recording studio before Buckley gave the band the green. "It was a good excuse for us to finally get our act into gear," says Holmes over the phone from New York. The band contacted Buckley at the urging of Perrino, with whom Holmes has been close friends since the Sheila Divine days. ("They were like gods to me," he says.) Last year, Morning Theft were tapped to open Dear Leader’s first show at the Lizard Lounge, which is where Buckley first saw and heard the fledgling group.

"The thing is, with a lot of small labels, it’s really hard to trust them," says Holmes, whose outfit self-released an EP, Five Songs, earlier this year. "People have horror stories about being screwed over, but this seemed like a really good idea because Paul’s a great guy. And to be honest, we never went into this thinking, ‘Wow, we’re going to get huge exposure and huge money.’ Paul and Aaron have been like father-figure types. If Paul is going to put something out and wants us to be a part of it, that speaks volumes to me, because he knows how hard it is, how it sucks to have your band playing a Monday-night slot on a bill where you don’t even fit with the other bands. Having Perrino’s seal of approval on what Paul was doing was good enough for me."

Holmes says he’s already seeing the results. "The number of people who visit [our Web site] has gone up, and people are hearing about us. That’s all we can ask for now — for people to hear about us and be interested."

Buckley hopes the public finds these four bands too: "I always wanted to run Lunch Records as a platform to promote new bands and have them move on to other labels. As the industry makes it harder for artists to do that, I find I’m becoming more like a real label. But I’m still just one guy trying to be smart about releasing new music for emerging artists. It is difficult, but I’m getting better at it every day. At least I hope I am."

Then there’s John Doe: after a nearly 30-year career, he’s not exactly an emerging artist, but when it came to recording with the X singer/bassist, Buckley was happy to make an exception. "I was working with a friend of mine in an associate-producer capacity on an indie film [The Red Right Hand], and I helped secure John to be a co-star in the film because we share the same agent and had met a few times during the Orbit days when Orbit opened for X. John’s just a super-sweet, warm guy, and I felt comfortable enough to call him up out of the blue and say, ‘Remember me?’ He did, and once we got him into the film, I had this idea of having him sing the closing credit song [a straight-up reading of the ’70s schlock staple "Seasons in the Sun"]."

On the last day of filming, the two headed over to Woolly Mammoth, where Doe recorded his vocal over rough backing tracks. Buckley then enlisted a who’s who of local players, from guitarists Nate Albert and Rich Gilbert to bassist Ed Valauskas to singer Kay Hanley, to flesh out the track. The B-side is a laconic, slightly country-fried cover of the Beatles’ "Baby’s in Black." "It was a one-off thing," Buckley says with a laugh. "But if he ever needed my help, I’d be more than happy to help him release his material."