Events Music: Babak Khiavchi concerts Kiosk Mehregan
by Pars Arts
leave a comment
Kiosk: review coming soon
I’m writing a review of the show for another site and will link it here when it’s up… unfortunately, their sound check meant I could only squeeze in an interview with Babak Khiavchi before I had to run off to Mehregan down the street (more on that soon, too)… so Babak Khiavchi is now my favorite Kiosk member. More soon!
Kiosk: Afsoos and Ardeshir Farah dancing…
I’m sort of intimidated by Ardeshir Farah (weell, all these guys but him most of all…) but he’s a little more accessible after seeing him dance along to continued of “Afsoos” – this time with a female backing vocalist, not the same one as their last shows as far as I can tell, but she sounds good.
Kiosk: Interview with Babak Khiavchi, Guitar
So how long have you been with the band?
Seventeen years, since the beginning.
Wow, you don’t look that old.
I’m eighteen years old.
So you’re all child prodigies. Why is the band’s name Kiosk?
This goes back to 17 years ago… we would get together and experiment with different musical ideas. Because of the restrictions in Iran, we couldn’t rehearse anywhere, like in a proper rehearsal space. So we would clean out basements and storage spaces of our friends – just clear out the dead cats and clean up the place and we’d line the walls with egg cartons to make it sound proof. And we’d call them our “kiosks.”
What’s the weirdest kiosk you’ve practiced in?
They weren’t really all that weird. Most of our friends had storage spaces that we’d clean out and use. One was on Sohrevardi Street and that was the one where things really started happening. It became a hangout for lots of musicians in Iran… there were forty to fifty people that started recording. Everyone had day jobs and we just got together and got drunk and we’d just record our ideas and have fun., and we’d dream of performing on a stage like this.
How has the dynamic changed now that you’re all spread out everywhere?
Email and mp3 and the Internet decreases the distance between us. Everytime we get together for a concert we do a few hours of rehearsal and then we just play together.
What about distance affecting the process of writing music?
It hasn’t been an obstacle so far. Everyone contributes their ideas. Arash is the main lyricist, and he records the demos. Then we all give him input and go into the study and record bits and pieces – drums and keyboard and everything in parts. Through the internet, we’ve managed to overcome a lot of obstacles.
As far as writing the music, the lyrics always come first? Do you ever fight about lyrics?
We don’t fight about anything. It’s all a creative process and fun.
Do you all have day jobs?
We all have day jobs and do this on the side, for love.
Have you thought about recording in English?
[Babak asks Arash Sobhani, Kiosk's lead]
Arash – We might, someday…
Babak – Never say never. But we still have a lot to say in Persian.
How has the music changed now that you have many fewer musicians contributing and collaborating?
We hope the same vibe and atmosphere continues the way the original kiosks did… it’s still the same energy level that we had all those years ago.
Kiosk: Another one bites the dust…
Kiosk improv means the bass line from Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” with Iranian-style keyboard and guitar flourishes… and it works!
Kiosk: Sound Check!
After months of hearing about Kiosk’s music and live shows and watching their videos, I’m an audience of one at their sound check, on the day of their Orange County show at the Galaxy Concert Theatre. It’s just before 2 pm now; they’ll be joined by Ardeshir Farah (guitarist of Strunz and Farah fame) and this place will be packed by 8.
This venue is in the middle of an ugly, flat, boring industrial area (welcome to Orange County) and looks like nothing from the outside. But I was told by the guy at the door that it was actually built in the 1950s and the inside looks a bit like a cross between a dungeon and a circus tent. It’s a proper theatre with tiered seating, but booths and tables instead of rows of seats… and the best part is that it smells of old gin and the vinyl on the chairs is cracked. I’m pleasantly reminded of New York.
They’re in full swing now, playing “Afsoos”… the guitars sound really good but I can barely hear the lyrics. Which means this is going to be a proper rock show.
Interviews with Young Iranians: Porochista Khakpour, Novelist
Porochista Khakpour’s Sons and Other Flammable Objects is the first great Iranian-American novel, breathless and overwhelmingly good. Its protagonist, Xerxes Adam, Iranian immigrant and son of Iranian immigrants Darius and Lala (nee Laleh) – whose relationship with his father is broken, who is lost in his vague notions of homeland – awkwardly and uncomfortably grows up in Los Angeles and flees father, mother, culture, all those vague notions of homeland, for college in New York and doesn’t look back, living from temp job to temp job, subsisting on Fruity Pebbles, alone in a crappy apartment in Lower Manhattan. After hearing a particularly harrowing story from his father, business as usual means total estrangement. Then the Twin Towers fall, and Xerxes’ already tenuous notions of self begin to crumble, too.
Maybe it’s because Khakpour is so young (she’s 29) and has lived some of this (though it’s no autobiography nor, thank God, another damn memoir) that she really gets it, what it can feel like to grow up Iranian in America. We asked her some (very long, in retrospect) questions about her book and her writing, and here’s what she had to say. more »
Mehregan: The Persian Festival of Autumn (Well, At Least in the OC)
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never attended any annual Mehregan events. Everyone knew about the big one in Orange County, but there has never been much else for celebration-hungry Iranians to attend. Mehregan is upon us again, and it still doesn’t look like there’s much to celebrate outside of southern California.So what is Mehregan, anyway? Though most Iranians are familiar with Mehregan, unlike Norooz, it is not celebrated by all and is mainly regarded a Zoroastrian holiday. In recent years, though, more Iranians have begun to take an interest and the celebration is undergoing a revival among the community, regardless of faith.
According to Wikipedia, Mehregan is a more than 2,000-year old Zoroastrian festival celebrated in honor of Mitra, the divinity of covenant, or the Goddess of Light. Some sources say it was a day of victory when angels helped Fereydoun and Kaveh become victorious over Zahak. Yet others say Mehregan is the day when the concept of Adam and Eve was created, and finally, it could be the day when the sun was created.
Whatever its mysterious origins are, the holiday has come to represent friendship and love. Among Zoroastrians and many other Iranians, Mehregan is celebrated today by gathering with friends and giving thanks to the harvest, handing out food to the poor, preparing and eating traditional dishes like ajil and aash, and ending the festivities with bonfires and fireworks.
And if you happen to live in Orange County, Mehregan means a huge two-day celebration on October 13 and 14 featuring folk dance groups, the ever-flourishing petri dish of Persian pop singers, a naghali performance, and traditional music ensembles. More than 20,000 people attend each year, and it has me wishing Iranians outside of southern California would organize something on a similar scale for the other community enclaves. Until then, I think I’ll begin observing a little Mehregan celebration of my own each year. Friendship and love – certainly those are concepts worthy of celebration, no?
(Editor’s note: Please leave a comment if you know of other upcoming Mehregan celebrations, and we’ll add it here!)
[Photo: ariaaboom.com]
Life and So Much More: The Films of Abbas Kiarostami
Film fans in Los Angeles: LACMA’s got a series called Life and So Much More: The Films of Abbas Kiarostami (scroll down on that page) running from October 12 – October 27. They’re playing a mix of features and shorts. Some of his features are pretty easy to see, via Netflix, but be sure to check out the rarer short films playing this Saturday night (if you’re not going to the Kiosk show in the OC also happening that evening).
Iranian Domestic Violence Panel, October 11 at Berkeley
This Thursday, October 11, the Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA) and the Leona Foundation are hosting a panel entitled Sexual Harassment and Domestic Violence in the Iranian Diaspora at UC Berkeley. One of the panelists is Don Laffoon of STOP-GAP, an organization which has reached out to the Iranian community before. Also see their Facebook event listing for a list of attendees.
Art & Photography Culture News & Media: Iranian wedding Photography Vice magazine
by Pars Arts
5 comments
Vice on an Iranian Wedding
Vice magazine has a freaky photo essay of an Iranian wedding, shot two years ago by sister-of-the-bride Sanna Sjöswärd. One of the photos is above. Sjöswärd was born in Iran, placed in an orphanage by her parents, and adopted by Swedes when she was four. She just came out with a book called “Roots” that is about going back to Iran to find her biological family. I haven’t seen it, but I want to.
Most people have seen photos of lavish Iranian weddings. Striking about this wedding album, though, is that the people are very poor and very religious. There’s a grotesque quality about the pictures – maybe it’s the garish makeup. The spellings of some of the names are a little off: “Sedighre,” “Mehti”?
If you’ve looked at Vice (not safe for work) before, you know their deal is seedy = hip. Their print issues are free (at least, they were when I read them in college) but it just gets a little exhausting after a while to look at, it’s so hipstery and disengaged. Still, an interesting representation of Iranian life here. What do you make of these photos?
