Description
Raconteur, troubadour, balladeer and poet, Mick Thomas is best known as the Blundstone-wearing song master of pub-rock icons Weddings Parties Anything. His band The Roving Commission features Squeezebox Wally on Piano Accordion and a rotating schedule of talented performers to keep the party alive with Micks unique mix of folk, roots and country.
Mick’s ever-evolving talents as a writer and performer defines a career as intriguing as it is enduring. His knockabout image partly explains his close relationship with his audience. They see him as one of them. A loyal mob who have followed him from the Weddo’s through his solo career, Mick’s fans relate to his wistful, sentimental and nostalgic lyrics. Themes such as Australian history (‘Dancing Man’, ‘Gallipoli Rosemary’); fleeting or lost love (‘For a Short Time’, ‘Disrepair’); the bittersweet realities of life’s merry-go-round (‘Away, Away’, ‘Ticket in Tatts’); alienation (‘The Lonely Goth’); and football (‘Tom Wills’, ‘Monday’s Experts’); are wrapped in a positive, triumph over adversity message. The characters in Mick’s songs are everyday battlers, as are he and his fans.
The companion album tracks 23 of the songs in the book and is a compilation of Mick Thomas’s finest work from 1998 to 2016. The album also includes four previously unreleased bonus tracks including a cover of Rick Nelson’s Garden Party and a duet with Ruby Boots on Dylan’s latter-day classic “Most of The Time.”