Bloody End for Iranian Rockers Seeking Musical Freedom in U.S.
Dave Sanders, The Yellow Dogs, from left, Arash and Soroush Farazmand, killed on Monday, and Siavash Karampour and Koory Mirz. By
VIVIAN YEE and
J. DAVID GOODMAN Published: November 11, 2013
For their music they had risked the wrath of Iran’s government,
practicing American-style rock in makeshift soundproof studios and
performing it in underground clubs and parking lots, despite the threat
of fines, detention or arrest. Growing up together in Tehran, they had
found a sound: part punk, part garage rock, part their own invention.
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The Yellow Dogs, as the four Iranian musicians were known, played in the
shadows until 2009, when they appeared in a documentary about Iran’s
underground music scene that garnered international attention. The next
year, they left for America, finding their way to East Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, where their tidy house became a hub for fellow musicians and
Iranians.
Hailed as countercultural heroes in Iran, they were a few musicians
among many in Brooklyn, working day and night to stay afloat, playing in
basements and lofts until they scored better gigs. And then, suddenly,
in the early hours of Monday morning, two of them and another musician
were dead, shot by another Iranian musician who then killed himself.
While the precise motive was unclear, it seemed that money, distrust and
discord sown amid a tight fraternity of Iranian rock artists were to
blame.
If the Yellow Dogs had begun to find success in Brooklyn — they were
playing at venues like the Music Hall of Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bowl —
the gunman, Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie, had joined his fellow Iranians
in Brooklyn only to struggle. Though he had left Iran as part of another
band, the Free Keys, who stayed at the Yellow Dogs’ house when they
arrived in New York in 2011, his relations with both bands had frayed.
While they continued to live in Brooklyn, he had moved to Ridgewood,
Queens, less than two miles away. There were accusations that he had
stolen money from the Free Keys, who forced him to leave the band last
year, said John J. McCarthy, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. He
was in the United States on a temporary worker visa.
Mr. Rafie tried to rejoin the group, only to be rebuffed, Mr. McCarthy
said. “He’s upset that he’s not in the band,” he said.
The outlines provided by the police of the gunman’s march through the East Williamsburg townhouse are chilling.
Mr. Rafie climbed to the Yellow Dogs’ house, at 318 Maujer Street,
across adjacent roofs, Mr. McCarthy said. On one, investigators found an
empty guitar case, which they believe was used to transport the assault
rifle he used in his attack.
He found his way to a third-floor landing of the home. There, he fired
once through a window into a living room, striking and killing Ali
Eskandarian, 35, an Iranian-American singer, songwriter and writer who
had been living in the apartment above the Yellow Dogs.
Mr. Rafie then climbed inside, found Arash Farazmand, 28, the Yellow
Dogs’ drummer, in his bedroom and opened fire, killing him. His brother,
Soroush Farazmand, 27, the band’s guitarist, was in his second-floor
bedroom, on his bed and pecking away at his laptop. Mr. Rafie burst in
and shot him in the chest.
Shots appeared to have also been fired down a hallway and into a
second-floor room, striking Sasan Sadeghpourosko, 22, another resident,
in the shoulder and elbow. On the third floor were a man and a woman,
members of the Coast Guard who had rented a room for Veterans Day
events, and Pooya Hosseini, another Iranian musician from the Free Keys.
Mr. Rafie kicked in the door, and he and Mr. Hosseini, a former
bandmate, struggled over the rifle. Several shots went off. Unhurt, Mr.
Hosseini fled, and Mr. Rafie headed to the roof, where he shot himself
in the head.
Mr. Sadeghpourosko, a street artist, was treated at Elmhurst Hospital
Center and released. His brother, who was also in the room, was not
injured.
The other members of the Yellow Dogs, Koory Mirz, the bassist, and
Siavash Karampour, the lead singer, known as Obash, were not there at
the time.
Before fleeing for the United States in 2010, the four bandmates
belonged to Tehran’s “small but crazy” underground club scene, according
to a State Department cable written in 2009 and later released by WikiLeaks.
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