Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Jan & Dean: Avant-Pop Pioneers?

I picked up a double album anthology of Jan & Dean‘s best work and found myself rather bemused by one particular track — and outright befuddled by an entire album side.

First, the song — 1964’s “The Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review and Timing Association,” one of the odder pop refrains and my entry for Most Ungainly Song Title Award:

I love the muscular opening, as well as the song’s sheer goofiness, while the satiric edge of the lyrics challenge conventional notions of the group as mere musical lightweights.

US picture sleeve

Everyone sing along

This one song would seem to anticipate “the cutting-edge comedy concepts” of the next two years, 1965-1966, which saw the release of Jan And Dean Meet Batman and Filet of Soul.

Which brings us to side four of the Jan & Dean Anthology Album.  All it takes is one listen.  This stuff is, shall we say, pretty out there.  There are some telling clues on the back cover, however, that I only now notice in retrospect.  For one thing, the first three sides are grouped together as a unit at the top of the back cover, while side four is all by its lonesome on the bottom.  But a more subtle touch – none of the tracks on side four list the recording dates as is done for each of the songs on the other three sides.

And then you look at the song titles themselves:  “Pigeon Joke“; “Brass Section Intro“; “Beatle Part of Our Portion“; “Thank You Dean,” and the like.  As it turns out, side 4 is a 20-minute selection from the never-released Filet of Soul album.  As Mark A. Moore, preeminent Jan & Dean scholar, so aptly puts it, Filet of Soul can only be described as “Jan & Dean as a nightclub act … in the Twilight Zone.”   The mixed-media splicing techniques on display on side four, which I determined later to have been recorded in the months straddling 1965-66, seem to be somewhat unprecedented in pop music.  And very much along the lines of the innovative audio engineering — and caustic social commentary — made famous on Freak Out by (Frank Zappa And) The Mothers of Invention, their debut (and one of rock’s first double LPs), but more importantly, a hugely influential album that got the lion’s share of the credit for the use of music as cutting-edge social satire (that, at times, also delights in the sophomoric), even though Filet of Soul predates the release of Freak Out by at least several months.

But given that the original Filet of Soul:  A “Live” One was rejected by Liberty (possibly as many as three times) and never “properly” released in its day, it is very easy to see why Zappa And the Mothers got all the glory as innovators in this particular realm of pop music.  Perhaps it is inaccurate to call this music “pop,” since its very prickliness limits its appeal to a fairly narrow segment of the popular market.

Even though the selections on side four seemed to skewer (in no particular order) their fans, the record industry, the South, and The Beatles, most of all Jan & Dean seem intent on violently deconstructing their own squeaky-clean popular image.   I can only assume that this aspect of the Jan & Dean story inspired The Monkees to do something somewhat similar a couple years later with the release of their icon-busting, surrealist anti-Monkee cinematic misadventure, Head.

LP Cover

Foil Cover Slick

Caution:  These two excerpts from side four are for the musically adventurous only — not advised for those who have little to no patience for juvenility or humor in their music.

Jan & Dean-1
Jan & Dean-2

What’s instructive about both of these clips is that you get to hear Jan & Dean announce each of the musicians in the band — since the album is a “live” one — and these are all top Los Angeles studio musicians that have played, often uncredited, on countless pop hits.

Final note – Liberty did release something in 1966 called Filet of Soul, but alas, it is nearly devoid of any strangeness and bears little to no resemblance to the selections mysteriously included on side four of the 1971 United Artists 2-LP anthology.  Mark A. Moore lists the running order of one bootleg acetate of the Filet of Soul album — this is the “long” version:

  • Honolulu Lulu
  • Boys Down at the Plant
  • Cathy’s Clown (short version)
  • Pigeon Joke / Rhino Joke
  • Brass Section Intro
  • Dead Man’s Curve (short version)
  • Beatle Part of Our Portion
  • Rhythm Section Intro
  • Michelle
  • Whistling Dixie
  • Thank You Dean
  • Norwegian Wood
  • 1-2-3
  • Lightning Strikes
  • Hide Your Love Away
  • And Now Back to the Show
  • Let’s Hang On Intro
  • Hang On Sloopy

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Postscript:

Ungainly Song Titles

Two years later, Shirley Ellis would attempt to unseat Jan and Dean with “Ever See A Diver Kiss His Wife While The Bubbles Bounce About Above The Water?

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LINK to Concept Albums

LINK to Experimental Pop

LINK to Humor +/- Satire

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5 Responses

    1. Hey everyone, it’s Don Altfeld – the person who wrote “Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review & Timing Association”! I’m honored and delighted that you checked out my blog piece about a great Jan & Dean song – one of my kids’ faves to listen to as we tool around town in our Bucket T.

    1. Wow, I would love to know if that is true! Unfortunately, my trusty internet has let me down. But thanks for stirring my imagination – I hope to one day resolve that mystery.

  1. I don’t think Mr. Altfeld is still with us to confirm, but presumably the song name was inspired by the recurring gag Mel Blanc used to do on Jack Benny’s radio show, where he played a railway station announcer repeatedly proclaiming, “Train leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga!”

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