Bob Lind's Message Board

A true artist gows with change - tests their skill, tests their versalitity...

I've not heard more compelling guitar work than on "The Thunder Of Goodbye"...

A previous version (in demo form maybe) bounced to an almost staccato beat, hinting at a sing-a-long type of tune - "Lind Goes Disco"? (Ha Ha!)...

This album version assails the senses from the opening bars - smart, dexterous guitar work mingling, entwining, separating...

Packed tight lyrically, lessons learned, the singer tosses his rueful warning to the listener...

The white Ford turned its head for home on the Sunraysia Highway, and this gem finger picked its way through the Mallee countryside...

Drying paddocks quizzing Autumn where the rain is, semi trailers heavily laden carting goods to and from the oasis area of northern Victoria, as Lind's fingers flew deftly in and out of "Thunder"...

Around Redbank weekend farmers were arriving, to spend some down time at their country properties...you could almost hear their sighs of relief in escaping the Big Smoke...

And I'm on the way home.

Oh Aussie Bob Nos....!

Maybe, as with me, we leave the song writing to the artist? Ha Ha!

GPS wise, yes, I herad the report of drivers relying on GPS co-ordinates and winding up bushed...

Mate, I've been on these roads forever...

Unless they actually physically relocate Mildura (like London Bridge, for example), I'm pretty confident I know where I'm going...

I am just hoping that Danny is using something more reliable than Apple Maps to navigate. Apparently, among its many other errors, it put Mildura in the wrong place. Finding yourself in the middle of nowhere, perhaps low on fuel, when you were expecting to be in a town, is no laughing matter when the temperature is in the high 40's.

"Somebody's Angel."

I have received some curt ripostes from Lind fans when I queried why the artist included a song by another song writer when we have been privy to demo cuts of his own which easily warranted inclusion, yet didn't make the cut...

Lighten up, folks! I don't HATE the track, I just prefer some other gems which have invaded my senses via demos or live performances...

I was exiting the confusingly named Mallee town of Speed to the vision of a long, strong, goods train crawling towards me, one-eyed light blazing at dusk, seemingly confident of its ability to carry that load at its own measured pace, when this Peter Allen song said hello...

You gotta agree, Lind feels this song, and feels for it...

Poignant, lonely, a touch desperate? the vocalist has a point to make with a plaintive pick-up line: love the one you're with, maybe?

But even more - the lover in question is a real love, a revelation, an attraction and obsession, a convincing quality someone, THE one - even if "just for tonight..."

"...only you can save me, only you do it right..."

"...but now that I've found you, I see the chance that you might come through ..."

"...so don't tell me I'm crazy, if I say forever is not far away,

just close your eyes, repeat after me, hold on, say "I love you"...

Lind climbs into the vocal, and greets recording fadeout with as impassioned an entreaty as you'll hear from him anywhere...

An awakening from the worldly weariness of the introduction builds into an averral of "damn it, this is love, man...go get her!"

AND... another great track to sing along with...

Growing on this fan, the more I listen...

The Sunraysia Highway opened up as each verse serenaded the Mallee scrub, Mildura bound...

just back from Mildura...

Gee, this is a great new Lind album...!

I played around with the audio settings of the car's sound system and adjusted them to a level that I reckon is perfect...

FYA album sounds even better!

Now, a cup of tea for this weary traveller...

(must post tomorrow)

Aaah...

The title track, Finding You Again...

Grabs your attention with percussion that kicks your bar stool from beneath you and leaves you on your arse on the floor...

Tight lyrics, strong vocal, as I encounter Seymour, the summer day beginning to spread its ominous heat.

An Army town, not too attractive, yet working class and friendly, with its strong railway history and influence, nestled in a very pretty hilly greenery, with eye catching pleasant scenery.

Fire alerts today, another drying windful day, around 40 degrees in this area - vigilance required.

FYA track smacks of a full circle relationship - recalled, remembered, rediscovered, reaffirmed, restated - elements of familiarity blend with revelation - love's rebirth at one with love's survival.

"Your smile so bright you can't contain it all
It warms and lightens everyone
I have no better time to spend
Than in finding you again..."

Bloody fierce heat Grant...I ain't one of them there scientist fellas, but I tells ya: things have changed since I was a kid.

The sun nowadays seems to pierce through layers of skin...with my fairish complexion, a man would be a fool to spend more that a few minutes under the direct sun in the land of Oz ...

"I can't walk roads that'll tan yer, I ain't got the shine..."

Heard you were nearing the boiling point down there.

"Exeter: The Wedding Waltz" waltzes by...

A satisfied man hums through his harmonica, almost sighed lyrics of arrival, welcoming and acceptance...

At once the sated, at the other feeling the need to express and share his discovery/reward...

I played this again this morning, wending home southwards from Donald: the threat of another Aussie scorcher of a day sent me running for home, cool, sweet home...

A couple of early morning meetings done and dusted, the discovery of a dent on the car furrowed the brow, so I felt the need to apply some Lindiment...

Dead 'roo carcases - they've bred up in numbers since the drought broke a couple of years ago - dot the road side...most the victim of night driving semi-trailers, mainly laden grain trucks rolling from farm/silo to port...

St. Arnaud and its gold rush era flush of hotels, many now closed - beautiful old buildings now sleeping after halycon days...

Sturat Mill and its quaint green mini oasis charm: these days tea-rooms beckon...

Avoca, an old haunt from my youth, has weathered time and events well: large now on tourism - gold seekers, wineries, fishing, mountain climbing, trekking...

"love through the windows, over those cobble-stone roads..."

Oh dear, I think I started something.

Maybe we should let Weird Al Yankovic loose on some of Bob's songs.

Maybe it's the pain...

Maybe it's the hole I just now noticed in my spleen...

Or the thought you'd collect on my life insurance...

And how this soup reeks of strychnine...

That cut could use some Dettol?

"the caged look of the kestrel". maybe?

Apropos of "Maybe it's the Rain", the song might not work so well transported to the Australian setting. It's rather hard to think of anything that rhymes with "the car needs petrol".

Ta Dunc!

Remember, the wearing of seatbelts is compulsory in the state of Victoria...Ha Ha!

The trip from Ballarat to Broadford contains some pretty scenery - forest and hills around Daylesford, Trentham, Tylden etc and from Gisborne through Newham. Lancefefield, Kilmore and the like...

Still luxuriant from the huge rains of a couple of years ago and not unkind seasons since, the growth and greenery is profuse...

Rounded treed hills, winding road, nature boasting - union Organiser at the wheel, members waiting, white Ford Falcon coasting...

Around Rochford, side one track two of Lind's Finding You Again album presented itself...

"Maybe It's The Rain".

Captivating production, the Lind approach more poignant than maybe a demo tape had suggested...

A coup de grace is the plummetting, unsettling production when the artist delivers "...the shadows fall like concrete at this hour...", as Hoover/Grant drop a disconsolate backing simultaneously with the lyric...raises the hair on the back of the neck...

The plaintive, sighing vocal fadeout is a surprise, yet grows on you after a few listens, and does not seem out of place or superfluos when taken as part of the whole trip...

Perplexed, indecisive, confronted, wrong footed, unsure...the singer on one hand seeks a direction/solution, on the other hand accepts the uncertainity of the moment...

More of a "Oh, well..." than a "What the...?!" response to the dice as it falls...

Although I was travelling after a shower, and not in a heavy downpour, I sang along and the miles were devoured...