You know that game where you list the people, dead or alive, you’d invite to your ultimate dinner party? Whatever eclectic blend you’ve conjured up, you’re about to be outdone.
Just watch the video for Jazz Party’s debut single, Rock N’ Roll Graveyard, and you’ll be left feeling pretty certain that if the Melbourne-based band got to choose, they’d pick out one hell of a crowd.
Rock N’ Roll Graveyard lurches its way through the kind of messed up house party that would have the neighbours in hysterics, taking it’s inspiration from innovators and surrealists including David Lynch, Joel and Ethan Coen, Martin Scorsese and Orson Welles, and jumbling them all up together into a disconcerting mix of alcohol, drugs, sex and violence.
Jazz Party have thrown a shindig, and it’s getting a little wild. Rock N’ Roll Graveyard is a grand tour into just how fiendish a night in can get.
The camera slow pans foggily around the murky scene, working its way past a fractured collection of dark and dubious characters in one long shot, the whole thing filmed under eerie coloured lights.
Pretty fittingly, given the video, Rock N’ Roll Graveyard is a track about love and death, jealousy and nostalgia. Recorded live with the full eight-piece band, there’s an old world, scratchy record kind of feel to the track – the intoxicating fog of cigarette smoke, the gravely saxophone, the lingering deliberation of the percussion.
It’s an intimate sound, with a growl in the vocals and sweetly seductive harmonies – the kind of background music you’d imagine playing in dimly lit jazz clubs in questionable neighbourhoods you just can’t seem to stay away from.
It’s a gritty cocktail of boogie and jump blues, stirring up a kind of revelry inspired by New Orleans, but laced with a punk attitude – the kind of kick the seems to compel booze, debauchery and slow dancing.
To achieve this, they’ve turned to an eclectic set of influences ranging from Fats Waller to Hanni El Khatib, Lana Del Rey to Patsy Cline, Prince to Robert Rodriguez, and so it all just ebbs with this surreal, freefalling sensation that anything could happen.
Which as far as Jazz Party’s concerned, it really can. On the Melbourne scene, the band is known for their fluidity. During their sporadic takeovers across the city, the line-up is liable to change at every time, with a rotating cast of guest appearances from members of bands including The Cat Empire, Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes, Daniel Merriweather, Husky, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, Martin Martini and Mojo Juju.
That may just explain the ton of cameos Jazz Party have nonchalantly slipped into the video – so if you’re not too thrown out by the creepy animal masks, vomit and the occasional OD, you can also sift through for appearances from The Cat Empire’s Harry James Angus, Miles and Simone’s Simone Page Jones, Sex on Toast’s Angus Leslie, Tinpan Orange’s Emily Lubitz and The Dusty Millers’ Tracey Miller.
If this is the kind of party you’re into, you can catch Jazz Party launching Rock N’ Roll Graveyard at The Curtin, Melbourne on Halloween. All the details can be found here.
While you’re here, check out our list of the druggiest albums of all time.
