Sunday, April 5, 2009

Stephen Cummings - Firecracker


I've been so preoccupied lately, busy you might say, big things
are changing in my life and I'm away for Easter from the
Tuesday night till the next Monday, so I will be most likely
offline the whole time. As Arnold Schwarzenegger said
"I will be back."
A quick post or two before I leave.
This is Stephen Cummings, Fantastic 2003
Album "Firecracker"

The prevailing mood of Firecracker is fun. Firstly, Cummings is
having fun with the form, toying with a dreamy, stranded-at-the-
drive-in ballad (One Kiss, which Chris Isaak should steal
immediately);
swishing up skirts with a bit of New Orleans
stepping (Love's Coming);

getting a little hiccupy one minute (Baby What's Come Over You)
and sweaty but nice, a la Ricky Nelson, the next (Nothing's Too
Much).
He even knocks over a couple of Elvis sneers you imagine
must have
been sung in a pink sports jacket over black drape
slacks
(Gone Baby Gone, for one). The band are clearly loving it,
too, while Shane O'Mara produced it with a very light hand that
offers
plenty of room around the instruments.
But among the fun there is still craft. As ever, the maxim is true
that
the simplest things can be the hardest to get right, and
right they
are here: Cummings is too good a songwriter for it to
be otherwise.
Even with the lyrics, which are deliberately pared
back from his normal
style, Cummings still pulls out some
juicy lines.
My favorite is in Love's Coming, which begins:

"Quietly as lovers creep at the middle moon,
Softly as players tremble in the tears of a tune,
love's coming,
talk to the thin air,
love's coming,
I knew not that it was there."

Bernard Zuel
February 15 2003
Sydney Morning Herald

Track listing

01. The Popular One
02. Go Right Ahead And Break My Heart
03. Nothing's Too Much
04. Love's Coming
05. Baby What's Come Over You
06. I Want You To Want Me
07. How Much Longer
08. One Kiss
09. Sweet Saturday
10. Gone Baby Gone
11. Music In The Air
12. Why Doesn't She Want Me
13. Flying Blind
14. The Keys To Her Heart

Download Here

7 comments:

exilestreet said...

I will be grabbing this one, for some reason this has totally by-passed me. Bob, I will FB you tonight.
Regards/

bob nebe said...

Cool, always glad to put up unfamiliar material, this is rockabilly steve not the usual.
I'll keep a look out on FB and I've burnt you 2 stripedsunlight dvds full of hours of listening pleasure.
Just have to get my act together an get down the post office

exilestreet said...

Yeah I did actually see a part of this live at a fest one tine and was a bit underwhelmed but I was waiting for other bands.
Speak to you later/

Anonymous said...

Thanks Bob, can never have enough of Steve.
He is fantastic live as well caught him a couple of times on the sunshine coast.
Really enjoy this site, it has provided me with hours of wonderful music.

Thanks again Philip

bob nebe said...

your welcome Philip, are you a sunshinecoast local?
Great to have you round,
I wish I could say I have seen Steve play but alas I haven't yet

John said...

Thanks for this up Bob. Looking forward to it.

Enjoy your break. I have the Lucinda Williams gig on Thursday. Your welcome to a revue.

bob nebe said...

Thanks john, you enjoy lucinda and a review would be cool thanks