27 Club member Soroush”Looloosh” Farazmand from the band The Yellow Dogs, entered the Forever 27 Club Nov 11, 2013.
It’s odd that so many musician enter this famous club at the age of 27.
What led to Soroush”Looloosh” Farazmand fate? Why is he a forever 27 club hall of famer?
Well, many musicians have died tragically at the age of 27. Since, such artist die at this young age and will never turn 28 , they will be forever 27, as a result. Hence the name for the Forever 27 Club.
In this post were going to discus how Soroush”Looloosh” Farazmand entered this famous 27 Club.
The Yellow Dogs
The Yellow Dogs were an Iranian-American rock band that formed in 2006 without approval from their oppressive government. Since their music was not approved by Iran’s Ministry of Culture in Iran , it was illegal.
Starting in Tehran, Iran, they fled to Brooklyn, NY to pursue music and art, after rising to fame in a film about the underground music scene there.
In 2009, they performed in No One Knows About Persian Cats, directed by Bahman Ghobadi. The film won high praise at the Cannes Film Festival. It was certainly an award-winning film. Additionally, Reza Sayah of CNN International interviewed the band before leaving Iran.
Later that year, the U.S. government interviewed the band at the U.S. embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. An unclassified U.S. State Department document, “Iran/culture: So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star”, was later published and released by Wikileaks. Perhaps contact with the U.S. Government angered the wrong people.
Furthermore, they also played their first legal concert January 2010, in Istanbul, and two days later flew to the New York .
Life in The U.S.
A year after they performed in No One Knows About Persian Cats, Milan Record released the movie soundtrack in 2010, featuring the Yellow Dogs song “New Century”. A year later, the band released their first official EP, In the Kennel, in association with Neverheard, an Iranian label based in Brooklyn.
Additionally, the bandmates and their friends formed a fraternity of Iranian émigrés who lived, sang, and cooked together.
The band consisted of four founding members:
Two of the band’s founding members were brothers, Soroush “Looloosh” (age 27) and Arash (age 28).
A former friend shot and killed both brothers in their Brooklyn apartment on November 11, 2013. A fellow Iranian musician, Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie, who was also apart of their Iranian circle of friends, shot them dead.
But save your questions….
We’ll come back to this murder story shortly.
Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie
Among The Yellow Dogs circle was Ali Akbar Rafie. He became known to them as a bsssist for The Free Keys. He hovered on the edges of their fraternity.
He too, was an Iranian musician who had also fled from Tehran to New York as a political refugee in late 2011, and became roommates with the members of Yellow Dogs.
Despite his newfound opportunities in America, he had a hard time adjusting to his new life. Some would say that life seemed harder for poor Rafie. He had trouble adjusting because he was broke, short tempered, picked fights, and as a result, he didn’t really fit in. Additionally, he sent wild, unhinged messages, which caused his musical brothers to engage less and less with him.
Although Rafie had never been an official member of the Yellow Dogs, however he hung out with them a lot.
Out of Band, Out of Mind
Ali Akbar Rafie was in another band from Iran, The Free Keys, that he, Arash Farazmand (from Yellow Dogs) and another musician Pooya Hosseini, had formed in Tehran. In 2012, the other members forced him out of the progressive-rock band for his erratic behavior and abrasive personality.
The Free Keys kicked Rafie out of the band and replaced him with another bassist. This event increased his growing isolation with the Iranian expatriates. Of course, this was one of many factors that contributed to his problems in life.
According to Azar, the bassist that replaced Rafie in The Free Keys:
” Rafie would provoke the others, seemingly for no reason, and then just laugh in their faces.”
Tensions grew high, because he was frequently borrowing money he wouldn’t pay back, and often picking fights with someone in their extended group. The members of The Yellow Dogs began to spend time away from their apartment as Rafie pushed them away with this antics. Rafie was no longer welcome in their circle. They avoided him and refused his calls. Eventually, Rafie moved out and the band moved to a different apartment.
Rafie tried getting back in the group, weeks after they cut ties. He enlisted relatives to ask members of the Free Keys to let him rejoin. Of course, his attempts were unsuccessful. He had burned all of his bridges.
Weeks Before the Shooting
Ail Akbar Rafie’s isolation became troubling as it deepened. As months had passed, his isolation since he had contact with the Yellow Dogs only grew.
What’s more, he messaged friends, ranting about the Freemasons and mysterious packages the secretive group had allegedly ordered him to deliver around Manhattan. His mother and friends became concerned about his unstable mental condition.
Somehow, during these weeks Ali Akbar Rafie illegally acquired a .308-caliber rifle. Police later traced that rifle to a store that had gone of out business.
What is equally important to note is that Rafie’s visa expired in May of 2012, yet he remained in the States.
A month before the murders, in his unstable condition, Rafie attempted suicide a drug overdose, but failed. Shortly after, according to the images on his Facebook profile, he posted a photo of the gun that he had illegally obtained and wrote:
“I wonder who to shoot first”
He later followed up on that post and said that he planned to single out Mr. Azar and asked for his address.
Fortunately,
Mr. Azar left The Free Keys a week before the shooting, which saved him from the tragic fate that his colleagues faced weeks later.
Now..
The murder story that you’ve been waiting for.
The Shooting that Killed The Yellow Dogs
On Nov. 11, 2013 , Ali Akbar Rafie shot all four members of the band, killing his three former friends, guys that befriended him when he first came to America in 2011.
- As you may know, two of the four dead were brothers in the band The Yellow Dogs. They were guitarist Soroush Farazmand, 27, better known as “Looloosh,” and drummer Arash Farazmand, 28.
- The third man killed was singer Ali Eskandarian, a 35-year-old musician with another Iranian indie rock band.
- After Rafie shot and killed his former friends, he then committed suicide. He turned the gun on himself and shot a bullet through his head, on the roof of the apartment building.
- Lastly, the fourth man, 22-year-old Sasan Sadeghpourosko, survived the shooting. Rafie shot him twice in his right arm and he luckily survived the massacre.
The shooting took place in the band’s Brooklyn apartment, after an apparent dispute over money. However, after his recent attempts to get back in the band, he was most likely angry. Clearly, Rafie took more drastic actions after his attempt to rejoin his old group failed.
Also present in this Brooklyn apartment was Pooy Hosseini, the Free Keys front man. Hosseini lunged at Mr. Rafie and fought with him over the gun. That’s how he narrowly escaped getting shot himself.
As a result, fate ended The Yellow Dogs. The two surviving members were not present when the shooting occurred. They are singer Siavash “Obash” Karampour and bass player Koory Mirzeai.
Is the 27 Club Responsible for the Yellow Dogs’ Fate?
Psycho killer or Conspiracy?
Who can know for sure.
Before the Yellow Dogs got their fame and played their first legal concert, they were an underground band that would play at closed-door concerts in sound-proofed basements or warehouses in isolated neighborhoods. The Iranian police occasionally raided these shows.
This is important to note.
One raid led to the detention of one band member, under the official charge of “Satan worship”.
What our readers must remember is that, in the week before this massacre, Ali Akbar Rafie suddenly started ranting about the Freemasons and his connections to them.
Why was he talking about the Illuminiti weeks before this event? Was the secretive group involved?
Not to mention, Ali Akbar Rafie somehow acquired a .308-caliber rifle. Did the Freemasons give it to him?
Is it possible that the Illuminati is involved? Did the Yellow Dogs sell their souls for fame? Could that explain the “Satan workshop” reported to be a part of their underground shows?
Did the Illuminati or Freemasons task Rafie with fulfilling some dark pact and sacrificing these musicians? Did the oppressive Iranian government order the killings?
Unfortunately we will never truly know because they are dead.
Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
