By Brandon Bussolini
When the Guardian checked in with Operation: Restore Maximum Freedom two years ago, the quasi-annual, daylong music festival, organized by UC Davis student-run radio station KDVS, was in its fourth incarnation and ready to present one of the most ambitious lineups of its short existence.
Seventeen bands, ranging from Kid 606 to Michael Hurley, were slated to play, but just as 606 and hip-hop crew Third Sight were setting up – the bands with the biggest guarantees – Yolo County’s finest shut the proceedings down. “Some nearby residents complained about the noise level to the police,” writes Elisa Hough, co-organizer of this year’s O:RMF and a KDVS DJ, in an e-mail. “Everyone – even people who weren’t involved in the organizing – looked and felt so defeated.”
Plainfield Station, a Woodland country bar that has hosted O:RMF since its inception, is an unlikely place for this to happen: plunked down amid flat, tawny farmland, the nearest house is probably at least a mile away. But regardless of the small irony that crops up between its name and that incident, O:RMF is a provocative title in more ways than one. According to Rick Ele, a longtime KDVS DJ and veteran booking agent in Sacramento’s underground music scene, the name comes from a brainstorming session with former KDVS Events Manager Brendan Boyle and former DJ Joe Finkel.