Mick Thomas Releases Music Video for ‘Back In The Day’ Single.

Cameras: Cam Dale (Closing Time Productions) & Delsinki
Edited by: Delsinki
Colour Grade by: Peter Pilley
Filmed at Aarat Live, Dec 2022.

Following a hectic end to 2022 – including a full national tour supporting their brilliant Back In the Day EP (which was voted #6 Best Australian Album in the Rhythms Readers’ Poll even though it ain’t an album!) – and their now tradition New Day Show at Archie’s Creek, Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission have released a new video for “Back in the Day”.

“Back In the Day” is not only the title track of the recent EP, but also the first single from the group’s next album Where Only Memory Can Find You, which will be officially announced in coming weeks.

Mick says of the song: “It’s just a comment on something that every artist who’s been around as long as I have faces, it’s about a bunch of people being on Facebook who are constantly fixated on something that you did 20 years ago. It’s kind of light-hearted but it does have a bit of a serious side, in that it’s really important now that we have something like social media in our everyday lives that people don’t get too focused on the past, because it’s really easy for people to get so fixated on that stuff. There’s still plenty of work to be done, I reckon.”

“The whole (new) album is about people being focused on what came before. I was originally going to call the album Solastalgia – which is just a term I read in a book which refers to this existential recognition of being attached to a time and place that you can never really attain, like something that’s in the past – but then I found out that Missy Higgins already had an album called that!

The greatest Australian seven-track maxi single since Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons‘ 1978 classic So Young, Mick Thomas’ Roving Commissions’ Back in the Day features a mix of new and old originals and some great covers. The EP’s title track is effectively their next album’s first single, while the EP itself expands upon that song’s premise of looking in the rearview mirror of life with a perfect batch of beautifully chosen and executed covers and reinterpretations relating to the same theme.

New versions of Mick Thomas favourites “Houses” (originally from the Weddos’ final studio album Riveresque) and “A Tired Old Hat” (from the Mick Thomas & The Sure Thing‘s 2019 album The Horse’s Prayer) shine fresh light on a couple of an undeservedly lost Thomas classics.

The covers, which include the The Saints‘ late ’80s classic “Shipwreck” (something of a tribute to the late Chris Bailey), Neil Young & Crazy Horse‘s Ragged Glory highlight “Days That Used to Be“, and the unsung first album Cold Chisel gem “Home & Broken Hearted”, featuring a spunky lead vocal from the Roving Commission‘s newest member, Brooke Taylor, reveal something of the diverse influences on Thomas’ songwriting and the band’s approach. Brooke Taylor also takes lead on a gorgeous version of Johnny Thunders’ heartbreaking 1978 ballad “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory”. One of those rare songs that is vividly remembered by everyone who has heard it and an unexpected delight awaiting anyone who hasn’t (and also covered by Ronnie Spector, Willy DeVille, Celibate Rifles, Blondie, Billie Joe Armstrong and even Guns N’ Roses!), “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” is perhaps going to be the EP’s dark horse, and Brooke, Mick and gang make it their own.