"On
the formation of Iranian rock music"
Nassir Mashkouri
2006
www.zirzamin.se
"You
can intellectualise about a lot of rock and roll music but it's primarily not
an intellectual thing. It's music that's all."
Rolling
Stone magazine founder-editor Jann Wenner
I
personally believe in intellectualising on this little alternative scene of
ours, just making sure we do understand it, in order to understand ourselves.
We need to move on and create a discussion around this topic and get to know
its conditions, create an identity around it that can give our musicians a
solid ground to stand on and enjoy the journey of rock & roll.
This could
be the first time in our popular music history that we intend to review and inquire
into those gifts that the modern "western" culture has brought to us
and to our culture. One of these gifts is "Rock Music".
Let's say
that we know what rock music is, which I am still not exactly sure!
To be
honest, I don't believe in its revival in
Kourosh Yaghmaei, with all the respect that I have for him as one
of our greatest pop music icons, wasn't much of a rock musician apart from his
long hair and his electric guitar gesture. To me, Farhad
was more of a rebellion but even he was only an intellectual pop music project.
And if there have been any Iranian rock bands, then I am sorry, I haven't heard
of any. So, what is it that has revived?
I still
remember that Beatles, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and many more
international rock stars have always been around in my teenage years and some
how I can say that I have grown up with them.
I guess,
through modernization of
But today
is a new day and we are standing on a different ground with a new understanding
of our time. Today we know (Hopefully!) that we must find our selves, and our
roots. We must learn the fact that, for being a modern musician, we need to be
a modern human first.
Being
modern means knowing your cultural identity and understanding your existing
situation, and most importantly, believing in your self as an individual and to
be able to develop your existing situation and sometimes if necessary revolt
against it and create a new order. This is what modern art,
and music are all about. Modernity is a way of living. It is a culture not a
fashion or style.
We are at
the very beginning of understanding ourselves as a nation and as a group of
humans with a common cultural identity, which indeed is a collection of
different cultures in one, in this geographic area that we call
For
understanding the state of our Iranian rock music, we need a more organized
method that can help us understand the origin of rock music. The following
outline presents by Mr "Paul Friendlander",
an American musician and music professor in University of the Pacific, that provides a brief description of the rock
categories and intends to point out some major elements of rock music.
1- Music
2- Lyrics
3- Artists
History
4- Social
Context
5- Stance
Music:
Ensemble, Rhythmic Emphasis, Vocal Style, Instrumental Solo, and Harmonic
Structure.
Maybe the
distinctive feature of rock music is about it's
external sound but it is the combination of sound and the context that makes a
good rock song. The context can be presented through, words, behaviour, and
image of the artist.
My belief
is; rock music is not only about guitar riffs or some disturbed guitar sound.
It is about attitude and expressing out the fears, anger, frustration, and all
kind of emotions that are hiding in side of us. It is that rebellious attitude
that makes a song, rock song. Remember there are a lot of Iranian Pop musicians
that do use electronic guitar sound in their songs and that don't make them
rock musicians either.
Lyrics: The
songs major themes, the story, and Suggested topical classification: Romantic love,
sex, alienation, justice, and introspection.
One of the
most important tools to create rock song is to use informal words (Music text)
and subjects that stand for musicians free and rebellion mind. This happens
only if we believe in the worldview of the rock music and it's
revolutionary substance.
To me, one
of the Iranian rock bands that really succeeded to create real Persian rock
music is "Sarakhs" and their astonishing track "Mordab".
Mordab is the perfect mixture of creativity, originality, with true modern hard
rock sound that transfers the intensive aggression of the band to the audience
and most importantly the element that my whole discussion is based on, the
Persian lyric, and Mordab in this case has everything a rock track needs. It
has an informal lyric, simple and direct music text without any complicated
construction that needs a whole day to understand the concept of the song, but
at the same time very symbolic message hiding in the context. It is angry, dark
to the edge of suicidal, and melancholic, which is a perfect combination for a
rock lyric. We shouldn't forget the attitude and the way the singer delivers
the song, which was done by a fantastic young Iranian rock poet and rock singer
Behzad Khiavchi. He is the
main point of the whole process.
The bands
and musicians like Behrang Alavi,
NABZ and Kiosk are some other proofs in writing
interesting alternative/rock lyrics with simple informal music text. And in our
more avant-garde/ experimental music scene, Mohsen Namjoo is definitely one of
the most significant post-modern lyricists and musicians in
There is
also a modern alternative/ pop band named Abjeez that
is experimenting on new music-text writing style with culturally and socially
aware subjects, that is able to reach out to the wider
mainstream audience. All of these bands and musicians that I mentioned here
have reached this level of signification, not because of the originality in
their sound, but for their innovative and up to date Persian lyrics.
Artists
History: psychological, social, and economic conditions during youth, Musical
history.
Of course
looking into the life history of our rock musicians, psychologically, socially,
and economically, will give us a clue about why do we have so many fantastic
rock musicians but not any rebellion rocker!.
As much as
I know, socially and economically our rock musicians are mostly from the middle
class, up to upper classes in our society, so there won't be any "Bruce
Springsteen" or "Sex pistols" out of them any way!
Psychologically,
to be a rocker you need an instrument, a stage and some people who are there to
get connected to you, listening, head banging, screaming out of excitement and
adoring you. It is like a marriage. It is like making love with both parts
satisfaction. But our poor rock musicians sitting in their home, playing,
exercising and experimenting on rock music's broad possibilities and if they
get a chance they may be able to release an underground album, which gets
almost no where, that's all. These musicians are all created by the limitations
of a depressing cultural atmosphere and oppression of the political environment
in
Instead,
they have become some experienced musicians and professional producers, which
is great. I think we should be glad and feel lucky for that. They may never
become rock stars but they have definitely become the roots for the Iranian
rock music and a solid ground for the next generation of Iranian rockers to
rock on.
Social
Context: Youth culture and its relationship to society, Cultural and political
movements, including the struggle for civil and human rights for minorities,
peace and antiwar movement, and establishment of counterculture alternatives,
and the music industry and its current point of development.
One cannot
deny that if there weren't any rock culture in
When there
is no freedom, there will be no stage, no public and there will be definitely
no music industry. So, what is left?! Your studio and a Hafez book!.
Stance:
Elements of the artist's live performances and public action or behaviour.
It is very
important that the artist performs in live gigs, to exercise its
competent and meat, in public directly, in action not only to promote
commercially, but also create a relationship with the public through the music
and its intellectual and emotional mind of the musician.
For that an
image is needed too. There is a visual factor in what we call rock music, which
is a proper image that can represent the musician as a rebel against
establishment, and her social and cultural boundaries. It can be theatrical
images like "Kiss" or a down-to-earth image like "Neil
Young". It is all about visualizing the music to create a musical identity
and vision. Some times when the image and sound are matching perfectly together
then it gives birth to an icon.
Beside the
fact that this imagery element of rock music needs "freedom", it also
needs a culture that understands and respects the individual. And I find it
very hard in our culture!
The
pioneers of Persian rock music:
In the late
1990 Iranian rock music visionaries, Barad, O-Hum and
Meera to name a few, transformed elements of rock
music, and Persian music into the style known as Iranian fusion rock. This
fusion is the basis for the Iranian rock's first era; alternative/ fusion rock
or I would call it "World rock music". The worldview of these
pioneers is exactly as it's predecessor in Iranian
traditional music, Poetic and complicated, intellectual and artistic. In
essence, they provide their predominantly intellectual middle-class audience
with a vent for it's poetic, form of cultural
excitement, and a sense of national identity, while it pursues socially
prescribed goal.
How ever,
all of this comes back to one thing, finding our selves and our identity and to
build a hard solid ground for the future generations. This is what bands like Barad, O-hum and Meera are trying
to prove, connecting our past to the present time through reminding our
cultural roots and recreating it with a new modern look. These bands and many
other musicians have become our links to the modern culture, which makes their
effort on formation of our Iranian rock music very important. One thing is for
sure; when the time comes, these guys will be the roots of our Iranian rock
music. It is only then we will understand, being a musician in that calibre, in
such a difficult time with all the political and social oppression, had made
them rebels of our Iranian rock music.
Lets
realize that our musical culture and traditions are reforming from the music of
cultural resistance to the new formations towards the music of the free and
contemporary expression.
It is just
a beginning.
استفاده از
این اثر با
ذکر منبع بلامانع
است.
تمام
حقوق این سایت
متعلق به نویسنده
است.