Payvand.com - It is quite hectic. The rock music band 127 is going to participate in the prestigious SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas for the second time, while unfortunately their drummer player has not yet obtained the required permit to leave the country, because he has just been graduated from university and has not served his military service.

127 is the first Iranian rock music band touring US, holding successful concerts in New York, Boston and Washington in 2005, after they lost to attend the same festival because their US clearance visa did not arrive on time. But they made it in 2006 and were the first Iranian music band ever performing in an important event in the field such as the SXSW festival. They returned home to get prepared to begin another tour in USA in the autumn of the same year, when suddenly, it was announced that not only the monetary deposit required to be paid by students who wish to travel abroad has been tripled, but beside medical reasons, they would issue the temporary permit of absence from the country, only to those students wish to go on pilgrims to holy cities (atebaat). The problem was even if they could convince the authorities to give them that permit, being from middle class families whose fixed income is just sufficient to "keep their cheeks red by self-slapping" as expressed in a Persian proverb, the monetary deposit was a great obstacle difficult to surmount. After all, they were just an underground music band, not a sport or scientific or even a traditional Persian music ensemble to enjoy support and recommendation from corresponding organizations and the government.

So they lost the aforementioned tour and several others in Europe and although a serious blow for any young creative human being, standing on the threshold of adult circle of life, but what the members of the band suffered was in a way nothing compared to what happened and still happens to a considerable number of young people throughout the world, dying and getting injured in wars, suffering imprisonment, execution and…

Two years passed, 127 survived the above blow and several smaller ones, such as the censorship of their track "My Little Terrorist Song" from an album of Iranian musicians produced in England. Fortunately, not only its members did not give up, but continued their "Full-Time Job" as musicians, producing their new album called Khal Punk, now under production by the Swedish company Phisteria, who had previously produced a selection of their works called Magnitizdat (Songs of Hope and Terror) and were invited once more to play in the same festival and hopefully perform more or less the same US tour they missed. Alas, their drummer player is still here and can not join others who while waiting for their US visa clearance to arrive will perform the first concert of their 'tour' in Dubai (Feb.29^th), because meanwhile he graduated and is no longer a student to enjoy the above "privilege,"

Photos of the Dubai performance
 

Here we are waiting for a 'miracle' to happen, so that he would obtain the required permit to join them at least for the above festival and the rest of their tour.

If interested to listen to some of their tracks, you can visit their site at:

http//www.127musicband.com

127@127band.com

And if you liked their music and just happen to be in US, you can find them at the Time-Places listed below. Their tour, including 24 concerts starts from 4^th of March from Houston, TX and continues until April 2^nd 2008.

127 U.S. Tour Dates 

www.127band.com official web site

www.myspace.com/127band 127@myspace

www.youtube.com/127band 127 @ you tube

www.phisteria.com  phisteria records

... Payvand News - 03/03/08 ...