I keep harping on about the wave of brilliant bands that, after successful (or not so successful) musical careers in the eighties and nineties, are reforming or forming new iterations that still have a spark of creativity and excitement. We here at Backseat Mafia are honoured to premiere another single from this example of what I call the Marrickville Sound, this time from an outfit called Party Crashers. Singer songwriter Robert F. Cranny has a long history in the industry as one of the main architects of Sarah Blasko’s debut album ‘The Overture And The Underscore’, and its follow-up ‘What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have’. Cranny co-wrote and co-produced both albums, the latter winning the ARIA award for Best Pop Release in 2007 and both achieving platinum status in Australia.
Cranny is also behind the record label Enchanted Recordings – a vehicle for critically acclaimed albums from the redsunband and Sienna Lee – and produced records by Leonardo’s Bride vocalist Abby Dobson, storied songwriter Ben Salter, and Melbourne indie rock band Gersey. Cranny’s songs have appeared in TV shows such as One Tree Hill and Six Feet Under.
Now, the band Party Crashers sees Cranny climbing on stage to produce his own work, developing from his previous alt country band Peachfield. Cranny describes his journey:
I was trying to live out this Don Walker fantasy where I would write the songs, other people would flesh them out and sing them and I’d be the anonymous dude up the back playing piano. After COVID subsided, we found ourselves with half a band and no vocalist. The task of building up another six-piece band was just too daunting. We tried to find a singer but I was already circling the revelation that that I should just sing the things myself.
Thus Party Crashers was born and the first single ‘Stoked With Your Diagnosis’ positively sparkles with the piano driven roll and world weary vocals about the vicissitudes of life and growing old.
The track explores the subjects of doctor shopping and secondarily, the pressure from parents to settle down. With lines such as Are you too old for Newtown? and We’re hoping that the new doctor might be ‘the one,’ Cranny captures middle aged obsessions, the minutiae of life, a place you never thought you would end up in with a certain self deprecating sense of humour and poignancy.
The delivery shimmers with a traipsing lilt and a wry expression. You can detect in the DNA a little of the Flying Nun/Dunedin sound, Springsteen, bands like The Las or The Coral from Liverpool and an overall antipodean blush that reflects the inner city blues and the angst of the inexorable march of time.
‘Stoked With Your Diagnosis’ is out tomorrow (Thursday, 3 April) and a self-titled album is on the way for release on 23 April. Cranny says of the creative push behind the album:
I grew up in the suburbs, moved to the country and ended up in the city. All of my songs are about trying to leave one place, trying to get to another place, going back to an old place, getting stuck in a place and – for the first time, maybe – realising it’s not so bad where you are.
Creativity certainly has no use by date and Party Crashers are the evidence.
