Jeanne and Jan with Esprit’ "Our Song of Love (Day After Day)" b/w "Midnight Rhythm Train"
I swear to god, for what could have been no more than a year or two, every girl in elementary school had an Espirit bag as their preferred means of transporting books between home and class.
I did NOT like that the “E” in Esprit was just three horizontal lines. Frankly, it pissed me off. I had ethics about letters, even at age six.
Furthermore, I thought it was SOOOO pretentious when some sniveling shit six-year-old girl had to tell me it was pronounced “ES-SPREE”
COME ON! I don’t have time for this shit! There’s GI Joe’s I need to play with!
I’ve never heard of Jeanne and Jan before and besides the uncompleted eBay auction that first made me aware of this record, I can’t find any additional info about them.
The single turned up on one of my routine “michigan 45” searches on eBay.
With a $99 opening bid I was taken aback. Surely there had to be something to warrant such a high starting price.
Listen to the provided sound clip of the a-side. Total weak sauce.
The sound clip of the b-side starts slowly and then turns into…
I don’t know WHAT it turns into. The song grooves, gets a little wild, the synths drip in, the tempo purrs, all completely contrasted by the high-pitched falsetto of our J+J. Smoking. Vaguely genre-less. If I had to bet…they let Esprit' arrange this one.
So I can understand the seller, Stormy Records in Dearborn, just throwing it out there at that price. The married couple of Windy and Carl run Stormy and have always been strong supporters of the local scene and vinyl in general. Just solid folks.
The auction for the J+J single ended with no bids. I won a different auction that Stormy was running that week and along with my payment I sent a note that said “Hey, what’s up with the Jeanne and Jan single? Would love it, just not at $99.”
No reply.
Went to the completed auction for J+J to send a message to Stormy…
“Hey, I’m into this single, tell me what you want for it.”
No reply.
Well damn. I tried.
Up rolls the Third Man Pressing VIP opening party last Friday. Windy and Carl show up, Carl with a 7” mailer in hand.
“Your auction win is in there. No delivery fee. So is Jeanne and Jan. PayPal me whatever you want for that.”
HOLY SHIT. The record gods smile down on me once again.
We talk about how weird and good “Midnight Rhythm Train” is, how sometimes you have to just have to take a stab in the dark for a record that there’s literally no info on. Good times, good conversation. I haven’t seen these two in years and it immediately felt like we were just talking yesterday. These are the things I miss about Detroit.
Windy follows it by saying “I know it might sound weird, but we’re really proud of you.”
Absolutely sincere and heart-melting and all-around wonderful. I wish we had pressing plant openings all the time.
Below is a snippet of “Midnight Rhythm Train” as left behind from that unsold eBay auction. Behold and be wowed.
http://www.stormyrecords.com/sounds/ebay%20sounds/EBAY%20SOUNDS/MIDNIGHTRHYTHMTRAIN.mp3
Bumping an old thread..finally added this to discogs:
https://www.discogs.com/Jeanne-and-Jan-With-Espirit-Our-Song-Of-Love-Day-After-Day/release/10457726
ugh…. they say laughter is the best medicine…. im starting to think that America is on its way to being the laughing stock of the entire New World Order …. we threw away all the amazing qualities of indigenous culture for the sake of nameless homogenized trendiness in 31 flavors … groan
Hawkwind, not Hawkins (because accuracy is important)
This has a real Judy Collins sings songs from the movie Excalibur by way of Hawkins vibe going on…
Got mine in last week, that B-side is as advertised! Grab one if you can find it!
Honestly… these posts seem to be striving for an all time low as evidenced by the number of the news stories that disappear once their novelty is played out and TMR decides that the long view is not about some rats nest of vitriol …. your boredome precedes you
I’m such a sap, I got a little teary reading that. I absolutely love everything about this story. Thanks for sharing it!
These posts have definitely brought sounds to my ears that would they never would have heard. Keep up the good work.
Just a another wonderful reminder that there are some great people in this world. Thanks for the story and tunes.
Ah, those were the days, when you could use lyrics like “fulfill my destiny” and have them sound totally . . . normal. That snippet reminded me of about 10 different bands but not exactly like any of them.