When will the old guard realize that they do not speak for us all, the kids are not only all right, we are over it. We are over your bloodlust, your age old vendettas, your contempt for cultures not your own. We are over it, and getting sick and tired of watching the old bastard greedheads play Risk at the risk of destroying the youth global understanding that came with the infotech age.
See, we have chatted with our peers in Bombay, Berlin, Beijing and Bogato. We have had virtual tea with our friends in Tak, Tel Aviv, Tippi, Tokyo and Tehran. We have discovered no matter what the ruling titans will try and have us believe, people are people no matter where they hang their hats.
We must not bomb Iran, for we must not bomb 127. The youth movement is afoot in Iran, and the worst thing we could do now is bomb them, validating the stance of the very people these kids struggle with. And they rock the hell out.
They're an Iranian Band! So neocons can joust, We're gonna bomb their house, they're an Iranian Band!
http://www.youtube.com/...
Founded in 2001 by a group of young Tehran artists and art students, 127 has found itself at the center of progressive cultural change in Iran. The band's music melds Iranian melodies and jazz with an alternative sound. The band's lyrics tell of the frustrations and joys of life, somehow managing to speak of their cultural time and place, while simultaneous reflecting universal frustrations of isolation, frustration, and hope.
127 is a 5 piece band - guitar, piano, trombone, bass and drums. The group has become a lighning rod for international media attention. Through humerous articles and broadcasts in the western media, the group's website receives thousands of hits a month from a growing international listeners. The band has been invited to perform at 2005 SXSW festival in Austin..Texas but somehow they had to miss that opportunity! In october 2005 performing in New York, Washington and Cambridge; 127 was the first Iranian rock band to tour the United States. 127 has not released any records yet because of the country's situations the band is now seeking for the permission to release it's first record.
Listen for yourself:
Includes driving around Iran, which shockingly looks like the Midwest of America. And when was the last time you heard a trombone in a rock band?
The quiet before the storm, you can almost picture them reading American pre-bomb pamphlets we love to drop before we bring the death and destruction. This song always reminds me of the sequence in Pink Floyd's the Wall where the dove of peace turns into the hawk of war, only more tragically sad because it is real. A message to world from 127, the people in Iran are worried that the beasts of war at their gates.
The musicianship on this is one is incredible, just listen to that piano!
So this is what Persian rock sounds like, and I, for one, want more. It also goes to show musicians are musicians no matter where they play, something the youth realized long ago but we can't seem to get threw "The Man"'s head since it is so dense with hate for what they don't understand, instead of wonder.
Don't let this become prophecy. If we detain 127, we are detaining the Beatles of the Persian civilization. And if I remember correctly, the Beatles did great things for western civilization, especially in the area of social mores. So to bomb Iran is set back this youth awakening by generations. If not forever, all so the war pigs can make a few dollars more.
And then there is Kahtmayan, with some of the sickest guitar solos around:
They have since moved to California from Iran.
To follow the American dream.
We must not bomb Iran, we must resist the Old Guard until their influence is no more, and their legacy of hate and xenophobia is replaced with a new global understanding that its only the leaders of governments who have issues with each other, not the people.
The bands must play on, the rock must flow, the people will dance and rejoice, WE MUST NOT BOMB IRAN. Not when we are all so close, and being kept apart by so very, very few.
Godspeed 127.
http://www.127band.com/