"20 years of Rock In Opposition"
Interview with Chris Cutler
Valdir Montanari: This year marks the 20th
anniversary of that memorable concert in the New London Theatre, which I
suppose was the first step into the Rock In Opposition (RIO) movement.
How do you see that date today, and the past period?
Chris Cutler: It was long ago and it feels like long ago. Rock In
Opposition, as a formal organisation, lasted about 2 years before it
stopped. The idea of RIO has been kept alive in some places, though
there has been no specific structure for 20 years. However,
ReR/Recommended, which was part of the same impulse as RIO, continues to
this day with the practical work of finding and distributing music
outside the recognised genres - and outside the formal music industry
structures.
RIO came at the end of a period where all kinds of music seemed to be
both connected and accessible; one felt that one still could have an
overview of the various available musics and genres and see how they
were related to one another or to the history of music in general. There
was a transparency that has vanished now into countless specialist
subcultural niches. RIO also came at the end of a traceable and
linear development in what had begun as rock, and had slowly introduced
elements from jazz, contemporary music, electronics, improvisation and
ethnic music, enormously enriching the aesthetic and communicative
language of electric music. But around 1967/8, there was a great
fragmentation - not only in music, but across all cultural disciplines -
after which the centre seemed to dissolve, leaving a multiplicity of
diversifying specialist networks which, as time elapsed, connected with
one another less and less. Where all recorded music had previously lived
under one roof and under a kind of patronage - as diverse products of a
single record company, for instance - by the late '70's survival
increasingly depended on separation and independence, on the
identification of specialised listeners, and therefore increasingly on
the growth of networks of mutual support amongst the like-minded.
Although this meant that the big companies could no longer control what
music would be available and what would not, equally it removed the
music that it did not release from the support and visibility of the
industry's mass distribution and promotion networks. We slowly learned
that to consolidate our position we would have to set up our own
distribution and information networks.
And though our coming together for mutual support focused in RIO, the
structure that survived and grew was ReR, because RIO was more turning
point in thinking than an enduring workhorse.
VM: What was the origin or the idea of the RIO movement?
CC: Henry Cow had been travelling throughout Europe since the
early '70's and we had met many interesting musicians in different
countries. However, the power of American and British record companies
meant that only their bands and styles were visible and somehow defined
what was 'authentic'. A French or Polish band would have no distribution
and therefore would not be 'taken seriously' - even in France or
Poland. It was also a question of self confidence and validation by
acceptance in the mass market. We knew that important things were
happening in our field that no one else knew about (since the music had
no distribution - the only way to know it existed was to meet the
groups and hear them. as a permanently touring band this was precisely
Henry Cow's luck).
It was to introduce some of this music to a wider public that we
eventually organised the festival in London. We wanted to say "there is
plenty happening and you can't depend on the music press or the record
companies to find it. Now you have to start to look in places that are
not so obvious". At the time we didn't intend to start an organisation,
just run a concert, but immediately afterwards the organisation just
fell into place. It was inevitable.
VM: What do you think RIO brought of positive or negative results to you and to contemporary music?
CC: From RIO came a clear presentation of the idea of an approach
to music that was both innovative and outside the commercial
structures, of a way of working that was not restricted to artificially
limited genres and marketing categories. It also recognised the
international nature of our musical community and offered a working
example of independence, co-operation and mutual support to the world in
general (this was hardly unique to us, of course, but in our field it
was we who brought that idea and it's realisation to a concrete form).
ReR continued this work by actively searching out, distributing and
releasing alternative music from all over the world, and through the
'newspaper' work of the Quarterly and the theoretical work of the
sourcebooks. It was we who initially kept the channels of information
open, since it required full time work, which no one in RIO was in a
position to undertake. So I guess the main positive effects of RIO were
to set an example and to encourage others to follow us - to show that
it could be done - to say "don't complain how bad is everything and wait
for someone else to do the work, just get on and do it yourself". I
can't think of any negative results.
VM: Do you think the movement has a due recognition from the whole humanity?
CC: No. But what is due? Why should the whole humanity be
interested in a specialist musical subculture? It isn't even interested
in mainstream Art.
That's not a criticism. We all think what we do or are interested in
ought to interest everyone else too. But I for instance have no interest
in
sports, which would baffle a sports fan. In fact we all specialise - and
that's a strength, not a weakness, of human societies.
VM: How do you see RIO today?
CC: As a moment in an unfolding story.
VM: Are you planning any special event to this 20th anniversary? Do you think about any concert, any reunion of musicians?
CC: Not especially. I thought I would be nice to do something and
I wrote to all the old members of RIO. Daniel Denis replied, to say
he'd write again, but he hasn't yet and Gigou Chenevier sent a very
supportive letter, some photographs, memorabilia and a short memoir.
That's all. I am not the one to insist.
VM: Do you see RIO as a good step to the globalisation of contemporary music?
CC: I see ReR that way. The music is global anyway - because of
the mobility and permanence of records, cassettes, CDs. But a structure
like ReR makes the information flow faster and directs and selects it -
which is critical in the digital age when there is far too much
information for anyone to sift through without some help and
recommendations.
VM: How do you see Rock Music today, in the whole context? Do you still consider yourself as a rock musician?
CC: Sometimes. The field has widened so much, it may not be
useful to put everything under the heading of 'rock' anymore, though
rock was the birthplace for a lot of it. My work with Peter Blegvad, The
(EC)Nudes, Pere Ubu - that's rock - to me - but p53, the Hyperion
ensemble , Lutz Glandien, all the duos with Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins,
Keith Rowe, Michiyu Yagi, Rene Lussier, Uchihashi Kasuhisa... - what
are they? So I may think of myself of being at heart a rock musician
(that's my first approach to music) but I guess I don't play so much
rock any more. I don't even play a conventional kit a lot of the time.
M: How is your relationship with the other musicians of Henry Cow? How
do you feel the possibility to an eventual reunion to a concert or a
record?
CC: I still work regularly with Fred Frith (we have a duo and I
work in his
quintet Tense Serenity; he played recently in my 'Timescales' project
and on my new song CD with Stevan Tickmayer). I work also with Tim
Hodgkinson (I played on his last CD, we make occasional duo concerts, we
both work with Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana Maria Avram). With John
Greaves I work in the Peter Blegvad Trio still. And until recently I
worked quite a lot with Dagmar Krause (on Art Bears, News From Babel,
Duck and Cover, Domestic Stories) and I see her fairly often. I worked a
lot with Lindsay Cooper (on News From Babel, 'Music For Films' , 'Oh
Moscow' and several CDs), but I am sorry to report that she is now not
able to make concerts any more, because of illness, though I hope to
make another CD with her in the next years. However, I can say that
collectively we have no plans for any reunion. Perhaps because we don't
want to look back, because we are all busy with new projects (sometimes
groups that reform do so because they are not so busy any more and there
is money on the table for them in their name and their old material).
Who wants to live from nostalgia? Sometimes it can be fun to get
together in a light hearted way, and remember. But not to reconstruct,
as if nothing of value had happened since.
VM: How is your relationship with the other
musicians of the RIO movement today? How do you feel the possibility to
an eventual reunion to a concert or a record?
CC: We mostly grew apart over time. I still keep in touch with
Lars Hollmer, Franco Fabbri and Gigou Chenevier, and sometimes I see
Marc Hollander and Michel Berckmanns. Ferdinand Richard still runs the
MIMI festival, but that is the only contact I have with him. I see no
likelihood of any reunion. Most of the groups, indeed, no longer exist.
Though Stormy Six and Samla Mammas Manna both did reunion concerts
recently and Univers Zero still perform now and then. But things moved
on a long way in 20 years. What was experimental then is not any more. I
am more interested in what is happening now.
VM: Was the concert of the New London Theatre recorded? If so, is there any plan to publish the tapes?
C: Yes it was. I have no idea where the tapes are or who recorded it!
VM: Please tell us a little about that concert. Who was the first to play?
Was there any formal presentation of the groups, talking about the country of origin and other things?
CC: Henry Cow played first (we were already known in England and
we wanted to get ourselves out of the way). I think there was some kind
of short presentation, but I can't really remember any more. Sorry.
There was a lot of background and explanation in the programme and in
our promotional materials. Also there was a whole issue of IMPETUS
devoted to the RIO groups.
VM: How did you know the non British artists? Was it easy to make the
reunion to play in one day?
CC: We met them all on our travels. Yes, it was easy; they all
drove to London. Europe is small. The world is small. Travel just takes
some time and some money.
VM: How was the reaction of the press to the concert? Was there any
article at Melody Maker, for example?
CC: There was quite a lot of press before the concert, I am not sure about afterwards. I will see if I have any records still..
VM: Why were there only European groups in
the concert? Did you think to bring any non European group or artist to
play in that concert?
CC: There were only Europeans because these were people we knew
and had met as we moved about, and because travel inside Europe is
economically practical - while transcontinental travel is still
expensive. And we had to start somewhere; Europe is our immediate
neighbourhood. We weren't ready to be too ambitious with our first
festival, especially since we had to find the money ourselves and we
knew attendance would be modest. Recommended, on the other hand,
immediately took music from everywhere in the world. Objects travel more
cheaply and easily than people.
VM: Was there any other concert with the
five groups in other country? If not, was there at least a small concert
with two or three groups of the
first reunion?
CC: There was only one concert with all 5 groups, but there were a
few extra concerts for individual groups. And then there were other
festivals for all groups in Italy, Sweden, Belgium.
VM: How do you see groups like Motor Totemist Guild, 5uu's, U Totem,
Miriodor and Thinking Plague? Can we consider them as new branches of the RIO movement?
CC: If RIO had continued and expanded it's membership then yes,
such groups would have been welcome. For me, the programme of
ReR/Recommended is, in a sense, a virtual RIO in terms of the music it
represents and the activity of collection, selection, recommendation,
distribution and promotion it pursues. The difference is that RIO was a
real collective and Recommended is - so far as it's programme is
concerned - only one person. RIO was a dynamic organisation, while ReR
is a kind of ethical and ideologically driven service (to be open about
it) or business (to be hard).
VM: I feel in your personal choices a special taste to the German group
Faust. Is it true? Did you try to put Faust in the RIO project? Did you try
to put any other German group in the RIO project?
CC: No, I do not have a special taste for Faust, though I like
them and I think that their first two LPs are classics - very radical
and original. They
occupy an important place in the history both of the RIO/Recommended
kind of rock-aesthetic expansion and in the development of the creative
possibilities of recording technology. I even think a case could be made
to link Henry Cow, Magma and Faust as three of the really pivotal bands
of the 70's in our field. Henry Cow toured with Faust in 1973, but by
the time of RIO they had long since broken up. I don't think we knew any
contemporary German groups then, except perhaps Embryo? We had to
restrict ourselves to a maximum of 5 groups for the festival and we
chose the ones we knew best and thought most interesting and diverse.
VM: Once you recommended me to give a
listen to the North American group Van Dyke Parks. I tried, but I didn't
feel what they had of so special. What do you see in that group?
CC: Van Dyke Parks is just one person - a composer, pianist,
singer. What I like about him is his musical imagination and his
extraordinary gift as an arranger. He has a large musical vision and
works on integrated projects, each one different musically, textually
and in the territory it explores from each of the others. He is outside
fashion, outside a 'genre'; a true original. Moreover he works in the
field of songs, with a unique approach to lyric writing which I find
very refreshing. He's also a great singer - what can I say ? For me
'Jump' is one of the great records of all time. But of course we are
talking about personal taste here, not objective facts! Why should
anyone like everything I like ?
VM: How do you see British groups such as King Crimson, Van der Graaf, Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull to the progressive music?
CC: Personally, I have to say that I never had much time for King
Crimson. I disliked their first album and, apart from a track here and
there, didn't find much I cared for on later albums either. To make
things harder, they were contemporaries of Henry Cow and we were often
pointlessly compared with them (especially Fred Frith who got foolishly
compared/confused with Robert Fripp). But we never saw the connection
really; they were working in a much narrower musical field than we were.
And when they began to make big statements about their originality for
improvising (around Jaimie Muir/Larks Tongues time) we found that
frankly rather pathetic. But that was their way - after all Fripp
claimed to have invented 'frippertronics', which is either a mark of
ignorance on his part or outrageous arrogance, since every guitarist
'invented' that obvious procedure. I was not a fan of the other groups
you list either, or Yes or Genesis for that matter, the quintessential
'progressive' groups. I don't think we had much in common with any of
them. We certainly didn't learn anything from them. I, for instance,
would havre to go back to early Zappa, Beefheart, Barrett's Pink Floyd,
Soft Machine, AMM, Sun Ra, Coltrane, Coleman, Stockhausen, Schoenberg
and so on for influences. And for contemporary bands in the 70's, Magma,
Faust, Samla Mammas Manna.
VM: I am sure that you know groups such as Magma (France) and Area
(Italy). At the age of the RIO first concert they were still in their
golden age. Did you think they could be playing in the concert?
CC: We knew both bands of course (Magma had been very supportive
to us in the early 70's and we had done many concerts together; we
played with Area too, in Italy), but both bands were pretty solidly
established already, with LP's on Major labels, so we didn't really
think of them when we put the RIO festival together; we wanted to
introduce people who were really unknown..
VM: As a drummer and percussionist, how do
you see the other
percussionists and drummers of the progressive music? Do you like Daniel
Denis, Bill Bruford, Christian Vander and John Marshall? Are you a
personal friend of any of them? Is there any other name you would like
to consider here?
CC: I am not exactly a personal friend of any of these drummers,
though I have known Christian Vander and Daniel Denis casually for a
long time. I think Daniel is a true original and a great musician. I
have enormous respect for his playing and to his approach to playing.
Vander was my last inspiration as a drummer (after that I think no
single drummer has greatly affected the way I thought about music). I
hesitate to use the word genius, but Vander has to come close. He has
made music that will endure and amaze for a long time to come, and he
managed to unite Stravinsky, Orff, Coltrane and James Brown in a form of
Rock that was both powerful and intelligent, complex and basic: a
unique musical personality. Other drummers who influenced me were Robert
Wyatt, John French, Zappa/Black/Tripp, Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell, Tony
Meehan, Kiyohiko Semba, Elvin Jones, Manu Katche, Kenny Buttrey and -
generically - Motown. And I loved John Hiseman's playing on Jack Bruce's
'Songs for a Tailor', as well as that of many other players on specific
pieces or songs where they honed perfect parts that make the music
breathe. Gigou Chenevier, Michael Maxymenko, Dave Kerman and Charles
Hayward made a great contribution to the vocabulary too, I think. I
suppose what I respond to is the combination of imagination (thinking
the not-obvious thing) and technique (making it sound obvious or
necessary). Bill Bruford and John Marshall are perfectly good players,
but they said nothing new to me. However, it must be admitted that I do
take an eccentric approach to my instrument. And not one much noted by
other drummers in general. Certainly not by those in 'the business' or I
would have been interviewed or written about at least once in some drum
or instrumentalist publication, and that has never happened.
VM: How do you see the Japanese musicians of progressive music today?
CC: In the last years, some of the most interesting music that I
have heard performed in the stretched-post-rock area has been Japanese.
It is a rich time for Japan now, I think. They have a wide musicianship,
highly eclectic taste, deep familiarity with technology and a great
musical imagination coupled with a willingness to put strange things
together. There are many fine improvisers too. One could say something
similar about the Czech Republic, or Montreal, or Bologna at the moment
as well - where there are many interesting and original groups in one
geographical location. Who can say why? (Well, actually of course one
could try to explain it, but it would be complicated and take a very
long time!)
VM: Thank you.
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