When it comes to the ultimate feast of theatrical sight and musical sound, nothing comes close to Danyavaad and The Shimmy Sisters. Technically described, it\u2019s a mix of Middle Eastern sounds and belly dancers. But in truth, this is closer to a rock extravaganza. Guitar\/sitar hero Greg Vaughn, as well as dancers\/acrobats Leilania and Ocean Beach native Adelaide Marcus, provide both melody and spectacle and \u2014 in the case of the dancers \u2014 large snakes. Backed by the rhythm section of percussionist Gabriel Penix and Sandy Bagri, the group this month releases its long-awaited second album, “Nine Levels of Bliss.” “It\u2019s been six and half years since our first album, \u2018March of the Gypsies,\u2019” said Vaughn. “It was well worth the effort. We\u2019re really happy with the music. But to give you an idea of how long it took to get this project completed, I had finished some of my basic tracks for this album before the last one was released in 2008,” he said. The album updates the band\u2019s basic sound mix of sitar, bass and drums, with the addition of violin and other musical flourishes. Some parts of the disc border on psychedelia. “One of the biggest differences is that the girls are way more involved than they were on the first album. They do some spoken intros, vocals and even some percussion,” Vaughn said. While the music is rooted in Middle Eastern folk traditions, Vaughn said their sound has broad appeal. “We\u2019ve gone over well at all different types of events, from rock festivals to restaurants,” said Vaughn. “We always do real well. If we\u2019re given the chance.” He considers misconceptions about the group. “People often assume we just sort of sit there and play our music, sort of as a background thing. But that\u2019s not it at all. I\u2019m just as likely to be rolling on the floor with my sitar, like a rock star, if the moment is right. We\u2019ve had promoters come up after a show and tell us that they had been initially afraid to hire us because they didn\u2019t know what sort of show to expect but were really happy with what they said they saw and heard.” Vaughn acknowledges there is an air of circus around their shows, which he considers positive. “The fact that we are so exotic always pulls in big crowds when we perform at big events, even at things like a Renaissance faire,” he said. Vaughn said the troupe puts a lot of work into making its concerts a unique experience. “It\u2019s more than just the music or even the belly dancers,” he said. “There\u2019s costumes and snakes and fire and swords and so on. I might be running around like Eddie van Halen. It\u2019s a show. You put us on at a large event and we will outdraw just about anything, simply because we\u2019re the weirdest thing there.” Although he said he is thrilled with the reactions the group has received for the mix of dance and music, Vaughn considers the occasional comedic mishap during performance to be among his favorite moments. “We work with really good-natured snakes. They\u2019re just great,” Vaughn said. “But sometimes they get a little rambunctious and begin to wander a bit. On the dancers, it\u2019s not so bad. The dancers can readjust the snakes as needed. However, when they occasionally put the snakes on me, there can be humorous situations. I\u2019ve had a snake wrap itself around my sitar neck while I tried to play. For the band, as well as the audience, as you can imagine, it was high comedy. I\u2019m going to take a guess and say that\u2019s probably a hazard not a lot of other players have had to deal with.”
\nFor more information, visit www.danyavaad.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it comes to the ultimate feast of theatrical sight and musical sound, nothing comes close to Danyavaad and The Shimmy Sisters. Technically described, it\u2019s a mix of Middle Eastern sounds and belly dancers. But in truth, this is closer to a rock extravaganza. Guitar\/sitar hero Greg Vaughn, as well as dancers\/acrobats Leilania and Ocean […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":265741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Rockin\u2019 and shakin\u2019 the crowd: Danyavaad, The Shimmy Sisters continue mesmerizing tradition","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}