Rococo were a London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 based English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 band

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

, initially operating in the 1970s.

Career

Always leaning towards the alternative, underground rock scene, they also promoted their own gigs, appeared at the Windsor Free Festival and the anti-Establishment hippy community centre, The Warehouse in Twickenham, but also worked through the Chrysalis agency, which led them to support Ten Years After

Ten Years After

Ten Years After is an English blues-rock band, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, Ten Years After scored eight Top 40 albums on the UK Albums Chart...

 at London's Rainbow Theatre. Other bands they worked alongside in the 1970s included Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...

, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Shakin Stevens and the Sunsets, Climax Chicago Blues Band

Climax Blues Band

Climax Blues Band was formed in Stafford, England in 1968. The original members were guitarists Peter Haycock and Derek Holt; keyboardist Arthur Wood; bassist Richard Jones; drummer George Newsome; and vocalist and harmonica player, Colin Cooper.In 1970, the group shortened its name to the Climax...

, Curved Air

Curved Air

Curved Air are a pioneering British progressive rock group formed in 1970 by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds, including classic, folk, and electronic sound. The resulting sound of the band was a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and fusion with classical elements...

 and Genesis

Genesis (band)

Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...

Rococo built up a devoted following and featured Ian Raines (lead vocals), Roy Shipston (keyboards/vocals), Rod Halling (guitar/vocals), Clive Edwards

Clive Edwards

Clive Edwards is a drummer, who is best known as a former member of the British band, UFO ....

 (drums) and John "Rhino" Edwards on bass guitar. Disguised as The Brats, they inadvertently became involved in the vanguard of the punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 movement.

They appeared in the finals of a Melody Maker

Melody Maker

Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...

contest in 1974, using their pseudonym, and advertised in Melody Maker the prizewinners' final at The Round House as "The Brats plus 12 support acts". Consequently, the organisers deemed not to declare them winners, although they took most of the major prizes.

They released three singles: "Ultrastar" (b/w "Wildfire") on Deram Records

Deram Records

Deram Records was a subsidiary record label established in 1966 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom. At this time U.K. Decca was a completely different company than the Decca label in the United States, which was then owned by MCA Inc. Deram recordings were also distributed in the U.S. through...

 in 1973; "Follow That Car" (b/w "Lucinda (Flint n'Tinder Love)") through Mountain Records

Mountain Records

Mountain Records is a record label started in Cape Town, South Africa in 1980 by Patrick Lee-Thorp.The record label produces mostly South African music and is known as the home of Cape Jazz recordings, having issued a number of albums by such names as Basil Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Jonathan Butler,...

 in 1976; and "Home Town Girls" (b/w "Quicksilver Mail") under another pseudonym, Future, on a small independent record label

Independent record label

An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

 in 1981.

Recent

• Ian Raines - vocal, bass
• Roy Shipston - keyboards, vocals
• Clive Edwards
  Clive Edwards
  Clive Edwards is a drummer, who is best known as a former member of the British band, UFO ....
  
   - drums, percussion
• Rod Halling - guitar

Past

• John Edwards - bass
• Steve Carman - bass
• Gary Harvey
  Gary Harvey
  Gary Harvey is a Canadian television director and producer.-Awards:In 1996, Harvey won the CableACE award for International Dramatic Special or Movie, The War Between Us. The win was shared with William Wallace Gray, Walter Daroshin, and Valerie Gray...
  
  - bass

Singles

• "Ultrastar" / "Wildfire" (1973)
• "Follow That Car" / "Lucinda (Flint n'Tinder Love)" (1976)
• "Home Town Girls" / "Quicksilver Mail" (1981)