MOG

Rock in Opposition has something of a unique history, even in progressive rock circles. While generally considered a genre now, the term was actually coined in 1978 as a political statement, and RIO was originally a protest movement.

The story goes something like this: British group Henry Cow, while known today and having a bit of a following, was pretty much ignored by record labels when they were active. Their contract with Virgin records was cancelled since they were making no money for them, and other labels wouldn’t touch them. They got tired of this treatment, and decided to organize a festival to draw attention to the fact that record labels were increasingly less about music and more about money (hmmm . . . some of this sounds familiar!)

Henry Cow (which is also considered a Canterbury band due to the history of some of its members) invited some other groups having similar difficulties from the European continent to play in the festival, and on March 12, 1978, the first Rock in Opposition festival was held, with performances by Henry Cow, Stormy Six, Samla Mammas Manna,, Univers Zero, and Etron Fou Leloublan. The tag line for this concert was “FIVE ROCK GROUPS THE RECORD COMPANIES DON'T WANT YOU TO HEAR.”

The poster for the original RIO festival.

The concert met with some success, so more were planned. A more organized group was formed, with the members of these bands working on ways to get their music heard. More bands were brought into the mix, more festivals happened, and then, well, as with many musicians, “creative differences” were cited, and the movement eventually drew to a halt.

This isn’t quite the end of the story, though. Chris Cutler, of Henry Cow and later Art Bears, formed a label called Recommended Records, and this outfit became a primary distributor of RIO music. At the same time, the meaning of the name started to change. Like I said, at first it didn’t refer to a style of music at all. It was a protest against record labels refusing to recognize or release music that wasn’t clearly intended for profit. Over the years, though, the name started to refer more to progressive music that was more on the avant-garde side. (You can read “weird” into that).

Today, RIO refers to groups and musicians that use their instruments to create music that defies most normal conventions of what is done and not done in a rock setting, and is often used interchangeably with the term “avant-progressive.” Most, like Thinking Plague, 5uu’s, News from Babel, and Present use common rock instruments to create uncommon rock. Some, like Univers Zero, use alternate instrumentation not normally found in a rock setting (Univers Zero and others like them are sometimes referred to as “chamber rock,” since they use instruments primarily associated with chamber music such as spinets, oboes and such.) It is strange, it is bizarre, and for me at least it often takes a heck of a lot of listenin’ to come to grips with some of it. I find some of it very unlistenable, honestly, but it has a very strong following.

In the main post, my favorite RIO band, Thinking Plague, off their 1998 album In Extremis. In the comments, assuming I can figure out how all this newfangled stuff works, the chamber rock of Univers Zero, and one from Present to round it out!