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Music Education Research

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In a box: a narrative of a/n (under)grounded Iranian musician

Nasim Niknafs

To cite this article: Nasim Niknafs (2016) In a box: a narrative of a/n (under)grounded Iranian musician, Music Education Research, 18:4, 351-363, DOI: 10.1080/14613808.2016.1202222

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2016.1202222

Published online: 13 Jul 2016.

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In a box: a narrative of a/n (under)grounded Iranian musician Nasim Niknafs

Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

ABSTRACT Due to years of precarious sociopolitical circumstances before and after the 1979 revolution, Iranian youth developed an acute sense of music making and learning unique to their locales, representing their deep- rooted desire to make their own music, and to move away from the state’s heavy-handed intrusion into their act of music making, and years of continuous religious/national identity crisis. Through narrative inquiry, the current research examines the life stories of Raam, an underground rock musician, who started his musical career unofficially in Iran with the assistance of his peers and family members, but later left the country to pursue his musicianship officially and outside the imposed regulations. During these years, Raam, along with fellow Iranian musicians, created an underground music scene that followed the sentiments of anarchism, do-it-yourself, and the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ). This scene became one of Iran’s core music learning and teaching platforms where creativity, collaboration, and sense of camaraderie set the tone for the movement, striving for change and self-expression. Through Raam’s life stories, one can read the story of a generation of Iranian youths’ inevitable political music education; one in which local activism is of great significance, and hides small but steady acts of subversion.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 28 September 2015 Accepted 30 May 2016

KEYWORDS Narrative inquiry; music education in Iran; Iranian underground music; anarchism; local activism; exoticism

Introduction

It was early in the morning, on a crispy, sunny, and wintry Monday, 10 March 2014 when Raam arrived at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran from Toronto. He entered one of the airport’s restrooms to calm himself down. After all, it was the first time after eight years that he had returned to Iran, his homeland. Once out of the restroom and in the hallway again, he noticed a group of sol- diers silently circling him. Feeling like a prey, terrified and cornered, he started thinking that this would be the moment of arrest; very much like one of the many scenarios he had imagined from the moment he decided to return home: ‘Will I be handcuffed? Should I make a scene? Should I go down quietly?’ But unlike any of the scenarios he had entertained, those soldiers were there to take a photo with him and get his autograph. A 180-degree turn of events: his face regained its colour, his cold sweat dried up, his heart beat returned to normal, and his worried frown turned into a grin. He let loose and stood with the soldiers for his photo to be taken. He was a known musician in his hometown.

The story of Raam is one among many that portray the constant challenges and struggles of a generation of alternative rock musicians in Iran who were self-exiled to be able to make their music. But what makes Raam’s story unique is his conscious decision to return to Iran to continue his career in music. Why did he leave Iran in the first place? What convinced him to move back to Iran after eight years? What was the appeal of being a rock musician in Tehran that outweighed all

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Nasim Niknafs [email protected] Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park, Toronto, ON M5S 2C5, Canada

MUSIC EDUCATION RESEARCH, 2016 VOL. 18, NO. 4, 351–363 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2016.1202222

potential risks and dangers? To answer these questions, I first need to provide a context for music making and music education in post-revolution Iran when the face of music education and music making changed dramatically.

A brief sociohistorical context of music making from the 1979 revolution to present day

Semati (2008) offered four distinct historical periods after the 1979 revolution: (1) the war years from 1980 to 1988 Iran–Iraq war, the last conventional trench war in human history; (2) the reconstruc- tion era from 1988 to 1998, coinciding with the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; (3) the reform era from 1998 to 2005 with President Mohammad Khatami at its helm; and (4) the post-reform era from 2005 to 2012, with President Mahmood Ahmadinejad redefining and reviving conservatism in Iran (4). Another era could be added from 2013 to present day that began with the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, which can be titled as post-hardliners era or resurgence of another reform era. The cultural and artistic endeavours went through distinct waves during each of these historical periods. Nevertheless, music remained one of the few art forms that did not enjoy compre- hensive and consistent support from the authorities, and has never become a subject matter in public school curriculum to this day. Moreover, each musical style including Persian art and folk music, Persian Pop music, Western Classical music, and later rock, hip-hop, jazz, blues, and electronic music followed their own paths in the country, as each of these genres and styles of music and music making came to have different meanings to the authorities.

Immediately after the 1979 revolution, and following the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a great body of musicians were forced to go underground into unofficial spaces. Practically all forms of art, despite being Persian, were affected by this broad metamorphosis of society. Many aspects of people’s social lives were also forced to go underground.

Whether music is considered a sin or not is a contested issue in the Islamic discourse and is faced with different regulations in each Islamic society depending on its Islamic denomination, economic, historical, and sociopolitical context. However, how the rhetoric around music manifested itself in Iran after the revolution was particularly ambiguous. Deemed Westoxification or gharbzadegi, any kind of art form, and especially music reminiscent of the prerevolutionary era, was banned from public spaces during the war years. Nooshin (2005a) expertly examined the tension between the neo- phyte religious identity of Iran post-revolution as a means to move away from the prevailing Wes- tern-oriented image the Shah tried to achieve, and the deep-rooted national identity of the Iranian people predating ‘Islam by at least a thousand years and to which music and poetry are central’ (236). It needs to be noted, however, that this situation was restricted to music that was perceived illegiti- mate by the state authorities. In the beginning years following the revolution, recognising the power and pervasiveness of music, the only genre of music that was left to thrive was revolutionary anthems. Music continued to serve as an instrument of propaganda.1

During the construction era, Persian art and folk music gained some prominence, as they were considered one of the quintessential characteristics of the Iranian public and part of its embedded identity. Western Classical music, however, did not enjoy such freedom, as the authorities con- sidered it an instrument of Western colonialism. It took almost two decades until the reform era for Western Classical music to publicly flourish again, and for a few public universities to offer music as a major in performance or composition. During the reform era, the number of cultural centres offering private music lessons took off as well, and many more people gained overground access to music learning.

Overall, the legalities around music making in Iran remain ambiguous to this day. In 1998, when Mohammad Khatami, the first reformist president of Iran, opened the floodgates and allowed for a peaceful music-making scene, many musicians left their private spheres to go overground for the performance and dissemination of their music.2 Most of these musicians, who at the time consisted of mainly middleclass, educated and technologically savvy young males, started to create music that was neither Persian classical nor Western art music, the only two genres of music that were barely

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permitted up until the reform era. Their music was also far from the diasporic Persian Pop music that was predominantly created and distributed from Los Angeles, United States, and illegally smuggled across the borders. These were rock musicians who brought in an alternative scene that treasured some of the values cherished by their counterparts in other parts of the globe: ‘authenticity, transgression, and social and political liberation in ways that are very productive for both the musi- cians who make it and the various audiences who apprehend them’ (Hemmasi 2014, 2). Neverthe- less, the vague legalities around the practices and performances of these types of music in Iran remained intact, and made it difficult for these musicians to create, perform, and distribute their music legally. Publishing an album or holding a public performance required an official permit, issued by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Vezarate-e Ershad o Farhange Eslami); the application could be a long, arduous, and bureaucratic process that more often than not resulted in rejection.

Although, some cultural improvements were made during the reform era, it remained a struggle to navigate the legalities around making rock music. These musicians retreated to unofficial channels and unsanctioned local communities to create their music in private spaces including abandoned warehouses, embassies, art galleries, and private music institutions, through word of mouth and social media. When the hardliners seized power once again, after the reform era, the Kafkaesque ordeal in the ministry became even more absurd with the added risk of incarceration. Many rock musicians found themselves needing to either retreat to other channels and local conduits again or to go abroad to continue their musicianship.

At present, President Rouhani’s administration is providing a much-needed breathing room for musicians of all walks of life to be able to create and perform their music. Examples such as issuing more album permits, performance authorizations, and providing legal performance venues are a few that attest to easing of regulations to invite the previously underground musicians to go overground. Nonetheless, female singers are still prohibited to perform solo; music is still not an official subject at public schools; and showing of instruments on public TV are not permitted. Underground music that was solely created by and directed towards a young and middleclass audience is now embracing more musicians including female, and from poorer or richer regions in the country.

Methodological overview

Positioning Raam and myself in the current research: how it all began

Coinciding with the Khatami presidency, Raam, our protagonist, started doodling with a guitar that was in his parents’ basement, which is now called Studio73. Not having a teacher or any formal music education, Raam, similar to many other war-generation youth in Iran, developed a thirst for genres of music that were consciously distinct from the music of Iran’s tumultuous past. Rock, punk, and alternative music became an escape for Raam, who created a world devoid of the daily sociopolitical struggles that surrounded him and his generation while growing up.

By the end of the 1990s, during the reform era, I was also in the Iranian overground scene after years of taking private piano lessons; private not in the sense of what we might know as private les- sons but private as in secret and hidden away from the government’s prying eyes. I continued playing the piano and performing in private settings, until the undergraduate course in music performance was finally introduced in some Iranian universities. Passing the National University Entrance Exam (Konkoor) to enrol in the Art University, I studied piano performance or what was called in Iran, ‘Performance of World Instruments’.

Raam’s story is quite different from my own, but we experienced similar hardships and joys along the way, growing musically in our own ways. I had heard about Raam from a friend in 2001, when he was living in Canada, and I was finally introduced to him in Iran in his Studio73 in 2005. When I went there for the first time, I saw another underground music studio that was a vibrant hub for unofficial rock musicians and their unofficial fans.3 The space was an unused

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basement in the old northern part of Tehran, with two windows facing the house’s garden. There was a small kitchen and restroom, and a small bedroom. Raam, with the help of his bandmates, had haphazardly added another room inside the original flat with windows opening to the inside. This room was supposed to function as the recording room, with walls covered by egg cartons. At this time, I had the opportunity to observe their rehearsals and recording sessions, and spend time with them. I took part in their concerts, danced to their music, and was merrily enjoying a small victory, along with the rest of the musicians and their fans; we were breathing in the music that was pro- hibited, accompanied by a forceful adrenaline rush. Rock music was our exotic land. It was our escape.

Narrative inquiry in the context of the current research

It was in December 2013 that I met Raam again in his home in Toronto. I had just moved to Canada, and the only person I knew that I was comfortable with was Raam. He generously invited me to stay with him until I get foothold in my newly adopted hometown. During this time, we jammed and I co-sang one of his tracks. It was also during this month that together Raam and I decided to conduct a narrative research on his life stories to investigate how he makes sense of the turning points in his life based on the narrative strategies he uses (MacAdam and Bowman in Stauffer 2014, 168).

The narrative inquiry was significant for both of us. It was important to me to finally face my own musiopolitical past and understand how it has shaped me as a diasporic music educator. Basing her argument on Connelly and Clandinin, Stauffer (2009) addresses a kind of narrative inquiry that is relational. In this respect, ‘the researcher lives alongside the participants in a process that is deeply relational and re-focuses the inquiry disposition of the researcher’ (11). Moreover, as a researcher I wanted to become aware of what impact Raam’s stories have on the field of music education overall. Narrative inquiry was also important to Raam to reinterpret and re-negotiate the events that have happened to him in order to reconcile with his departure and his eventual return; a story at once prevalent among other Iranian rock musicians and polar opposite in that he was one of the few that returned home to continue his musicianship. According to Stauffer (2009),

Narrative inquiry in this account is more than the collecting and re-telling or re-presenting of stories; it requires the careful analysis of narrative data against a series of frames including those of the research participant, the researcher, and the larger cultural narratives in which these individuals are situated. (11)

It was based on this understanding that Raam and I set the ground for our conversations. ‘Narrative inquirers are engaged in “living” with and through stories in the research context, in order to work towards an understanding of the varying and complex meanings and interpretations all participants bring to their experiences’ (Stauffer 2009, 11).

For the purpose of the current research, I needed to record hours of interview data from Raam. When eventually we launched the interviews, Raam had already returned to Iran. Our interviews, therefore, were held online with nine hours and a half of time difference between the two cities of Tehran and Toronto. Eventually, there were nine online conversations adding up to fourteen hours of interview data. After reading and re-reading the data transcriptions, returning to compre- hensive artefacts of video footages, music albums, journalistic documentaries, and Raam’s social media including Facebook, Instagram, and his website, and attending one of his concerts in Toronto, preliminary codes and consequently major themes emerged. During the entire process of the research, especially data analysis and selection of the stories, I was in constant communication with Raam. Narrating these interpretations and turning points related to historical and cultural understanding of Raam and myself was an involved collaboration and decision-making. The results as emerged themes are discussed in a narrative form in what follows.

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Global image, local understanding, and stereotypes: fluid identities4

Raam and I left the country during the last years of the reform era, continued our own musical paths, and lost touch. I was, however, following the news of Raam and his band, Hypernova, that first appeared in The New York Times (Petersen 2007) and on MTV (Kaufman 2007) in 2007. These two featured stories were based on Hypernova’s first solo show outside of Iran in a dungeon-like dive bar called Fat baby, on the Lower East Side of New York City on a Monday night. This show later became the springboard for Hypernova’s musical career. It was the first time they played in New York: a dream come true where ‘all these bands that [they] adored were performing’.

In getting accepted to perform at the festival SXSW in Austin, Texas, Raam and his band mates were required to apply for a visa to go to the United States. But things did not turn out as they had imagined. Holding an Iranian passport was equal to facing gruelling and, at times, absurd paperwork to travel abroad. Hypernova was denied entrance to the United States the first time they applied. The embassy required them to provide a few recorded songs, press about their music, and their biogra- phies. Raam later mentioned, ‘But we’re like an underground band. We don’t have any press. The whole point is for us to not let the word out, so nobody finds out about us.’ Having been denied visas to go to the United States the first time, Hypernova decided to apply once more. This time they managed to find an officer related to a New York senator in the embassy who could pull a few strings.5 After obtaining visas, Raam narrated his experience as follows:

Even the deputy ambassador came down and took us out for lunch. He’s like ‘Well, what you guys are doing is of cultural importance. It’s really cool that a band from Iran is doing this kind of stuff.’And we were like, why all of a sudden change of heart? [… ] It was just really weird to sort of be in a position where they put so much importance on us. We just want to play Rock ‘n’ Roll. And to them that was just something else I guess.

This comment is at the heart of Raam’s life stories, as it reveals the contradictions with which he struggled the entire time he was making music inside and outside of Iran. Were they making great rock and alternative music irrespective of the cultural context, or were they simply famous for being Iranian rock musicians? Robertson (2012) mentioned the stereotypes the Iranian underground bands needed to play on their way to gaining a degree of international recognition. Yet, the audience of such music was not only non-Iranians. Iranians in diaspora, and Iranian youth in the country were also part of the potential audience of such music. That potential audience brought with it a plethora of domestic and international debates about the hegemony of rock music in such society, the legiti- macy of Iranian rock musicians, and above all, their music. According to Nooshin (2005a),

After so many years of austerity and relative isolation, this music has come to signify a kind of liberation, offer- ing music that is at once contemporary and rooted ‘at home’, and also provides a direct connection with the outside world. (248)

It was in this context that Raam and so many other Iranian rock musicians felt empowered to create a space for subversion and self-expression. At one end, these musicians simply wanted to create their own music, unimpeded by the authorities or years of religious–national identity indoctrination, and at the other end they had to play the Iranian rock musician card for their music to be heard by an international audience; a fine line to tread (Nooshin 2005b).

Raam and his band received visa approval but had to wait for their application to go through an ‘FBI check’. They were required to wait for their application number to appear on the embassy’s web- site. The SXSW show was on 14th March, a date that Raam clearly remembers, unlike all other sig- nificant dates in his life,6 because it was a date they were supposed to perform their show in one of the most important festivals for indie rock bands, a date they were not able to attend. Their appli- cation number did not appear on the website on time. They missed the show. But according to Raam, this was a significant turning point in his life:

And by the 19th or 20th, the visas finally came and the festival was over.… The exact same day that I saw the numbers on the website, I was checking my Gmail… and I was scrolling down my email list, I realized that there was one email that was black. And it was the deputy ambassador, and the email was from three weeks

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ago. He basically had written to me, “Hey, you know, Raam, I’m really sorry, but I was unable to pick up. I was really busy, but your visas are ready. Come and pick them up.” And I never saw that email! But this is the twist of faith. Actually not seeing that email was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. Because if we had gone to SXSW that year, there were a lot of good acts as well. I mean we probably would have just played one really shitty show and you know, couple of press outlets heard there’s a band from Iran coming. They wanted to write one paragraph about us. And if we had gone to SXSW, we probably would have just sucked so bad that we would have just packed our stuff and left and came back home after a couple of weeks. But instead, we end up going to New York instead of going to Texas to the festival.

It might have been Raam’s self-defence mechanism to read the unfortunate event and his mis- take in a positive light, which speaks to his and his comrades’ perseverance in the act of music making and moving forward, regardless of the obstacles that come their way. Raam knew their music was not exquisite or unique, and that they did not have superb musical skills. They were a neophyte garage band that happened to be Iranian. But what they did not share with many of their counterpart garage bands beyond the Iranian borders was the limited access they had to cre- ate and perform their music inside and outside of their home country. Their music was forbidden within Iranian borders due to what this music represented to the authorities. Crossing the border was also not an easy task, due to Iran’s ranking in the Visa Restriction Index (Henly and Partners 2015), ranking 86 of 92 countries, in addition to compulsory military service for Iranian young males before being able to obtain their passports. Therefore, their music was inherently marginal, putting them in a space of liminality (Nooshin 2005a). The only way to overcome these barriers was to metaphorically use the boxer’s footwork power transfer between the feet (be responsive to the international audience while having an eye for the home-grown audience), balance and pivoting (be aware of when to highlight the Persian elements or the broader cosmopolitan aspects of their music), and agility (navigate the convoluted regulations about the performance of their music in and outside the country). They developed these skills informally while trying to create and perform their music for the domestic and international audiences. Only by adopting a fluid identity were they able to capture these requirements. Raam unconsciously developed a self- defence mechanism through his fluid identity that could navigate through what the global audi- ence thought or wanted them to be as musicians, what the Iranian public both in Iran and diaspora understood and supported, and what he as an Iranian unofficial rock musician wanted to create. The interplay between these stereotypes, political international regulations on Iranians’ physical and virtual movements, and Raam’s own desires created a fluid identity to negotiate the labyr- inthine and involved texture of these conceptions.

Hazards of Exoticism

Raam and his band stayed in New York for over a month and extended their return ticket until the end of their visas. They then decided to go to LA. The LA story is where Raam hit rock bottom as a musician and deeply struggled with notions of identity, exoticism, his life path, and most impor- tantly, family. During our times together and hours of interview, Raam kept discussing the support of his family members,7 and missing them throughout his time outside of Iran; an element that had a huge impact on his decisions as an Iranian rock musician. He struggled to belong, and did not feel a sense of belonging anywhere except around his loved ones. This was not a situation unique to him; I experienced this situation myself, and heard of this sentiment from many Iranian rock musicians who were self-exiled. Their family ties are their main support system and when they are deprived of it, they seem to implode into themselves. It was also in LA that Raam partied with various Holly- wood celebrities and met an Iranian Silicon Valley entrepreneur who let him stay at his mansion for an entire year, and financed their first album. During the same year, Raam started using hard drugs, gambling, and became severely depressed. He and his band were still making music but he stated that none of those songs were of value or any significance. The band started having problems with one another musically as well as personally, and as Raam mentioned they ‘became more and more

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arrogant, in a way that fame got into us’. They stayed in LA until he ‘overstayed his welcome’. They moved back to New York.

Going back to New York, they decided to start anew and managed to go on tour with the band, Sisters of Mercy, and became their opening act. Later, they managed to have a solo tour around the United States and Canada. But three events during this time shaped Raam’s future decision-making.

Following the 2009 disputed presidential elections in Iran, street demonstrations and political unrest erupted in major cities across the country. Raam, along with other diasporic Iranian musi- cians, created a song called, Freedom Glory Project (Hamed 2009), which became one of the songs of the movement. It was the first time Raam’s music took an explicit turn towards contempor- ary Iranian politics, which in turn, increased his popularity among Iranians.

The other event that added to Raam’s popularity was his song ‘Shekarchi’ or The Hunter (2011). A love song originally, it was used the first time as the soundtrack of Parazit (2011), an Iranian pol- itical satire commentary created in Washington, DC, by two Iranian expatriates. The song was played as background music with voiceover and images of two protestors who were shot dead in the 2009 post-election turmoil. The song did not have any political undertone (though it could be read as such); it was an intimate love song between Raam and his beloved. But the circumstances turned it into a politically charged song that became an instant hit. Here are the last verses of the lyrics,

Hey hunter, I’ve got stuck in your trap I’m slaved like a prey, I want to die Hey hunter, you are stuck in my trap What a delicious prey! What a sweet hunt!8

But the most important incident that influenced Raam above all was around the time that Yellow Dogs, another underground band, also germinated in Studio73, managed to come to New York. Raam became more upbeat, recreating a sense of belonging by gathering his fellow Iranian musicians around himself. He stated, ‘In order to fill that void… if I can’t go to Tehran, I’ll bring Tehran to me.’ Little did he know that some of the band members in Yellow Dogs, and his musical guru Ali Eskan- darian, would later be shot dead by another fellow bandmate in their apartment in Brooklyn, akin to other horror stories in the U.S. news where the killer announced his intentions on social media prior to the event, posted images of the weapon online, went on a killing spree, and shot himself in the final act of this tragedy (Yee and Goodman 2013).9 This episode took a great toll on Raam. It caused his inner struggles to resurface. What was more sensible: Leaving his hometown to be able to make his music officially but without any social significance and relevance, or staying within the borders and continue his music illegally, but adding to the collective memory of his own culture and society? As Robertson remarked, ‘rock music is a global genre that gains its significance as it is lived out in the local context’ (2013, 245).

During our interviews, Raam was adamant that his band’s music was mediocre, using such state- ments as ‘We sucked’, ‘We are not that great’, and ‘Honestly, the music was horrible…we were lucky that people would even come and see us when we had those shows.’ Yet, they became very well known. Raam described his inner struggles about their music and their role as Iranian rock musicians,

All of a sudden we started getting all this press from every single major network.… I’m not an idiot. I realize that it’s a very… orientalistic sort of approach of, ‘oh, look at these exotic animals in a cage from the Middle East. They know how to play guitar.’ There was that sort of idea and I think that really got to me after a while. I really got sick and tired of having to keep talking about Iranian underground, this and that. I wanted to talk about my music. If it sucks, tell me it sucks.

Raam later left New York for Toronto to pursue his solo projects. I went to one of his concerts in Toronto right before he left for Tehran. His music was much improved, and he was more mature on

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the stage, but the adrenaline rush we all used to experience while being in those concerts back in Tehran was missing. His concert was reduced to ‘yet another rock show’ within the Iranian diaspora overground, where most people attended to see and be seen, rather than experience the dangers and solidarity these events usually entailed. It was then that he, on the spur of the moment, decided to leave his life in Toronto and abroad, for that matter, and risk returning to Iran.

Anarchism, art collectives, and local activism: Raam’s political music education

Raam was born in the coastal city of Bushehr, a city in the south of Iran near the Persian Gulf that both geopolitically and in terms of human casualties had a major role in the Iran–Iraq war. After a few months, the entire family moved to Eugene, Oregon, for his father to acquire his doctoral degree.10 When I asked him about his experiences in Eugene, he mentioned the diversity in his circle of friends: ‘We were all just kids who were part of one community who would get along.…Growing up in that environment really shaped my perception toward the world about how to treat other human beings and interact with them.’

The concept of community, working together, and having direct local human interactions were not, however, unique to Raam’s situation, growing up in Oregon. What Raam might not have realised or told in his stories is that he, with the help of his band members and assistance of the larger community of Iranian rock musicians, was creating a music scene that inherently shared sentiments similar to anarchism. Note that following Suissa (2006), I am not stating that Raam was creating an anarchic scene or that he was an anarchist, avoiding the misconceptions that these two terms might entail. The music scene in which Raam was involved was not chaotic. Rather it was local, decentra- lised, and improvisatory, similar to the do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos.11

Anarchism, first and foremost, is a political theory rather than a philosophical idea, and hence is complex, as it overlaps with many other schools of thought. But as Chomsky remarked, anarchism is a ‘logical development out of classical liberalism’ (in Suissa 2006, 19). Raam and his fellow musicians did not create any piece of music that was necessarily political; rather, the act of music making in itself was subversive, and by nature political. By creating their own locality, Studio73, Raam and other rock musicians were disrupting the status quo, taking charge of their own learning, and shap- ing their own music collective. They subverted the power hierarchy and worked locally ‘on the basis of reciprocal voluntary agreement between individuals’ (Suissa 2006, 11). Considering it a complex task, Suissa (2006) finds a few common elements in the definition of anarchism:

(1) All anarchists share a principled rejection of the state and its institutions; and in doing so they: (2) Do not reject the notion of social organisation or order per se; (3) Do not necessarily regard freedom – specifically, individual freedom – as the primary value and

the major goal of social change, and; (4) Do not propose any ‘blueprint’ for the future society. (14)

The music scene in Iran is a grassroots movement. The top-down policy-making scenario cannot operate in the Iranian situation. What can work, however, is gradual minute changes, and local acti- vism. To overcome the unpredictability and ambiguous legalities around creating their music, anar- chism seems the most logical path. Music education, in this context that I call the music scene12

instead, overlaps with other forms of musicianship, becomes politicised, an instrument of resilience, and a ‘crucial site of expressing dissent’ (Hemmasi 2014, 3). Rather than waiting for the authorities or policy-makers to make the call through centralised and standardised improvements, these musicians took control over their own learning and musicianship. Suissa (2006) put it perfectly: ‘we are accus- tomed to the occasional philosophical arguments for states without schools. Yet how often do we pause to consider the possibility of schools without states?’ (6).

Raam learned music on his own by trying to emulate his favourite songs on his guitar, and through the assistance of his friends. It was because of his knowledge of English that he was first

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encouraged to join a duo, to be the lead vocalist and guitar player in the band; at the time, he did not have any singing techniques or knowledge about how to play the guitar. He states,

We would get together and talk about different kinds of music that we listened to and what we loved.… It was really fun. It was just really crazy, you know, acting, overacting, basically. Like rock stars, even though none of us really knew how to play anything really well.

Raam and his bandmates were their own agents by finding venues and advertising for their shows through word of mouth and social media. They turned their house basement into Studio73 and learned how to record and master their songs through trial and error, watching numerous online videos and gaining assistance from their fellow musicians. It was through their fellow musicians that they mastered their instruments.

They continued this kind of musicianship when they left the country as well. As they did not have a secured budget, they became creative with their resources. Raam mentioned that he did not know what the backline was, or even how to rent an instrument. He mentioned watching many documen- taries on copyright laws, recording techniques, and publishing strategies, working to understand the industry and refine his craft, though he stated that he was constantly confused. When I asked him about the process of creating his songs, he seemed to follow an informal music-learning framework (Green 2002, 2008),

I think most artists really start by covering other songs. And that’s what I did. I just picked up the guitar. And I think one of the things that really had helped me through in my own song writing is because I never learned how to play notes. I just taught myself how to play by ear. I just thought of playing different chords and arpeg- gios and melodies and harmonies. So, what just sounded interesting to my own ear basically. And I just kept putting these together like a piece of a puzzle until a picture was made clear for me. Sometimes that picture was really nice. Sometimes it was ugly. I never knew what the outcome would be.

Raam’s ideas on the creative process also follows Sawyer’s framework on creativity (2012). He believes in a sociocultural, or further, interdisciplinary approach to creativity. As he stated, ‘My own philosophy is that I should never stop creating.… It’s bullshit that you have to suffer for your art. I feel that I write my music best when I’m in this space of clarity.’

Raam and his fellow musicians learned their music informally and had many fulfilling moments when doing so. They were also intrinsically motivated and creative through their hard work (Deci and Ryan 1985; Csikszentmihalyi 1990). These are all components of a well-rounded music edu- cation, but without having any figure of authority. They, rather, provided education for themselves. They were self-sufficient, similar to an anarchic local commune and to Hakim Bey’s idea of a Tem- porary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)13: ‘a guerrilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself, to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it’ (1991, 101, emphasis in original).

I am not suggesting that anarchism in music education in Iran is a model for replication. Rather, it is the only viable alternative in these circumstances. And it is for this reason that a liberal democratic music education cannot operate in this situation, as in such a tradition, one accepts the central insti- tution and the state (Suissa 2006). Suissa remarked:

Many of the central ideas of liberal education have become so common as to be almost axiomatic within the field of educational theory and practice. Indeed, liberalism as a political theory has… achieved such ascen- dancy, at least in the West.… It is certainly the case that the central values of liberal theory underlie much con- temporary philosophical discourse on the role, aims, and nature of education, and most participants in this discourse take it for granted that the education under consideration is education in – and controlled by – a liberal state. (19)

Raam and the narrative inquiry

Raam is bilingual because of his early years living in Eugene. He writes music solely in English, as he deems himself not in a position to write in Persian. He uses poems by other contemporary poets

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when singing in Persian.14 When we were organising the interview sessions, we agreed to conduct the interviews in English. Nevertheless, I am aware of the lost moments of the events, and the stor- ies told when speaking in a foreign language. These struggles might reveal and relate to a deeper discourse around the narrative inquiry (Kohler Riessman 2008), and Raam’s thoughts on to whom the story or music is told. Who is the audience listening to his music or reading this research? Will the story and music be different if the audience is from within or outside the motherland? These were the questions that I, as the storyteller of the storied person, had in mind when reinterpreting Raam’s stories.

I believe Raam’s actions, related to his localities, had an impact on how he told his life stories to me, or how he made his music. Raam was not a stranger to being interviewed. He has been the focus of myriad documentaries and news media stories. Nevertheless, it took him a while to feel at ease with the motives behind our interviews. In the beginning hours of the interviews, Raam’s responses to my questions had journalistic agendas; publicity, for that matter. Gradually, he found comfort in sharing his life stories: he became humble; he questioned some of his actions. He started to form a perspective of his life. After all, I was not interested in his stories as an exotic animal but as a partner in crime.

When I asked him what he deemed as ‘making it’ as a musician, he told me that he would have liked his songs to be considered classic. He wanted to make music that would become as significant as influential Iranian pop musicians such as Ebi, Googoosh, or Farhad. He wanted his music to be ‘remembered’ and to have a ‘lasting imprint on his culture’. Thus, his decision was to return to the country where it all started.

He arrived securely without any controversy, and went back to his Studio73 and the warmth of his family and loved ones. He found another band and started to create music with the younger gener- ation of rock musicians. Ever since his return, he has travelled to the Brazil World Cup to be at the forefront of a semi-documentary Iranian film about Iranian rock musicians, performed legally as part of a charity event overground in Azadi Square (Tehran’s most iconic monument), and in the Ministry of Energy’s Hall. He has also gone on tour around the United States and some European countries once again.

Things have changed. Iran has a more moderate president. The authorities have come to an inter- national agreement on nuclear issues, which in turn will have a major impact on the social lives of Iranians. As Raam mentioned, the authorities have begun to take a more capitalistic approach towards music nowadays. Finding it lucrative, the authorities have opened some breathing room for unofficial rock musicians to perform overground, though with some restraints. Raam is now under contract by an Iranian philanthropist to create another album, and is in the process of acquir- ing his first album permit from the authorities. His goal is to perform music in Mild-e-Noor, Teh- ran’s main radio tower. He told me about his current situation in Iran:

I see myself growing as an artist because all I do from morning ’til night is just…write, write, play, rehearse, record, film, edit, this, that, mix, master. You know, it’s just like constantly just engulfed in this world. I’m taking advantage of it as much as I can. I’m working so hard nonstop because you never know. This country’s unpredictable. Some shit might go down and it all may come apart, as good as it is right now.

Going back to the title of this research, Raam, among many other Iranian rock musicians, wanted to create music, but was grounded, or better said, metaphorically and at times literally under- grounded.15 He did not take this situation at face value, however, and became creative in finding home-grown ways through art collectives to circumvent unpleasant events, echoing Nooshin (2005a):

At the same time, the lack of clarity created crevices – opportunities for resistance – particularly since many of the laws were effectively unforeseeable in the private domain. And it was in the private domain that Iranians, very adept at resistance after centuries of one form of oppression or another, had the greatest opportunity for subversion. (242)

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Now Raam is telling his story through one of his songs, In a Box:

In a box, in a box How I wish, I could think Outside of this box Now I know, now I know Just how this story goes It’s a twisted little tale That I’d rather not know And I’m standing on the edge, my friend I’m standing on the edge of it all

Concluding remarks

During his journey to becoming and continuing to be a musician, Raam struggled with notions of identity, representation of his music in the Iranian society and diaspora, and the stereotypical image the international audience assigned him to be. His music, regardless of the quality, was exo- ticised by the Western audience, was harshly criticised by the local authorities, and received ambig- uous feedback from musicians in the field. He first responded to these complications with hard drugs and gambling, and lost some friends along the way, but eventually found a constructive way to rene- gotiate his music. Returning home to his family and friends was one such way. Even though the future of music making in Iran seemed unpredictable, he chose that option over staying abroad where he had the opportunity to benefit from its music industry and command of English language. And this is what makes Raam’s story unique. Learning from peers who were going through similar hardships seemed more significant for Raam than learning from expert musicians in the field who have not experienced what these musicians have gone through. Raam’s music education was flawed, interrupted, and mostly without direct instruction. But he learned his music through living in and through it. His music education became his lifestyle: precarious, improvisatory, political, and yet original.

The music education in this respect fits well in the context of an anarchist education. In an anar- chist educational situation one requires to constantly experiment with ideas, dispositions, and new occurrences within smaller communities while not creating a blueprint for the future (Suissa 2006). Such a framework was ideal in understanding Raam’s and consequently his peers’ music education. Due to years of musical limitations, Raam’s love for music increased dramatically; his ties to his peers became stronger; and his music making became more creative. At first his music was a pastime like his international counterparts, but then it became a way out of these limitations. Raam’s music edu- cation, the very thing that brought with it numerous complications, became an act of survival; a kind of music education that is not standardised and does not enjoy the discourse of public education, but has the power of transformation and hope.

Iran is in a peculiar place at the moment. Historically, it has always attracted international invest- ments and at times colonial interests due to its abundant resources of oil and energy. The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the 5+1 Group in the midst of the Middle East turmoil also indicates Iran’s geopolitical significance among its neighbouring countries and its economically powerful counterparts such as the United States, the UK, Germany, and France. Due to Iran’s convoluted 1979 revolution and its aftermath, the international media created an image of Iran that does not necessarily represent the real lives of the people living in it, nor does it indicate the power of each individual in taking charge and being their own agents of change.

The movement has already started. Many Iranian scholars, artists, and writers inside and outside of the country tried and are trying to change this stereotypical image by telling real-life stories of the exceptional ordinary people in Iran and to show how these people express, show solidarity, and

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empower one another.16 It was through narrative inquiry that the current research attempted to fol- low this path, echoing Stauffer (2014): ‘The power of narrative inquiry lies in the possibility of trou- bling certainty, and once troubled, in the possibility of change’ (181).

For years, the music education domain held the ground for teaching and learning music in certain ways, in certain parts of the world, and in certain circumstances that are not necessarily representa- tive of the excluded parts in this discourse. The ground is fertile now to think more critically about the ways music education can be defined and developed in other parts of the world that are not necessarily about a certain genre of music or style of music making, but rather a lifestyle or a survival act. Music education in Iran is political, even if the music itself does not directly pertain to politics through ‘a strong sense of collaborative ethos, stylistic eclecticism, meaningful lyrics, and an increas- ing role for women musicians’ (Nooshin 2005b, 467). Music education matters, and so do the people who create its scene.

Notes

1. For more detail on the contemporary historical context of music making and media following the 1979 revolu- tion, please refer to Nooshin (2005a), Semati (2008), and Youssefzadeh (2000).

2. For a comprehensive portray of underground and overground music in Iran, refer to Nooshin (2005b) and (2008).

3. I use the terms underground music (moosighie-ziramini), unofficial music (moosighie-gheire-rasmi), and ille- gal music (moosighie-gheire-ghanooni) interchangeably in this article, as all of these terms, in one way or another, represent the unsanctioned rock music scene in Iran. Nevertheless, Nooshin (2005b) and Robertson (2012) comprehensively discuss the contextual meanings of each term.

4. For further read on fluid identities in this context, please refer to Robertson (2012). 5. For more detail on Hypernova’s trip to SXSW, please refer to Robertson (2013). 6. During our interviews, Raam would go back and forth between the dates. His remembrance of the events was

not chronological, but was rather event-based. 7. Also noted by Hemmasi (2014). 8. Translated by the author. 9. Please see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/nyregion/4-dead-in-brooklyn-murder-suicide-police-say.

html?_r=0 10. Iran has one of the highest rates of brain drain since 1979 revolution (Shams and Shams 2014; Torbat 2002),

which is not specific to a particular social stratum. 11. For further detail on anarchistic music scenes please refer to Bennett and Peterson (2004) and Monem (2007). 12. In the context of this article, I use the term ‘music scene’ as capital ‘S’. Scene in this context covers a broad

spectrum of musicianship in Iran including genres such as blues, jazz, hip-hop, punk, electronic music, and New Pop – a version of Persian Pop reminiscing the popular music before the 1979 revolution. The practice of all of these genres of music and their corresponding styles of musicianship creates the music scene in Iran. And it is through the dynamic interaction between underground and overground – examined in detail by Nooshin (2005b) – that makes this scene a vibrant hub of artistic and activist musicianship.

13. Also mentioned by Robertson (2012). 14. For further detail on the discourse around the language and the style of music of Iranian rock musicians, please

refer to Nooshin (2008). 15. Please also refer to Nooshin (2005b). 16. See, for example, Satrapi (2003).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nasim Niknafs, the recipient of the Connaught New Researcher Award and the Faculty Mobility Grant, is an Assistant Professor of Music Education at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Born and Raised in Iran, Nasim’s publications have appeared in IASPM@Journal, Visions of Research in Music Education, The Recorder, and General Music Today. Her research interests

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include improvisation in general music education, equity and politics of contemporary music edu- cation with special focus on Iran, and community music programs.

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