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Features Good Sport Tuesday, November 06, 2007 Stephen Cummings has just released his fourteenth solo album - Space Travel. By Brian Wise.
“The time will come when nobody will care anymore,” sings Stephen Cummings on ‘No Stopping,’ one of the standout songs from his new album Space Travel.
“No stopping, he who stops falls over,” he continues, “Always looking straight ahead, always forward, on the edge of town.”
Strangely, the song was inspired by an interview in which Ralf Hütter from Kraftwerk was making an analogy between bike riding and music. It is entirely apposite to Cummings’ career.
“He said ‘He who stops falls over.’ I thought it was a great analogy,” says Cummings. “That’s where I am at really. I’m just keeping doing this until like Bo Diddley I have a heart attack – hopefully at 78, at least!”
The remarkable achievement of Stephen Cummings now twenty-three year solo career is that he has not been tempted, like so many of his contemporaries, to put his old band back together for a lucrative ‘hits and memories’ tour.
Maybe that is because, like Bob Dylan (one of his idols), Cummings is still recording vital new material – plenty to carry him through gigs without having to spend a lot of time revisiting the past. Though in this age of restrictive radio when almost every band from the ‘70s has reformed – including many you wish had not – it must have been a very attractive proposition.
Not that Cummings completely rejects his own history. He did record the album Close Ups for the Liberation Blue series, on the condition that he could include some new songs, and he is comfortable enough to sing some of the classics during his shows. In the past five years he has also recorded three other albums: the rockabilly workout Firecracker, Live At The Big Room (made with Shane O’Mara) and his previous studio album in 2005, Love-O-Meter. He has recently released the live DVD In The Big Room, recorded in April this year at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre. As well as all that, his first two solo albums, Senso and This Wonderful Life, have been re-released together with a bunch of bonus tracks.
That’s a lot of productivity from a musician who seems to have an aversion to self-promotion, so much so that at one gig he gave away his CDs because he was too embarrassed to sell them.
“Basically you have to be an entrepreneur yourself in selling CDs and DVDs,” he explains, “but some nights you don’t feel like being the shopkeeper.”
Cummings’ career seems to be ticking over and he has mastered the art of being an independent musician, despite his occasional reluctance to staff the store. I recall his surprise a year or so back at one of the A Day On The Green gigs where he excitedly reported that he had just sold 70 CDs at the merchandising stall.
“I can’t believe I am still doing it in some ways,” he says of his career, “but I think I am good at it.”
“I’m a bit too consistent probably,” he laughs of his solo albums. “I have kept them all at a certain standard. I don’t think I have made any stinkers but maybe I could have taken a bit more time between them. I’m not sure. But it’s great to play music. I am really into playing music as much as I can.”
Cummings confesses that he sometimes long to have a bigger budget for his albums, maybe add a horn section here or there, embellish the music with some strings. He points to Cat Power’s album The Greatest, recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis, as the sort of production he would aspire to if he had the money.
Cummings is signed with Michael Gudinski’s Liberation, a label that Cummings describes as ‘boutique.’ It does take his attention off having to distribute the album and it does allow him to sell the album himself at gigs (something majors actively discourage because these sales never count for the charts).
“You write songs to your budget,” explains Cummings, “you write songs you know you can do and record. So you have to fit what you have to do to your budget. I can’t get too ambitious as to what instruments you want.”
Given that fact, Space Travel, is a remarkably good sounding album. It was recorded at Bass player Bill McDonald’s home studio and at guitarist/producer Shane O’Mara’s Yikesville, with some additional recording at Billy’s Shack – owned by guitarist Billy Miller. O’Mara mixed (‘and fixed’) the album while McDonald produced (with some help from the others involved). Assisting that basic core of musicians is Dan Luscombe on guitars and brother Peter Luscombe on drums. Other guests include Rebecca Barnard on backing vocals, Jeff Burstin on acoustic guitar and Mel Pinkerton on piano. To complete the feeling that the album was made by a close-knit circle, the cover shots were taken by Cummings’ partner Kathleen.
Of course, the most important aspect of the album is the music and the collection of songs traces Cummings’ reminiscences about life – from his younger days to his ruminations on ageing.
“Quite a few of the songs are about getting older,” admits Cummings, “so there is a theme to it. It harks back to memories of the past, music that I’ve played and people that I’ve known. That’s the general idea.”
Space Travel is out now through Liberation.
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