Chris Cutler is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of other bands, including Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu and (briefly) Gong/Mothergong. He has collaborated with many musicians and groups, including Fred Frith, Lindsay Cooper, Zeena Parkins, Peter Blegvad, Telectu and The Residents, and has appeared on over 100 recordings. Cutler's career spans over four decades and he still performs actively throughout the world.
Recommended Records (RēR) is a British independent record label and distribution network founded by Chris Cutler with Nick Hobbs in March 1978. RēR features largely "Rock in Opposition" and related music, but it also distributes selected music released on other independent labels.
Lindsay Cooper was an English bassoon and oboe player and composer. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians. She collaborated with a number of musicians, including Chris Cutler and Sally Potter, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group. She wrote scores for film and TV and a song cycle Oh Moscow which was performed live around the world in 1987. She also recorded a number of solo albums, including Rags (1980), The Gold Diggers (1983), and Music For Other Occasions (1986).
The North East Art Rock Festival, or NEARfest for short, was a multi-day event celebrating the resurgence of progressive and eclectic music in the United States and around the world. The event was held annually in early summer in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, approximately one hour north of Philadelphia and less than two hours west of New York City. The festival was founded in the spring of 1998 by Robert LaDuca and Chad Hutchinson, with the first event occurring in 1999. NEARfest quickly grew to become "the most prestigious progressive music festival in the world."
Bob Drake is an American multi-instrumentalist musician and recording engineer. He was a founding member of the avant-rock band Thinking Plague in the early 1980s, and a member of the 5uu's, Hail and The Science Group. He formed his own band, Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities in 2007. Drake's engineering credits include mainstream artists like Ice Cube, Tina Turner and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Fred Frith appears on over 400 recordings. This is a selection from bands he was/is a member of, collaborations with other bands and musicians, and his solo recordings. The year indicates when the album was first released. For a comprehensive discography, see the Discography of Fred Frith by Michel Ramond, Patrice Roussel and Stephane Vuilleumier.
Susanne Lewis is a German American musician, songwriter and artist. She is a solo artist and a founder or collaborator of a number of bands and music projects. She has a band with Bob Drake called Corpses as Bedmates and Hail, and she also releases music under her own name. She was a member of the band Thinking Plague and has guested on albums by 5uu's and Biota.
The Science Group were an avant-rock group founded in France in 1997 by English drummer Chris Cutler from Henry Cow and Yugoslav contemporary classical composer and keyboardist Stevan Tickmayer. They released A Mere Coincidence, an album of songs on science related topics in 1999, and an instrumental album, Spoors in 2003.
Thinking Plague is an American avant-garde progressive rock group founded in 1982 by guitarist/composer Mike Johnson and bass guitarist/drummer Bob Drake. Based in Denver, Colorado, the band has been active off and on since 1982, taking on a number of musicians over the years. They have made seven studio albums between 1984 and 2017, and released one live album recorded at NEARfest in 2000.
The 5uu's were an American avant-rock group founded in Los Angeles, California in 1984 by drummer-composer Dave Kerman. The group released their first album in 1986 and recorded a second in 1988 with Motor Totemist Guild, a similar band from the area. The two groups merged in 1988 to form U Totem and made two albums. When U Totem split up in 1994, the 5uu's reformed and went on to make two more albums. In 2000 the band became known as Dave Kerman/5uu's and released a further two albums under this name. After a long pause, an album, The Quiet In Their Bones was released in 2022.
David Kerman, better known as Dave Kerman, is an American experimental rock drummer and composer, best known as the founder and member of the Los Angeles avant-rock group 5uu's. He is also a member of the Belgian progressive rock band Present and the Israeli avant-rock band Ahvak. Kerman has been a member of the United States bands U Totem and Thinking Plague, and the Dutch band Blast. He has collaborated with several musicians, including Bob Drake, Chris Cutler and Fred Frith.
The Muffins were an American Maryland-based progressive rock/avant-jazz group. They were formed in Washington, DC in the early 1970s and recorded four albums before disbanding in 1981. In 1998 the group reformed and recorded a further five albums and a DVD. The Muffins played at Symphony Space on Broadway in NYC with Marion Brown in 1979, and also performed at a number of festivals, starting with the ZU Manifestival in New York City in 1978, The Villa Celimontana festival in Rome, Italy in 2000, two appearances at Progday in 2001 and 2002, NEARfest in 2005, and the "Rock in Opposition" festival in France in 2009. In 2010, the Muffins headlined at Progday, making a third appearance at this long running festival.
miRthkon was an American avant-rock group based in Oakland, California founded by guitarist/vocalist/composer Wally Scharold. In addition to several album releases, they have also had a song featured in the video game Tap Tap Revenge. Their song "QXP-13 Space Modulator" was recreated in Guitar Hero Van Halen using the in-game song editor, GHTracks.
Janet Feder is a Denver, Colorado–based composer and guitarist. She is a classically trained guitar player best known for her work in the prepared guitar genre. In addition, Janet Feder is: a lecturer at the University of Colorado; co-curator of MediaLive, an annual festival in Boulder, Colorado; and an Artistic Associate of Square Product Theatre.
Avant-prog is a music genre that appeared in the late 1970s as the extension of two separate progressive rock subgenres: Rock in Opposition (RIO) and the Canterbury scene.
Romantic Warriors II: A Progressive Music Saga About Rock in Opposition is a 2012 feature-length documentary film about the Rock in Opposition movement of the late 1970s, the music genre it spawned, and the influence it has on experimental groups across the world. The film was written and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder, and was released in the United States by Zeitgeist Media. It premiered in Washington, D.C., on September 28, 2012. The film was generally well received by critics, with a reviewer at AllMusic saying that it "covers all the points an aficionado could possibly want".
Hamster Theatre is an American avant-rock, experimental and folk jazz music group based in Boulder, Colorado. It is led by composer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Willey. The band has released three albums and has performed at various festivals, including Progman Cometh and ProgDay.
Dave Willey is an American experimental musician and composer, best known as the co-founder and member of the Boulder, Colorado-based avant-rock group Hamster Theatre. He is also a member of Thinking Plague and 3 Mice. He has released two solo albums and has performed with Hamster Theatre and Thinking Plague in the United States and Europe.
The Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow is a seventeen-CD plus one-DVD box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow; it was released by RēR Megacorp in November 2019. The box set comprises the previously released 2006 Henry Cow Box and the 2009 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set, totalling over sixteen hours. A bonus CD: Ex Box – Collected Fragments 1971–1978 was given to advance subscribers of the 2019 Box Redux, and contains newly recovered and previously unreleased recordings, plus the contents of the 2006 box set bonus CD-single: "Unreleased Orckestra Extract". The 2019 Box Redux plus the Ex Box bonus CD contains all the officially released studio and live recordings of Henry Cow, excluding "Bellycan" as released on the 1991 East Side Digital version of Legend, and the complete version of "The Glove" from the 1991 East Side Digital version of Unrest.
Rascal Reporters is an American avant-garde progressive rock band founded in 1974 by multi-instrumentalists Steve Kretzmer and Steve Gore. Based in Oak Park, Michigan, the band consisted of the duo of Steve Gore and Steve Kretzmer from its founding until Gore's death in 2009. They released seven studio albums between 1980 and 2008, and in 2017 were reformed by Steve Kretzmer with new member James Strain.
