Cool Change

Little River Band, during their chart-ruling 80's heyday.

Early in my Air Force years, at the dawn of the 80's, I was assigned to a technical school outside Denver, Colorado. There, I made fast friends with a sergeant who was in charge of a rock band that was part of a "special duty" squadron. As having that duty meant that I would be exempt from some of the other more traditional military nonsense, I was quick to audition and was accepted for the rhythm guitar and backing vocal slot.

One of the first things this sergeant told me was that he wanted the bands' vocals to sound like the Little River Band, who had recently been through town. He had attended their concert and said that they had opened their show with the song, "Lonesome Loser", which has an acapella harmony intro. Apparently, this was mind-blowing to Sarge and he had decided that his band was going to sound just like that. Yeah, well, sometimes you have to deal with the talent you've got, so suffice it to say that our little band of misfit airmen did the best we could with what we had. After some time, it did turn out to be a fairly good 6 piece band after all. We rehearsed daily for at least 2 hours, so something had to stick. I can also assure you that we played a few songs that are on my short list of tunes that I will never play again; not even under duress. But such were the 80's. Here's the Little River Band with one of their songs that we did manage to pull off reasonably well, "Cool Change".

An excellent cover version of "Cool Change" can be found as a bonus download that's included with the fine new album from Vegas With Randolph, "Rings Around The Sun", which is easily one of the very best albums of 2013, and probably one of my top favorite new releases of the last 5 years as well. It's apparent that the band puts a lot of work into getting their music to sound good. The audio quality is great, and will likely sound just as good in earbuds as it would through some large, high-powered speakers, although I would opt for the latter. The songwriting is tight and the lyrics are clever in a good way. VWR knows the value of storytelling in songwriting. This is a well-constructed Rock album that's fun to listen to and doesn't wear the listener out. VWR's take of "Cool Change" was also one of the standout tracks on the must-own tribute album, "Drink A Toast To Innocence", which is now appearing on many 'Best of 2013' lists around the blogosphere. Crank this one up loud and enjoy! Things get interesting in the 2nd verse.

You can snag "Rings Around The Sun" and other great music from Vegas With Randolph at their online store. It's always best to buy direct from musicians, wouldn't you say?

The single, "Cool Change" is only available as a download from the band, but if you want it on a physical CD, then get thee with haste to the Monsters Of Lite Rock homepage, where you can, and definitely should buy this fantastic tribute album! It's absolutely my favorite compilation album of any kind for 2013. Another reviewer stated, and I'll paraphrase, "it represents the sub-genre of 70's Lite Rock better than a 25 CD series could".

And of course, music from Little River Band is best found either at Amazon, or the budget CD bin of your local independent music emporium. LRB is one of those bands that's best represented in your collection by a solid anthology. Here's a good one.

Kool Kovers would like to wish all of our readers and Facebook friends a very happy, prosperous, and healthy New Year! 2014 has a lot of potential to be a good one around our way, and we want the same for all of you! Cheers!