Rock in Opposition

Rock in Opposition (RIO) is a movement representing several progressive rock bands of the late 1970s, united in opposition to the music industry, which refused to recognize their music. The movement was started by the rock band Henry Cow in March 1978, when they invited four European teams to come to London to perform at a festival called “Rock in Opposition”. The following groups performed at this festival:

• Henry Cow (England)
• Stormy Six (Italy)
• Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden)
• Univers Zéro (Belgium)
• Etron Fou Leloublan (France)

After the festival, RIO was designed as an organization with its charter, the purpose of which was to represent and promote its participants. Three more teams entered the movement: Art Bears, Art Zoyd and Aksak Maboul. Later festivals were held in France, Italy and Sweden. Chris Cutler of Henry Cow organized ReR (Recommended Records) in the UK as a sample non-profit music company.

RIO as a movement did not last long, but its legacy is still alive. Although the term RIO was never intended to be used to define musical stylistics (the original RIO groups were very different musically), it is still widely used by listeners, musicians and distributors to classify rock groups (usually for groups participating in RIO festivals, and for groups related to or derived from RIO movement groups).

Some of today's representatives of RIO as a movement and as a genre: 5uu's (USA), Ahvak (Israel), Krusenstern and the steamer (Israel), Akinetón Retard (Chile), Guapo (United Kingdom), Miriodor (Canada), NeBeLNeST (France), Present (Belgium), Thinking Plague (USA). The term RIO these days has become almost synonymous with avant-prog (avant-garde progressive rock).