¹ The term “rock” is currently used in Iran as a broad umbrella term to refer to a wide range of alternative popular styles, and in particular to distinguish it from mainstream commercial “pop”. The rock/pop polarity is deeply entrenched in popular usage and it is important to understand that what places something in the “rock” category often has as much to do with some indefinable oppositional quality as the actual musical sounds. In other words, “rock” is as much as discursive as a musical category. This article follows this local usage of the term, as well as using the broader “popular” to refer generically to all mediated western-style commercial music. Issues of terminology as they pertain to rock music will be discussed further below.

² There has been relatively little academic interest in Iranian pop music and even less in rock. Exceptions include Nettl, Bruno, “Persian Popular Music in 1969,” Ethnomusicology 16 no. 2 (1972): 218–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manuel, Peter, Popular Musics of the Non-Western World (Oxford, 1988), 167–9Google Scholar; and Nooshin, Laudan, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us: Re-imagining Nation, Performing Youth in the New Iranian Pop,” Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. Nooshin, Laudan (Aldershot, 2006)Google Scholar, as well as a few scholars working on expatriate music in the U.S., including Ann Lucas, “America So Beautiful: The Politics of Popular Music in Irangeles” (paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Miami, Florida, October 2, 2003) and Niloofar Mina, “Political Islam and Iranian Exiles' Changing Views of Iranian Popular Music,” (paper presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Southfield, Michigan, October 24, 2001). In addition, Anthony Shay discusses traditional popular styles such as siyah-bazi and ruhowzi in “The 6/8 Beat Goes On: Persian Popular Music from Bazm-e Qajariyyeh to Beverley Hills Garden Parties,” Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond, ed. Armbrust, Walter (Berkeley, 2000), 61–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an interesting account of Iran during the 1980s and 90s, including numerous references to the situation of music, see the autobiographical novel Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (London, 2004, first published London, 2003). I quote from Nafisi several times in this article because she so eloquently encapsulates the contradictions and complexities of cultural life in post-revolutionary Iran.

³ This article is based primarily on material collected during four separate trips to Iran between 1999 and 2004. The research was conducted primarily, but not exclusively, in Tehran. I am most grateful to the musicians who so generously agreed to meet and discuss their music with me. Particular mention should be made of Ramin Behna and others at Bam Ahang studio in Tehran, as well as members of the bands Kam and 127.

⁴ Current estimates put 70 percent of the population under the age of thirty (data from the most recent 1996 Iranian census can be found at www.sci.org.ir/english/sel/f2 accessed 4/12/04). Regarding the urban/rural divide, at the time of the 1996 census, 62 percent of the population was living in urban areas (www.sci.org.ir/index.htm accessed 4/12/04) as compared with only 27 percent in 1950 (www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wup1999/WUP99CH4.pdf accessed 4/12/04).

⁵ The rehearsal I attended took place between 6:30 and 9:00 pm on Monday 26 Mordad 1383 (16/08/04).

⁶ This is not restricted to rock music, but is also apparent in some of the recent “new pop” groups. See Nooshin, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us.”

⁷ Nooshin, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us.”

⁸ At least, this was not openly acknowledged. The nursery rhyme is as follows: “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater/Had a wife and couldn't keep her/He put her in a pumpkin shell/And there he kept her very well.”

⁹ The general background to this phenomenon is discussed in Nooshin, Laudan, “Subversion and Countersubversion: Power, Control, and Meaning in the New Iranian Pop Music,” in Music, Power, and Politics, ed. Randall, Annie J. (New York, 2005), 259–62Google Scholar. According to Niloofar Mina, there is some evidence of grass-roots rock bands in Iran before 1979—even as early as the 1960s—but very little has to date been written on this music (personal communication, August 2005) and the relationship between such bands and the current generation of musicians is unclear. Certainly, operating in a socio-political environment in which Western music was not only unproblematic, but strongly promoted, the meanings of Iranian rock for audience in the 1960s and 70s would have been very different from contemporary rock.

¹⁰ Katouzian, Homa, The Political Economy of Modern Iran. Despotism and Pseudo-Modernism, 1926–1979 (London, 1981)Google Scholar.

¹¹ See, for example, Nafisi's account of her family's clandestine listening to music by The Doors and Michael Jackson, Reading Lolita, 60–1.

¹² For a discussion of the situation of pop music in the 1980s and 90s, see Nooshin, “Subversion and Countersubversion,” 238–45. The earliest pop concerts, of which a very few took place from 1996 onwards, mainly consisted of bands playing cover versions of Western pop/rock songs, usually without the words. Nafisi describes one such concert (in 1996): “It is hard to conjure an accurate image of what went on that night. The group consisted of four young Iranian men, all amateurs, who entertained us with their rendition of the Gipsy Kings. Only they weren't allowed to sing; they could only play their instruments. Nor could they demonstrate any enthusiasm for what they were doing… Yet despite these restrictions and the quality of the performance, our young musicians could not have found anywhere in the world an audience so receptive, so forgiving of their flaws, so grateful to hear their music,” Reading Lolita, 300. As Nafisi observes, “It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom” (28).

¹³ In fact, the emergence of a modernized, cosmopolitan youth dates back to the 1960s. The current significance of what has been called Iran's “third generation” (Alinejad 2002: 35) is discussed at length by a number of writers; see Alinejad, Mahmoud, “Coming to Terms with Modernity: Iranian Intellectuals and the Emerging Public Sphere,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 13 no. 1 (2002): 25–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Laudan Nooshin, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us.” For a consideration of cosmopolitanism in Iran in the light of Thomas Turino's writings about cultural formations in “Are We Global Yet? Globalist Discourse, Cultural Formations and the Study of Zimbabwean Popular Music,” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 12 no. 2 (2003): 51–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ www.o-hum.com

¹⁵ Published by Shahram Music Books, SITC–438.

¹⁶ Dar-e Qali (Beethoven Music Centre, 2001). See www.raz-e-shab.com/. One of the leading musicians in this band, Ramin Behna, was also the main force behind an earlier group, Avizheh, which performed a fusion of jazz and Iranian music. Although not a rock band per se, Avizheh's 1998 concerts at the Arasbaran Cultural Center in Tehran and the release of two albums played an important role in paving the way for rock music, first by “breaking the mold” (for example, by presenting purely instrumental popular music) and secondly by introducing new sounds, in particular the possibility of fusing Iranian music with Western popular styles outside mainstream pop (Interview, Bam Ahang studio, 10/08/04).

¹⁷ Sima Saeedi, “Rock Ages,” www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_editorial_rockages.htm (2002, accessed 23/9/04). The Internet sources referred to in the current article were all published in English, and direct quotations are presented as in the original (including occasional linguistic idiosyncrasies).

¹⁸ Ali Mafi, “Mystery of the Night,” www.tehranavenue.com/old/ws_concert_raz.htm (2002, accessed 5/4/02).

¹⁹ While recordings of Western pop singers are still largely illegal (although instrumental versions of their songs are often broadcast on national radio), certain kinds of Western popular music are sanctioned and openly on sale. Styles such as jazz (mainly instrumental) and flamenco seem to lie on the border of the permissible. For jazz, perhaps its intellectual associations render it less problematic than certain other styles and this may partly explain why the Iranian-jazz fusion band Avizheh was able to gain authorization some time before rock bands. Musicians such as Kenny G., the Gypsy Kings and the Greek singer Yanni have long been popular in Iran, and flamenco musician Juan Martin gave three concerts in Tehran in September 2004. It is interesting to note which Western popular styles are allowed and which remain problematic. In the summer of 2004, I found recordings of Jean Michel Jarre, Richard Clayderman, Kenny G., and Yanni in Tehran shops. Incidentally, during this period, recordings of certain Western classical and “non-Western” musicians were being heavily promoted, including Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli and qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. In general, these styles have proved less problematic than Western popular music.

²⁰ Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef 16 mm, produced in Tehran, distributed by P&S Film, Germany, 2004: 28'30” Quotations from this documentary film are translated from the original Persian into English by the current author.

²¹ See, for example, Seda o Sima's website (www.irib.ir), as well as those of President Khatami (www.president.ir), and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamene'i (www.khamenei.ir) among many others.

The Internet has been a crucial decentralizing factor in recent years. In the words of Mousavi Shafaee, “It appears that the Internet has allowed for the creation of a virtual society in the heart of Iran,” Shafaee, Seyed Masoud Mousavi, “Globalization and Contradiction Between the Nation and the State in Iran: The Internet Case,” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 12 no. 2 (2003): 194Google Scholar. Mousavi Shafaee also provides statistics on Internet users in Iran and notes the recent astounding increase in Internet use, particularly among young people. However, while the Internet does potentially allow for more pluralistic modes of dialogue (particularly with the wide availability of Internet cafés), there are clearly social and financial barriers to participation.

²² The Underground Music Competition, www.tehran360.com/umc.html (accessed 29/1/04).

²³ The Underground Music Competition, www.tehran360.com/umc.html (accessed 29/1/04). A list of bands that participated and a breakdown of the voting can be accessed at www.tehran360.com/umc.htm (accessed 12/08/04).

²⁴ www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/tamo.html (October 2003, accessed 6/9/04).

²⁵ This is in contrast to the many officially organized music festivals/competitions for regional music and musiqi-e asil where selected specialists adjudicate competitions in private. In particular, the grass-roots voting for the UMC and TAMO contrasts strongly with the “top-down” adjudication of the popular music section of the annual Fajr Arts Festival (Laudan Nooshin, “Tomorrow Belongs to Us”).

²⁶ According to Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef: 36’38”. According to Mirtahmasb, the Farabi Hall management had originally agreed to host the concert on condition that the title changed from Concert-e Rock (“Rock Concert,” billed in English as “Rock Fest”) to Hamayesh-e Concert-e Rock (2003: 34'58”). Hamayesh translates as “conference” or “seminar,” a subtle addition intended to lend the event a certain academic respectability. According to TA, “Four musicians and specialists were invited to speak on the occasion, analyzing the place of alternative music in Iran,” (www.tehran360.com/umc.html, accessed 29/1/04).

²⁷ See www.amertad.com

²⁸ As this article was nearing completion (May 2005), TA announced a third online music competition, Tehran Avenue Independent Music Festival or TAMF (www.tehran360.com/, accessed 16/05/05).

²⁹ Partly modelling themselves on Western rock celebrities, many musicians have presented interviews, particularly on the Internet, both on band websites and through sites such as Tehran Avenue and interconnect-iranian.com

³⁰ www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/tamo.html (October 2003, accessed 6/9/04).

³¹ The one exception I found to this was an interview with Ramin Behna where he defended pop bands such as Arian in the interest of musical diversity: “We need such bands… Music is a vast sea and all are floating in it, none shall [should] be rejected or put aside.” Quoted in Shadi Vatanparast and Zebra, “Neither Formal nor Cheap Stuff,” interview with Ramin Behna and Hooman Javid, www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_feature_zibazi.htm (December 2002, accessed 28/02/03).

³² In the words of Shadmehr Aghili (a successful post-1998 pop singer who has since moved to Canada): “Being on TV in Iran is like antibiotics: The more you appear, the less popular you are,” since it is assumed (quite legitimately) that those who appear are in favor with the government apparatus. Quoted in John Ward Anderson, “Roll Over, Khomeini! Iran Cultivates a Local Rock Scene, Within Limits,” Washington Post, Thursday 23 August 2001.

³³ These include concerts by Raz-e Shab (Milad Hall, Tehran, January 2002, Ali Mafi, “Mystery of the Night”); Pedjvak (Harekat Hall, Tehran, May 2002, see Nima Kasraie, “Iran Rocks: Honar nazd e Iranian ast o bas, Even if that honar Belongs to the West,” www.iranian.com/Music/2002/June/Rock/index.html [June 17th 2002, accessed 23/5/05]); Piccolo (Farabi Hall, Tehran, September 12–14, 2002; see www.tehranavenue.com/old/ws_concert_piccolo.htm [September 2002, accessed 4/10/04]; see also www.piccoloband.com); Rumi (Harekat Hall, January 2003, www.tehranavenue.com/old/ws_concert_rumi.htm [February 2003, accessed 23/9/04]); Babak Riahipoor (Milad Hospital Hall, DNA (Mahak Hall, Tehran, January 2004, www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/concert/dna_concert.html [January 2004, accessed 6/9/04]; see also www.dna-band.com); and Meera (Farhang Hall, Tehran, September 2002 and Harekat Hall, 23–25 February 2003, www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/concert/meera_concert.html [March 2003, accessed 6/9/04]).

³⁴ See www.meera.com

³⁵ Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef: 24'36”.

³⁶ A view regularly expressed by musicians was that the government had promoted local pop music precisely in order to detract young people from engaging with serious social issues (interview, Bam Ahang studio, 10/08/04; see also John Ward Anderson, “Roll Over, Khomeini!”).

³⁷ www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_interview_ohump1.htm (August 2002, accessed 5/4/03). O-Hum has faced repeated rejection by Vezarat-e Ershad, both for concert performances and for the release of their 1999 album, Nahal-e Heyrat. Band members attribute this to their choice of words: Nahal-e Heyrat is set to the lyrics of medieval poet Hafez. According to guitarist Shahrokh Izadkhah: “The concept of combining Hafez with rock music is neither [not] acceptable by the cultural establishment of Iran. …” (www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_interview_ohump1.htm [August 2002, accessed 5/4/03]). The above web-reference includes a detailed account of the events that led to the cancellation of a concert in 2002. While O-Hum has since disbanded its original formation, Sharbaf has continued the band in the form of an “open project with other Iranian musicians,” www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/shahram.html (May 2003, accessed 6/9/2004).

³⁸ Saeedi “Rock Ages.”

³⁹ Interview with musicians at Bam Ahang studio, 10/08/04.

⁴⁰ www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_interview_ohump1.htm (August 2002, accessed 5/4/03).

⁴¹ See Youssefzadeh, Ameneh, “The Situation of Music in Iran Since the Revolution: The Role of Official Organizations,” British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 9 no. 2 (2000): 44–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar for further information on the process of applying for mojavvez. It should be noted that Vezarat-e Ershad regularly changes its regulations and procedures.

⁴² www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_interview_ohump1.htm (August 2002, accessed 5/4/03).

⁴³ Shadi Vatanparast, “Office of Realty Supervision and Concert Cancellations,” www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_feature_cancellation.htm (August 2002, accessed 4/9/2003). According to Vatanparast, in the summer of 2002, the head of this government body, “… Sardar Qalibaf, sent a letter out to hotel amphitheaters in general banning all rock musical performances in them.” Since the late 1990s, it had become common practice for music to be performed in hotel lobby areas.

In September 2004, Vatanparast reported on new regulations that have made it even more difficult for musicians to stage concerts, including a 15 percent charge on concert earnings levied by Tehran City Council (shahrdari) and new security clearance required by Vezarat-e Ershad for musicians visiting from abroad, both Iranian and non-Iranian (“Music, Municipality and the Ministry,” www.tehranavenue.com/old/ws_music_municipality.htm [September 2004, accessed 7/10/04]).

⁴⁴ This is true particularly since concerts have been targeted and disrupted by volunteer religious militia. Such disruptions were common between 1998 and 2002, but have become less frequent in recent years.

⁴⁵ Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef: 23'49”.

⁴⁶ Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef:24'20”.

⁴⁷ Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef:10'07”.

⁴⁸ Mirtahmasb, Saz-e Mokhalef:10'36”.

⁴⁹ See, for example, Mashkouri's description of the band DNA: “What you hear is funk, psychedelic rock from the ‘70s and thrash metal, but still somehow original enough to be recognized as a promising young Iranian instrumental rock band with a creative and contemporary music view,” www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/dna_interview.html (January 2004, accessed 6/9/04).

⁵⁰ In Kam, the main exception was Elika, the daughter of a traditional singer, who told me about her many memories of well-known musicians visiting and performing informally at her home during her childhood (interview 16/08/04).

⁵¹ As described by Turino in “Are We Global Yet?”

⁵² www.tehran360.com/tamo.html (accessed 29/01/04).

⁵³ It should be noted that the terms “local” and “global” are not used in an oppositional or mutually exclusive sense here, but represent necessarily provisional categories that are only useful in the context of specific ethnographic data. Commentators have quite rightly pointed to the fact that “global” is nowadays regularly used as a substitute for what is, in effect, “Western,” often masking the uneven flows of power, money, and culture. And, indeed, for many outside the metropolitan power centers of Europe and the U.S., becoming “global” (or “universal” in the words of 127, see below) means just that: becoming “Western.” At the same time, there is little doubt that an increasingly globalized economy allows musicians outside such power centers unprecedented access to “global” audiences. Moreover, it is important to recognize that discourses of local/global continue to have great potency in Iran and are central to debates over national identity and Iran's relationship with the outside world. Such discourses have had an immense impact on Iranian rock which, perhaps more than any other kind of Iranian music, represents the “global in the local.”

⁵⁴ Clearly, there is another side to such rosy universalist discourses that relates to the immense prestige value that Western culture has long had in Iran and young people's fascination with things Western. For further discussion of the dynamics of cultural power in terms of Iran's relationship with the outside world (particularly with Europe and the U.S.), see Laudan Nooshin, “Subversion and Countersubversion,” 232–5. As discussed by Nooshin, the post-1998 changes prompted a very interesting public debate over whether the new local pop music represented yet another form of cultural imperialism or a means of empowerment for young Iranians. See Nooshin, “Subversion and Countersubversion,” 255–8. In the context of such debates, the suggestion that local rock music can serve as a means of countering the “onslaught” of Western culture is particularly interesting (see Vatanparast and Zebra, “Another Round of Music Competition,” tehranavenue.com/article.php?id = 384 [May 2005, accessed 16/05/05]).

⁵⁵ Even pop music from the diaspora, which has tended to emphasize home and national identity above internationalism.

⁵⁶ There are, moreover, interesting parallels with the internationalist outlook of 1960s progressive rock in Europe and the U.S. as discussed by Whiteley: “Was it, as Richard Neville wrote at the time, just symptomatic of an ‘intense, spontaneous internationalism?’ ‘From Berlin to Berkeley, from Zurich to Notting Hill, Movement members exchange a gut solidarity, sharing common aspirations, inspirations, strategy, style, mood and vocabulary. Long hair is their declaration of independence, pop music their Esperanto …’” (quoted in Whiteley, Sheila, The Space Between the Notes. Rock and the Counter-Culture (London, 1992), 1Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Moreover, in the early underground years, many bands were playing cover versions of Western pop/rock songs and therefore singing mainly in English. As musicians started to compose their own songs, most chose to use Persian lyrics. Reporting on the earliest rock concerts by Raz-e Shab and Pedjvak, Saeedi observes: “… Rock musicians are now singing their songs in Farsi, something they never imagined doing in their years of underground grind” (Saeedi, “Rock Ages”). Similarly, Mafi's surprised response to the same Raz-e Shab concert was “Rock! With Farsi verse …” (“Mystery of the Night”) The issue of lyrical language has been the subject of intense debate, in particular the question of whether it is possible to satisfactorily combine Persian words with rock rhythms.

⁵⁸ Hesam Garshasbi, “The Story of the Elephant and Rock Music,” interview with 127, www.tehranavenue.com/old/ec_feature_127.htm (2002, accessed 28/2/03).

⁵⁹ Similar quotations can be found elsewhere. For example, writing about Amertad, Vatanparast and Zebra observe: “They think globally and see no geographical boundaries for their work.” (“Mess to Amertad,” www.tehranavenue.com/article.php?id=177 [December 2002, accessed 4/3/03]).

⁶⁰ Hesam Garshasbi, “The Story of the Elephant and Rock Music,” interview with 127.

⁶¹ Looking at the ways in which diaspora-based Iranian websites present Iranian rock bands in diaspora and at “home,” the latter tend to be treated as exotica with which to attract listeners. For example, see web-based Iranian Alternative Radio on www.iranian.com/radio.html (accessed 23/9/04).

⁶² What Garshasbi refers to as the “sabke motefavet” (“varied style”) of Iranian rock (www.tehranavenue.com/ws_articles/ws_m…/ws.music.raz.concert.main.htm [accessed 14/07/02]).

⁶³ www.tehran360.com/news.html (accessed 29/1/04) and www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/sarakhs_interview.html (June 2003, accessed 6/9/04).

⁶⁴ www.tehran360.com/lv.html (accessed 29/1/04). According to Sohrab Mahdavi, most of these labels were provided by musicians themselves, although a few were chosen by the competition organizers (personal correspondence, September 2004).

⁶⁵ Although, interestingly, there has been little attempt to draw on the associations between rock music and the 1960's “sexual revolution.” There is a substantial literature on 1960s rock counter-culture, and the reader is referred to Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition (Faber & Faber, 1971) and Sheila Whiteley, The Space Between the Notes, among many others.

An interesting phenomenon in recent years has been the translation and publication of song lyrics (without the music) by a number of musicians and bands including Queen, Bob Marley, Tracey Chapman, and Bob Dylan. I first came across these collections of lyrics in Tehran bookshops in the summer of 2004, but it seems that they have been available since 2002 (Wendy DeBano, personal communication, April 2005).

⁶⁶ See, for example, interviews with DNA (www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/dna_interview.html [January 2004, accessed 6/9/04]), Sarakhs (www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interviews/sarakhs_interview.html [June 2003, accessed 6/9/04]) and Shahram Sharbaf of O-Hum (www.interconnect-iraninan.com/pages/interviews/shahram.html [May 2003, accessed 6/9/04]). Progressive Rock bands of the 1970s are particularly well represented in such lists.

⁶⁷ Vatanparast and Zebra, “Neither Formal nor Cheap Stuff.” Zibazi was published by the Beethoven Music Centre, Tehran. Elsewhere, Arash B.T. discusses the hesitance of audiences “still afraid to take a leap from decades of listening to singers who did not deviate from the norm formula. Or could it be that the listening public is only barely beginning to scratch the surface of possibilities that exist in the future of alternative Iranian music?” (www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/articles/sarakhs.html [February 2003, accessed 6/9/04]).

⁶⁸ Nafisi draws similar parallels with literature, specifically concerning what she calls the “multivocality” of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: “We needed no message, no outright call for plurality… All we needed was to read and appreciate the cacophony of voices to understand its democratic imperative” Reading Lolita, 268.

Detailed discussion of the connections between civil society discourse and music lies outside the scope of this article (but see Nooshin, “Subversion and Countersubversion,” 257, 262; “Tomorrow Belongs to Us”). Specifically on the question of civil society in Iran, the reader is referred to Banuazizi, Ali, “Faltering Legitimacy: The Ruling Clerics and Civil Society in Contemporary Iran, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 8 no. 4 (1995): 563–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Amirahmadi, Hooshang, “Emerging Civil Society in Iran,” SAIS Review, 16 no. 2 (1996): 87–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kamali, Masoud, Revolutionary Iran: Civil Society and State in the Modernisation Process (Aldershot, 1998)Google Scholar; Bashiriyeh, Hossein, “Civil Society and Democratisation During Khatami's First Term,” Global Dialogue 3 no. 2 & 3 (2001): 19–26Google Scholar; Gheytanchi, Elham, “Civil Society in Iran. Politics of Motherhood and the Public Sphere,” International Sociology 16 no. 4 (2001): 557–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kamrava, Mehran, “The Civil Society Discourse in Iran,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28 no. 2 (2001): 165–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chaichian, Mohammad A., “Structural Impediments of the Civil Society Project in Iran. National and Global Dimensions,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 44 no. 1 (2003): 19–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ Shadi Vatanparast and Zebra, “Jamming Jams,” interview with Jam, (www.tehranavenue-com/old/ec_feature_jam.htm [August 2003, accessed 2/9/04]).

⁷⁰ As this article was at proof stage in the summer of 2005, I discovered that Elika had recently left Kam and is now working with her own band.

⁷¹ Something rarely found in Iranian pop music, but see Nooshin, “Subversion and Countersubversion,” 265.

⁷² www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/interview/tamo.html (October 2003, accessed 6/9/04).

⁷³ Review of Mordab by Arash B.T. on www.interconnect-iranian.com/pages/articles/sarakhs.html (February 2003, accessed 6/9/04).

⁷⁴ www.tehranavenue.com/ws_article/ws_music (February 2002, accessed 14/07/02).

⁷⁵ Indeed, this can be convenient for musicians seeking authorization, who can point to the harmless neutrality of their lyrics in songs where the primary challenge has shifted into the musical domain.

⁷⁶ 127 was formed in 2001 and has five regular members (see www.comingaroundmusic.com/). My Sweet Little Terrorist Song has not been published, but was broadcast by the BBC Persian Service as part of an interview after 127's two concerts in the Farabi Hall on 22 and 23 May 2004 (see www.bbc.co.uk/persian/arts/story/2004/05/040521_ag-127.shtml [accessed 14/4/05]). The song is also available on www.beethovenmb.com/htmls/main.htm (accessed 12/2/05) and www.127band.com/my-sweet-little-terrorist-song.mp3 (accessed 23/5/05).

⁷⁷ Moreover, internal changes have attracted many in the diaspora to visit Iran or to return permanently.

⁷⁸ Middleton and Muncie, quoted in Whiteley, The Space Between the Notes, 81.

⁷⁹ Middleton and Muncie, quoted in Whiteley, The Space Between the Notes, 1.

⁸⁰ Nafisi, Reading Lolita, 23–4.

⁸¹ Nafisi, Reading Lolita, 68.