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