BY ROXANA HADADI

When it comes to gypsy punk, America has Gogol Bordello, a band from New York City’s Lower East Side made up of Eastern European immigrants and known for kooky outfits and drunken dance parties, and Iran has 127, a group of six young artists and art students from the nation’s capital, Tehran, who make their music illegally and list influences as varied as Iggy Pop and Miles Davis.

It’s fitting, then, that the two would be top friends on MySpace.

Arguably one of Iran’s most popular underground modern rock groups and the first to tour the United States, 127 (that’s “one hundred and twenty-seven,” not “one twenty-seven”), experiments in everything from jazz to ska to traditional Iranian folk; has recorded and released three records in the past three years (without the government’s permission); and recently dropped their latest album, Khal Punk, to much critical acclaim. Their music has piqued the attention of both Iranians and hipsters alike, with descriptive lyrics that speak of the hardships associated with living in Iran, from the isolation citizens feel from their government (“Soldiers of the Lost Brigade”) to dealing with foreigners thinking you’re a terrorist (“My Sweet Little Terrorist Song”) to not being able to get any decent kabob (“Hamash Dood Bood,” translated from Farsi to English as “There was Always Smoke”).

It was that unlikely mix of Iranians and hipsters – with an overwhelming number of the former – that showed up Sunday at the Black Cat in Washington to see 127 play at the club’s small first-floor stage. But four out of the band’s six members couldn’t make it into the United States, explained singer Sohrab Mohebbi, leaving just him and Salmak Khaledi on trombone and tombak, a traditional Persian goblet drum.

“They call us a gypsy punk band, but the authorities didn’t let us all come,” Mohebbi said. “So it’s just me and the guy on a trombone.”

With more than half of the band – including piano, bass and drums – missing, 127’s sound Sunday was far different from what listeners have heard on the band’s albums. But this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing – Mohebbi’s and Khaledi’s performance was a spirited, lively, rambunctiously raucous affair that led this reviewer to wish the entire band had been there and proved that 127 is one of those few, rare groups that sounds better live than they do recorded.

Mohebbi, adorned with a pair of red devil’s horns, started things off with “My Sweet Little Terrorist Song,” a half-sarcastic, half-honest diatribe against President George W. Bush’s label of Iran as one-third of the “axis of evil.” Accompanied by Khaledi, who jumped off the stage and skanked through the crowd, playing his trombone all the while, Mohebbi sang about how “I just wanna watch Dylan live/ I won’t fly into the Pentagon alive” and “Don’t touch me, cuz I just might blow!”

The group sang its next song, “Soldiers of the Lost Brigade,” in English as well, a move Mohebbi jokingly explained to the Iranian crowd as a way “to communicate with the foreign population.” “Soldiers of the Lost Brigade” is the “story of the band,” Mohebbi added, and its lyrics are desperately, morosely understandable: “We are the soldiers of the lost brigade/ That’s what our captain said”; “Every day is the same/ No one remembers our names”; and “All our heroes are dead.” Weighty stuff.

But it wasn’t all heavy – only one song later, Mohebbi himself was done with being depressing. “Preaching is over, it’s time to party!” he yelled, launching into “Pay the Price,” a song partly in English, partly in Farsi about the frustrations associated with an Iranian love affair: “I’ll pay whatever the price/ To get around the scarf.” Add Khaledi flailing around like a madman within a circle of cheering, clapping onlookers and, for all you knew, you could have been at an against-the-rules house party in the band’s hometown of Tehran.

That vibe continued throughout the rest of the night, as Mohebbi and Khaledi performed several other songs (mostly in Farsi); constantly asked for their vocals and instruments to be turned up; and relied on a Macbook to provide the beats their lost bandmembers could not. Audience members ate up the ska-influenced “Ostekhoon,” or “Bones,” turning its chorus into a shout-and-answer session (“Een dast ostekhoon,” Mohebbi would sing, and “Nadareh!” the chorus would shout back, completing the line of “This hand doesn’t have bones”); gazed adoringly during “Man Kiam?,” an existential musing on “Man kiam?/ Man chiam?/ Oon kia?/ Een chia?” or “Who am I?/ What am I?/ Who is that?/ What is this?”; and danced like crazy during “Pop Politics,” the set’s original closer, for which 127 invited opening band Bows and Arrows onstage to play with them – and audience members invited themselves onstage, too.

Yet chants of “Sohrab is so hot!” and “Dobareh!” (“Again!”) brought the pair back for more – and they took the opportunity to encourage the crowd to buy T-shirts and copies of Khal Punk (“Buy our CDs and T-shirts, and you will go to heaven,” Khaledi joked in Farsi) and spur the crowd into more dance fever. First came “Khosro-e Khooban,” then “Hamash Dood Bood,” then the final song, “Mellat-e Sarfaraz.”

As the dozens of audience members continued to bust both traditional Iranian and more modern Western dance moves, Khaledi and Mohebbi weaved throughout the crowd – following Gogol Bordello’s footsteps in breaking the fourth wall in the best (and most punk rock) of ways.

[All photos by Adam Fried]