by Mick Thomas
Christmas Day at Spencer Street
Finally Mick Thomas releases an actual Christmas album. After a career of playing full fledged national tours pretty much every Christmas, 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 there were a whole load of songs they had been revisiting - 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.
This week's Top 10:
