Thanks to all of you who came out a couple of weeks ago at Clemente Velez to see and shake to Mitra Sumara, that rhythmic, psychedelic Persian band. We will be playing again on Thursday, Feb. 9, at 11 p.m. at Fontana's, 105 Eldridge St. in Manhattan.

We play Persian pop music of the 1960s and ’70s, tunes that shook the air before the Islamic revolution rolled into Iran.

This vibrant music has deep grooves and funky breaks and dark, keening melodies. This music is challenging and rewarding, and it all fits together like clockwork.

>>>>>>>Mitra Sumara<<<<<<<

Thursday, Feb. 9 , at 11 p.m.

Fontana's

105 Eldridge St., New York, NY

with ***Screentests*** at 10 p.m.

$7

///////Hot Farsi funk - Persian psych - bangin' dance grooves from beyond!\\\\\\

Mitra Sumara is an eight-piece super group of musicians dedicated to the vibrant sound of 60s/70s Persian funk & pop hits. The sound of pre-Revolutionary Iran mixes the beats of Fela Kuti, Salsa, and Disco with Mid-East melodies, a cool LA breeze, and tragic poetry. Big beats, blaring brass, and wheezing electric organ.

We are here to help you get your Persian groove on!

Mitra Sumara is:

Yvette Perez– vocals  (Birdbrain)
Julian Maile – guitar (Loser’s Lounge)
Sam Kulik– bass (Talbam!)
Peter Zummo – trombone (Arthur Russell, John Lurie)
Jim Duffy – keyboards (Jim Duffy Group)
Bill Ruyle – tabla & hammer dulcimer (Arthur Russell)
Brian Geltner – drums (Nervous Cabaret, Chris Whitley)
Michael Evans – drums & congas (Alex Hacke, AndersNilsson, God Is My
Co-Pilot)

http://mitrasumara.tumblr.com/

Mitra Sumara, that rhythmic, psychedelic Persian band, will be playing on Wednesday, Jan. 18, at 9 p.m. at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk St., in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

We play Persian pop music of the 1960s and ’70s, tunes that shook the air before the Islamic revolution rolled into Iran. Did you know that such music existed? I didn’t, until Yvette Perez asked me to join.

We’ve been working on these tunes for several months now, working on the deep grooves and funky breaks and dark, keening melodies. And the band keeps getting bigger! There are nine of us now, and we make quite a sound.

Yvette can explain it better than I can, so take it away, Yvette:

>>>>>>>Mitra Sumara<<<<<<<

Wednesday, Jan. 18, 9 p.m.

Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center

107 Suffolk St, New York, NY

with ***Minerals Duo*** (Zach Layton & Bradford Reed!!!!)

$10

///////Hot Farsi funk - Persian psych - bangin' dance grooves from beyond!\\\\\\

Mitra Sumara is nine-piece super group of musicians dedicated to the vibrant sound of 60s/70s Persian funk & pop hits. The sound of pre-Revolutionary Iran mixes the beats of Fela Kuti, Salsa, and Disco with Mid-East melodies, a cool LA breeze, and tragic poetry. Big beats, blaring brass, and wheezing electric organ. 

We are here to help you get your Persian groove on!

Mitra Sumara is:

Yvette Perez– vocals  (Birdbrain)
Julian Maile – guitar (Loser’s Lounge)
Sam Kulik– bass (Talbam!)
Jordan McLean – trumpet (Antibalas, Medeski Martin & Wood, TV on the Radio)
Peter Zummo – trombone (Arthur Russell, John Lurie)
Jim Duffy – keyboards (Jim Duffy Group)
Bill Ruyle – tabla & hammer dulcimer (Arthur Russell)
Brian Geltner – drums (Nervous Cabaret, Chris Whitley)

Michael Evans – drums & congas (Alex Hacke, AndersNilsson, God Is My
Co-Pilot)

http://mitrasumara.tumblr.com/

I work in Lower Manhattan, and when the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations started on Sept. 17, they didn't look like much. Just a few young people were marching up Wall Street, carrying signs and chanting. Some of the signs were, frankly, a bit idiotic. The police had set up barriers, and I had to walk 200 yards out of my way to get to work. Good luck to the protesters, but their little march looked ineffectual and a bit annoying.

A week later came the widespread video of a high-ranking New York police officer pepper-spraying nonviolent protesters. The next day, I went to Zuccotti Park, and the protest had grown overnight to triple the size. Some of the protesters' signs were a little more intelligent. I said to one demonstrator, "Your message seems to be getting more focused."

He said, "It's been focused all along. Why don't you join us?"

Since I work nearby, I started going over to Zuccotti Park at lunchtime, to see what was happening. The protesters were becoming more organized. They had set up a media table, a first-aid area, a food line. They posted a daily schedule of workshops and events.

Then came the news of the march over the Brooklyn Bridge, which resulted in the arrest of 700 protesters. When I returned to Lower Manhattan that Monday, the protest had once again doubled in size. That week, the protesters were about to march to nearby Foley Square, to join some labor unions that were demonstrating. The Occupy Wall Street group is not allowed to use amplification, so they use the "human microphone" mode of communication: One person speaks, and everyone repeats it, for the sake of those who are out of earshot.

Speaker: "In a few minutes, ..."

Demonstrators: "In a few minutes, ..."

Speaker: "We are going to walk..."

Demonstrators: "We are going to walk..."

"Peacefully and calmly and on the sidewalk."

"Peacefully and calmly and on the sidewalk."

"If we block traffic, ..."

"If we block traffic, ..."

"Then we suck."

"Then we suck."

The Occupy crowd had already started changing in its makeup. During the mass arrests at the Brooklyn Bridge, the police didn't have enough vehicles to transport the arrested, so they asked the MTA to send city buses. The bus drivers didn't like that, so the Transit Workers Union joined the march. And in sympathy came the Teamsters. And along came the teachers' union and the nurses union and the teachers.

Meanwhile, the AM radio and the cable business channel was referring to the Occupy movement as a bunch of hippies and mooches. "What do they want?"

In the following days and evenings in Zuccotti Park (I got to be a regular), the demonstrators took their organizational capabilities to the next level. One day a young economics professor was conducting a seminar, complete with whiteboard and hand-outs, on the subject, "What Is a Credit Default Swap?" The food line was becoming more orderly. More people of advanced years were appearing in the park, either participating or looking on in curiosity. I saw an older gentleman with a hat identifying himself as a World War II veteran.

On CNBC, the baffled commentors said, "What do they want?"

At Zuccotti Park, a woman held a sign that said, "Warning: Do not confuse the complexity of this movement with chaos."

Whatever you think of the protesters themselves, they are right about a few key issues:

1. The financial system itself is what crashed the economy in 2008. Large investment banks created securities that were backed by pools of residential mortgages. Some investment banks intentionally loaded these securities with pools with mortgages that they knew were likely to default, but the ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, rated these mortgage pools as triple-A. So the investment banks pushed faulty products into the market, products that were designed to fail, and sold them to their clients, who had every reason to trust the ratings agencies. Furthermore, the investment banks that created and sold these securities took short positions against these bets. That is to say, they bet against their own clients, betting that these securities would fail. And they created products that would double or triple the leverage on these bets.

2. When the mortgage pools failed, as they were designed to do, many billions of dollars of capital were destroyed. Lehman Brothers failed, as did Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and Washington Mutual.

3. To repair the losses, U.S. taxpayers spent over $800 billion to shore up the financial system against an all-out economic depression.

4. The operators of the investment banks who caused the crash were not prosecuted for fraud. Technically, they had operated within the letter of the law. Not only were they not prosecuted, they used the money that the taxpayers had spent for the bailout in order to award themselves seven-figure bonuses.

5. No major reforms were enacted to prevent this from happening again, and the same types of OK-by-the-books fraud is starting to happen all over again.

6. Meanwhile the unemployment rate in the U.S. remains at almost 10%, wages are stagnant, those who still have jobs are working longer hours, jobs continue to be outsourced, our manufacturing base continues to move to China, and recent college graduates are facing few or no job prospects and huge levels of debt.

7. Investment bankers and those whose primary income comes from investments -- unearned income -- pay a lower tax rate than those who work for salary or hourly wages.

Those are just a few points that the protestors are trying to get across. It's not quick, it doesn't fit onto a bumper sticker, and there's a lot more where those came from. Another supporter of Occupy Wall Street could have another list of seven or 14 points, but it all comes under the heading of economic injustice.

This is not about hating the rich. It's about fixing the unfairness that's in the system. The system is tilted in favor of those who make money through investment as opposed to labor. And the unchecked greed of some of these people is what crashed the economy, and it's what keeps the economy in such miserable shape. They continue to profit.

If you can't read the words on the sign in the photo above, here is the message: "It is wrong to create a mortgage-baked security filled with loans you know are going to fail so that you can sell it to a client who isn't aware that you sabotaged by intentionally picking the misleadingly rated loans most likely to be defaulted upon."

That's the issue, in a nutshell of 45 words.

I'll have more to say about what's happening at Zuccotti Park. Right now, I have to do some piano practice...

(photo by Stephanie Woodard)

I'm involved in an exciting music project that has been brewing for several months and is just now seeing the light of day: a Persian rock band. Yes, you heard right. Iran had a vibrant pop music scene in the 1960s and '70s, before the Islamic revolution moved in. And now, 35 years later, vocalist/arranger/bandleader Yvette Perez is giving that music new life here in the Western Hemisphere.

The group, Mitra Sumara -- for that is our name -- had a test run at the Westbeth Center for the Arts last Sunday, and so far, all systems are go. Yvette sings all lyrics in Farsi. The lineup is as follows:

• Yvette -- vocals (Birdbrain, H.E.R.)


• Julian Maile -- guitar (Loser's Lounge)


• Sam Kulik -- bass (Talibam!)


• Jeff Hermanson -- trumpet (Stew and the Negro Problem, Yo La Tengo)


• Peter Zummo -- trombone (Arthur Russell, Lounge Lizards)


• Jim Duffy -- keyboard (Jim Duffy Combo, Martin's Folly, Rods and Cones)


• Bill Ruyle -- hammer dulcimer and tabla (Arthur Russell)


• Michael Evans -- drums and percussion (Alex Hacke, Anders Nilsson, God Is My Co-Pilot)

We'll have some public events coming up in November and December, so please stay tuned. This is some of the most challenging and rewarding music I have ever played. And to be on the bandstand with such high-caliber musicians is an honor. We have been rehearsing hard and often to get this music to bounce and shake the way it should.

Mitra Sumara. Say it a couple of times and it becomes natural.

As I write, the rain is beating against the windows. Here in New York, we're waiting for Hurricane Irene to roll in with gale force. We don't get too many hurricanes here in the city. I'm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the local businesses downstairs have boarded up their windows with plywood. The supermarket was crowded this morning, and in the bagel shop, people were buying bagels by the dozen. The news reports on the AM radio dial have come back into fashion.

So while I'm hunkered down, drinking too much coffee, let me tell you about about a band I'm in. It's an exciting project led by vocalist Yvette Perez -- a Persian pop and dance band. Yes, you heard right. We're called Mitra Sumara, and we've been rehearsing for a couple of months, getting ready to bust out and get you moving.

As I have learned from my involvement in this project, Iran had a vibrant pop music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. The Teheran nightlife was aglow with fast-moving, sinuous, sensuous music, some of which featured keening vocals by the fabulous Googoosh.

When the Islamic revolution moved in, this music was shut down and driven underground. Now, 35 years later, this music has broken through the asphalt of New York city, and Mitra Sumara will be ready to serve it to you, hot and fresh. For several years, Yvette, who is of Persian descent, has been studying Farsi language and studying this idiomatic brand of singing.

And she has assembled a group of fast-moving musicians who can handle the twists and turns of this frenetc music: Peter Zummo on trombone, Michael Evans on drums and percussion, Bill Ruyle on hammered dulcimer and percussion, Julian Maile on guitar, and yours truly on keys.

Mitra Sumara will play its first show in September, at a private party in the West Village. After that, we'll be hitting the clubs and the dancefloors, and I hope you'll avail yourself of this rare and exotic treat. Mitra Sumara -- you heard it here first!

Something a little different -- my good friend Chris Gray, a.k.a. C.S. Gray, will be playing two sets on Friday evening, July 22, at Banjo Jim's in the East Village. He asked me to fill in on bass guitar, and I was delighted to say yes.

Chris and I go way back. Back in the early 1990s, we co-founded the band Martin's Folly. Before anyone ever heard the term "roots rock," we started writing songs that portrayed what we liked best about the American music we loved. That was the pre-Internet, pre-download era, so we were more or less working in the dark. We made three albums that were produced by Eric "Roscoe" Ambel, and for five or six years we played in the New York clubs, up and down the East Coast, and out to Cleveland, Chicago, Nashville, Asheville and points in between.

After I veered off into instrumental music, Chris took his brand of songwriting, singing and guitar tone-making up to the next level, and his solo album "Shoot Out the Star" is finally getting the exposure it deserves. Like a vintage Neil Young album, "Shoot Out the Star" collects sessions done with various groups of musicians, some acoustic, some very electric.

On Friday the 22nd, Chris will be doing a quiet set of his own tunes, in a contemplative manner, on acoustic guitar and harmonica, with some special guests and surprises. I may play a bit of piano. Beyond that, I shall say no more about the "quiet" set.

And then Chris will plug in his amp for the warm, buzzy tone he is known for. On drums will be the swinging Karl Myers, and I'll be thumping the bass. And we may have more electric guitars on stage than you're supposed to. In our rehearsals, we're sounding quite bluesy and ... I don't quite know how to say this ... a bit British? It's something different. Some tunes are getting stretched out, other tunes are getting compressed. It's all a bit mysterious, but it sounds way cool, both raunchy and refined, and I can't wait to hear how it comes out.

So make it to Banjo Jim's on Friday, July 22, for this double-barreled show. It will be live, spontaneous and real, and it may not happen quite this way ever again.

Rods and Cones say love and thanks to everyone who came out to see our rare (and I hope well-done) performance at the Brighton Music Hall on May 14.

Special gratitude to Eddy Schneider, who thumped some fine bass guitar while I was on keys, and to our friends Linda Page and Gabby Agachiko, who provided some fine vocal harmonizing.

Chris Kelley, vocals and madness

Mike Napolitano, guitar

Gary France, guitar and vocals

Jim Duffy, bass, keyboard and vocals

Jim DiNardo, percussion and vocals

Chris DiNardo, drums

Eddy Schneider, bass

Linda Price, vocals

Gabby Agachiko, vocals

To see the full cast of characters performing "Come Sunday," please go here.

Photos by Kristen Westhoven:

To hear Rods and Cones' "Round Room" from 1983, "Education in Love" from 1985, and "Seventy-Seven Degrees" from 1996, please go to the Music page on this site.

Editor's note: Rods and Cones will be performing their first full-length show in 23 years on Saturday, May 14, 2011, at the Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston, Mass., 02134. For information and tickets, please go here.

"Education in Love," written by Rods and Cones, 1985, from the self-titled EP, produced by Alec Murphy and Rods and Cones. To hear "Education in Love," please go to the Music page on this website, and scroll down.

For the moment, let me talk about the music track of "Education in Love," as opposed to the video. (For info on the video, please go here, and to see the video, please go here.)

In 1984 and 1985, Rods and Cones went into the studio to record our first EP. Those were still the days when vinyl records were the norm, not a boutique item, and the barriers to entry were higher. We went to Polymedia Studio, which was Alec Murphy's (RIP) 16-track studio on Newbury Street in Boston. Over the course of several weeks, we recorded most of the tracks that appeared on the self-titled EP.

Then we tried to get fancy, and we spent days and days -- and too much money -- at the even higher-tech studio SynchroSound, which was owned and operated by the Cars. Synchro was 24-track, and the technology got on top of our heads. We'd spend hours and hours trying to get a sound on the snare drum, and it sounded like a tin can. Occasionally Ric Ocasek would poke his head into the studio and see what was happening.

We were a bit discouraged, but in the midst of it all, we were gigging like crazy, and we had a new tune, "Education in Love," that Alec felt would be a good kick off to the album. So we loaded our gear back into the comfort of Polymedia and banged out "Education in Love" in just one or two takes, and as I recall, Chris Kelley did the vocal track in one take.

It's a very simple song -- the whole thing is in one chord, and the vocals are on three notes. But it has a good beat, don't you think? We put it as track No. 1 on the self-titled EP, and it got a good response at WFNX in Lynn, Mass. Then, a week or two later, WBCN started spinning it. Meanwhile, a couple of Emerson College students, Kris Hockemeyer and Peter Martinez, produced an amusing video for the song (the video positively screams "1985," and I mean that in a good way).

All in all, a nice experience. Of course, we became saddled with this song and had to play it at every gig. Though a year or two later, we played at Jack's in Cambridge and went the whole night without playing "Education," and I thought that was rather daring.

Anyway, to hear "Education in Love," please go to the Music page on this site, and scroll down. As I now say in my best Don Kirschner voice, here is Rods and Cones' greatest hit, "Education in Love."

P.S., Chris Kelley sent me some MP3s of a live radio broadcast the Cones did on WERS-FM in the spring of 1985. Holy moly, I had not heard this in 25 years, and it's stirring up all kinds of feelings. I'm sure I'll have something to say about it, so please come back...

Rods and Cones will be performing on Saturday, May 14, 2011, at 10 p.m., at the Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave. in Allston, Mass., in the Boston area. This will be our first full-length show in 23 years. Also on the bill will be the Cinnamon Fuzz. For information and tickets, please go here.

To hear a sound clip of "Round Room" by Rods and Cones, recorded in 1983, please go to the Music page on this site.

"Round Room" by Rods and Cones, recorded in early 1983. Produced by Bob Slavin. Recorded at Sanctuary Studio, Shrewsbury, Mass.

That's Mike Napolitano on guitar, and Mike wrote the words, which were sung by Chris Kelley:

In a round room,

In a white room,

In a dead room,

I lay naked

And curse the cold.

"Round Room" was the first original tune of Rods and Cones, or at least the first one that stuck. We were jamming on that B minor thing, and when we came up with the break, we were so excited about it, we had to keep playing it. And the tune had that walking-down keyboard riff by Brian "Herm" Hess.

"Round Room" was produced by Bob Slavin, who was a Boston radio personality at the time. We had had a very serious meeting with Bob one night in the dressing room of the Channel. (I laugh as I type this.) Bob had never produced a record, and none of us had ever been inside a real studio.

That's Chris DiNardo with the portentious opening thump on the drums, then I get my big entrance on bass. We laid down multiple vocal tracks and a couple of percussion tracks -- that's Jim DiNardo on bongos galore. Our friend Jim Smith played alto sax.

In 1983, "Round Room" made the rounds as our calling card, on cassette, and WFNX in Lynn, Mass., started playing it. In 1984, "Round Room" appeared on a vinyl compilation called "Boston Rock and Roll Anthology, Vol. 3," which was released on "Count" Joe Viglione's label, Varulven Records.

Rods and Cones appearing Saturday, May 14, 9 p.m. at Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston, Mass. Also on the bill: Freezepop. (617) 779-0140.

 Back in the early 1980s, in Boston, the local music was in a state of flux. Anything could happen, the weirder the better. Bands were abandoning the typical rock and roll backbeat and trying other grooves, other instruments. As I look back, it seems that Rods and Cones were in the right place at the right time, though it didn’t always feel that way in 1982.

The local audience was enormous, of course, given all the college students – and recent graduates -- in the area. In Kenmore Square you had the Rat and Storyville, in Allston you had Bunratty’s, on the waterfront you had the enormous Channel club, in the Fenway you had the Jumpin’ Jack Flash club, which was a lot more fun than the name implies, and in Cambridge you had Jack’s, the beloved Inn-Square Mens Bar, and later T.T. the Bear’s (the Cones played at all those places and many others). The local radio was playing Boston bands, and the local press would write about the big noisemaker of the week. Conditions were ripe for anyone who had a musical instrument and a little nerve and some determination to create something different.

I’ve written about Rods and Cones a couple times. I was a 22-year-old bass player waiting tables in Harvard Square. At night I would go down to the basement and help create some odd, chugging, bleeping, growling tunes with my mates. For the record, I co-founded the band with keyboard player Brian "Herman" Hess. We recruited Chris Kelley to be our singer. On guitar was Mike Napolitano, on drums was Chris DiNardo, and on percussion was Jim DiNardo. In 1984, Napolitano left the band, and Gary France took over on guitar.

All in all, we had a good six-year run. We performed up and down the East Coast, we competed in the 1984 WBCN Rock and Roll Rumble, our tune “Round Room” appeared on a vinyl compilation album and got some airplay. We performed on the final night of the Inn-Square Men’s Bar, where we missed a chance to jam with Joe Perry. We opened up for Gary Glitter at the Channel – his first-ever U.S. show. (Should I really be bragging about that?) We opened for the late reggae great Dennis Brown at the Channel. We opened for Ebn Ozn at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence. We opened for The Call at the Living Room in Providence. We released an EP that included “Education in Love,” the video for which was in heavy rotation on V-66. We became semi-regulars at CBGB in New York, and some of our tracks were released on the short-lived CBGB record label. We played at a benefit concert, opening for X and Cheap Trick. One night down at CBGB, in about 1986, we opened for Lenny Kaye, and we handed a copy of our record to Jim Carroll. An hour later, as we were driving our van up the Bowery, we saw Carroll and his date, and he was spinning our record in his hands like a basketball!

As I’ve said before, there are worse ways to squander one’s youth.

The occasion for talking about all of this is that all these years later, we Rods and Cones are still in touch, and we all still play. The exception, of course, is our late colleague Brian “Herman” Hess, who died suddenly in 2004. I have written about Herm in a previous post.

In early 2010, Rods and Cones regrouped – with Napolitano and France in the band at the same time, and yours truly switching off between bass and keyboard -- and performed a few tunes at Boston’s House of Blues, at a V-66 tribute night. The show went so well that we are jamming even harder and deeper, and stretching out farther and putting together a full-length show. As I write this, I’m coming off a two-day rehearsal, and let me tell you, my central nervous system is positively pulsing with it, and it feels good.

Rods and Cones will be returning to play their first full-length show in 22 years on Saturday night, May 14, at the Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave. in Allston. More information here. Also on the bill will be the young, vibrant group Freezepop.

We’re putting some work into this show, to make it as intense as we can. If you heard us back in the day, I hope you’ll come out and see some old friends. If you weren’t there, then this is a chance to see what the fuss is about.

And thanks for listening.