In 1978, at the time when Punk Rock and new wave was happening,
and the Prog genre was considered dead by the critics who considered “overblown”
and “pretentious dinosaur rock”, it felt as if it was on its death knell. But
something strange was happening in the heart of London. The genre was Rock in
Opposition (RIO for short), it’s one of the most difficult, twisted, and
bizarre genres to come out of the scene that was created by Avant-Prog band,
Henry Cow that launched a festival at the Drury Theatre in that time period
featuring bands from different parts of Europe including Italy, Belgium, and
Sweden; Stormy Six, Univers Zero, and Samla Mammas Manna.
Filmmakers Adele Schmidt and Jose Zegarra Holder, who’ve
done the first documentary on the new generation of the Progressive Rock scene
back in 2010 with Romantic Warriors: A Progressive Music Saga, has received
word-of-mouth through the Prog community and received an Bronze Peer Award for
Best Documentary, has shown there is no stop sign for the documentarians to
discover the RIO genre. And it is an extraordinary documentary about the
history of the genre and why it was completely ahead of its time.
The bands paved the wave for the RIO scene, have finally
been given the recognition they deserve as Adele and Jose are the Doctor Watson
and Sherlock Holmes of this documentary by carefully researching each of the
band’s music and interviewing members who were a part of that movement
including Chris Cutler, member of Henry Cow and label manager of Recommended
Records, was a wonderful moment and a great moment in the film explained how
the genre was short-lived and how he started out the label and opened the door
for new indie labels like Crammed Discs, AltRock, and Cuneiform Records to name
a few, helped get the RIO genre to be resurrected in the underground circuit.
However, one of the bands that started the RIO revolution
was in 1970 by the French Zeuhl group, Magma. And while they weren't a part of the movement, they were an inspiration for the genre. Drummer Christian Vander, who
almost looks like a mad scientist, is another excellent moment of the film in
where he talks about how he came up with the Zeuhl movement and why they wanted
to move away from the Hippie scenery into darker territories of anti-war and
sober, silent music and the cosmic universe, “I knew many people who suddenly
become ‘Love People’. He says, “I didn’t fall for that, I said to myself, maybe
someday, but this is not the time. We were waging a war. Something had to
happen.” And that is an impressive concept to get away from the whole peace and
love movement into something more evil and terrifying.
Today, new bands like Miriodor (Canada), Sleepytime Gorilla
Museum (USA), Yugen (Italy), Ruins Alone (Japan), and Guapo (UK), are
paying homage to the movement and they have done one hell of a job to carry the
flaming fire. One of the bands that I was completely blown away by was Thinking
Plague by singing Dead Silence for rehearsals in which it has this King Crimson
meets Frank Zappa attitude as if it was recorded in the ‘80s and a small
performance at Orion Sound Studios. Also Hamster Theatre at the Orion Sound Studios creating
this Avant-Swing Jazz sound performance as if they recorded the score for the
Triplets of Belleville and while I adore the new bands like Guapo, Yugen, and
Miriodor, I hope to check these bands out later on this year.
So if you hate the
commerciality of top ten radio and can’t stand it, watch this documentary and
you can tell how these bands took it into different levels and where they can
take it up a notch and push the envelope like no other!
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