Mick Thomas & The Roving Commission

On his Jolly Old Christmas Tour, Mick will be performing songs from his new album “Christmas Day at Spencer Street”, as well as a selection of his hits we all know and love! With special guest: CHARLES JENKINS & THE ZHIVAGOS + AMARILLO

Finally Mick Thomas releases an actual Christmas album. After a career of playing full fledged national tours pretty much every Christmas it took a couple of years of not doing shows in November and December to make him see it might be a good idea.

Mick and long time cohort Mark Squeezebox Wally felt it was time to make a really simple fun record that would be good to play on the road and as the next tour would fall at the end of 2013, and there were a whole load of songs that were live favourites going right back to the dawn of Weddings, Parties, Anything that had never been recorded it seemed a reasonable idea. And so with a minimum of planning and preparation they found themselves in a local studio for a few days with pretty much all of the Melbourne chapter of players that currently call them selves The Roving Commission.

It was a simple process but one that has produced an interesting and cohesive piece of work. Initially muted as an EP or mini album, Christmas Day at Spencer Street weighs in at a healthy thirty three minutes. It’s a great natural sounding record, one that promises to translate to the stage easily.  And while all the tracks don’t deal with strictly yuletide subjects there is enough wry observation there concerning the goings on at December’s end to make this the perfect stocking filler.

Couple that with the far weightier and formal work of the Vandemonian Lags project that spawned a double album, concert DVD, not to mention sell out shows as part of the inaugural Dark Mofo Festival  earlier in 2013 then Mick’s output for the year is as healthy as ever and that Christmas Stocking may in fact be running over.

Christmas Day at Spencer Street is out now on Popboomerang Records (CD, vinyl, digital).
Vandemonian Lags DVD and double CD also out on Popboomerang Records.
Available online, at shows and at select record stores.