LRB Battle Reignited

One of Australia’s most successful touring bands are back in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons. Little River Band are at war, with a legally constructed version touring America containing not one Australian, yet celebrating 40 years. Flashback 40 years, and the founding band members are not in the current band.

While this kind of story, about copyright and trademark law, is dead boring, the personalities are anything but.

Now a venue in North Carolina called Reynolds Auditorium have cancelled a gig by the current LRB as the band demanded upfront payment a week out from their April 3 date. The reason? The venue were, it is alleged, served with a cease and desist order to stop using original music from the rights holders, advertising the gig.

CX asserts the following possible scenario: this appears to mean that the venue were using grabs from classic LRB tracks within adverts. The owners of those rights, that being the songwriters from Australia, rightfully objected. They served a letter on the venue. The venue presumably complained to the current LRB management (Stephen Housden) and were then served with a demand for payment.

Reynolds make some angry pronouncements and the current LRB are in some trouble, since regional theatres, casinos and state fairs are the bread and butter gigs for the American band, led by long time LRB bass player Wayne Nelson. Biting the hand of any of these will freak out the booking agents. Which has just occurred.

This blow up follows the cancellation of a LRB appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, caused when the rights owners withdrew consent for LRB to perform classic songs owned by the original members.

That in turn led to a bitter Sunday profile of The Feud, where Housden asserted the founding members would not be able to perform under the LRB name ‘in this lifetime’.

A feud that will only end at the end, it seems.