Update: Thanks to a reader's comments, the post below has been edited to reflect that all three band members were born in Afghanistan.
New York City has the National. Minneapolis-St. Paul has the Hold Steady. Portland has the Shins. And Kabul has... Kabul Dreams?
While the aforementioned American cities are famous among music fans for the popular indie rock bands they've produced, if you're looking for the indiest city in the world for indie rock music, you might have to go Kabul, birthplace of Afghanistan's only rock band, Kabul Dreams.
Formed less than a year ago, Kabul Dreams is the result of a musical friendship formed between three young men who had returend to their native Afghanstian after having lived abroad as refugees: singer/guitarist Suleman Qardash, who had previously lived in Uzbekistan; bassist Siddique Ahmed, who had previously lived in Pakistan; and drummer Mujtaba Habibi, who had previously lived in Iran.
Already, the band has enjoyed great success in Kabul. It regularly plays concerts in the city's one and only nightclub to an audience of Western aid workers and diplomats. But the band, fresh off a 1,000 person show at a contemporary Asian music festival in Delhi and Jaipur, India, may soon outgrow the Kabul club scene. "We are aiming for big things," said Ahmed. "A record label, an international tour," Qardash added.
As for the band members' opinions on Afghan politics, Ahmed said that "They are talking about pulling out foreign troops. Nobody likes troops from another country in their country, but everybody knows that if the troops leave, the [Afghan factions] will start fighting each other again because that's their nature, that's what they do." Given the U.S. State Department's emphasis on cultural diplomacy and exchange, who knows what's in store for Kabul Dreams. (I'm hoping that Pitchfork will dispatch a foreign correspondent to keep us up-to-date.)