The Detergents

The Detergents got a Top Twenty hit in early 1965 with one of the wittiest rock parodies ever heard to that point, "Leader of the Laundromat." The takeoff on the then-recent Shangri-las' smash "Leader of the Pack" turned the story around so that a guy was dating a leader of a laundromat, rather than being a tale of a tough chick dating a motorcycle gang chief. The track was pretty musically solid, too, with well-placed interjections of sound effects of a revving motorcycle that wouldn't start and low, dramatic booming piano notes, answered by the record's key punch line: "Who's that banging on the pianoNULL I dunno!" Its topical satire also meant it dated so quickly that it rarely made the playlists on oldies stations, but it became a big favorite on Dr. Demento's program in the '70s. It may be stretching things, but the relatively hip and sophisticated parody of "Leader of the Laundromat" in some ways foreshadowed the kind of ironic-comedic pop/rock pastiches of Frank Zappa, though Zappa took it much further lyrically and musically.

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