JUANA GHANI and THE HIGHWAY THIEVES to appear at Kamikaze’s March 29,
2014
Acoustic
Gypsy punk band
Juana Ghani joins forces with Ogden’s The Highway Thieves
on Saturday, March 29, 2014 at Kamikaze’s.
Ogden, Utah
–Bands Juana Ghani and The HighwayThieves will perform together for the first time at Kamikaze’s (2404 Adams
Ave.) in Ogden on Saturday, March 29, 2014.With a total of 17 musicians
between the two bands and a bevy of the best Gypsy belly dancers around, the
night promises to be filled with a contagiously entertaining Gypsy punk madness
and mayhem.
Ogden’s very
own The Highway Thieves (http://www.reverbnation.com/thehighwaythieves) embrace their whiskey driven folk
rock and offer no apologies.With
original songs full of rebellion, “in your face” honesty, and a sense of humor,
they never fail to bring the audience to their feet and leave them screaming
for more.
Eclectic Gypsy
punks Juana Ghani (www.juanaghani.com) are known for their always titillating live shows and songs that are
full of “semi-nightmarish fantasies of violence, revenge, desire and struggle”
(Savannah Turk, City Weekly) and music that is “full of love, death, sex,
grief, passion and vodka.”(Oliver Arditi, LiveUnsigned) Their live shows not
only bring fabulously infectious original music, but often include the area’s
most amazing belly dancers and performance artists.
Kamikaze’s is
located at 2404 Adams Avenue in Ogden, Utah. Tickets are $5 at the door.
Doors open at 9:00 p.m. Music begins at 10:00 p.m.Must be 21-years or older to attend.
Every song not only tells a story, there’s a story behind
its creation.In the case of “We Don’t
Remember,” the story is of a dream.Brian’s dream.He woke up early
one morning with the images of this dream still vibrant in his memory and
immediately went to the kitchen table to write it all down.Three pages later, I came stumbling out of
the bedroom to find him busily scratching away with pen on paper.When he finished writing it all down, he
handed the stack of papers to me, saying, “Juana Ghani visited me last night.”I sat there with my coffee, reading the
details of his dream, and was pulled into this world as he glimpsed it,
eavesdropping on his conversation with this lady.Once done reading, I returned to our bedroom
and retrieved my dream/inspiration notebook and handed it to him, opened to a
page where I had scribbled, “It’s written on our souls.Did we really come all this way and not know
what we came here for?”We looked at each
other and knew this song had just been born.
We Don't Remember
I sat alone in a cafรฉ bar
(I came there)
A Russian queen, a small and wispy thing
(He seemed to know)
It was so simple and so pure
(What could it mean?)
Looking up, she (I) walked out of a (his) dream.
They say we don’t remember
But it’s written on our souls.
Did we really come all this way
And not know what we came here for?
We embraced, his hands on the lace
(I held her close)
Stretched across the coin belt on my waist
(She’s really here)
I’ll sing to him the story of my loss
(I’ll give voice to her thoughts)
And run dancing into the dawn.
They say we don’t remember
But it’s written on our souls.
Did we really come all this way
And not know what we came here for?
Just … leave … ride … time
Just leave what you’ve known behind.
Ride this dream while we still have the time.
With her kiss, she opened up my mind
(Give up the past)
Showed me how to leave what was behind
(You’re free at last)
All I need is to call her name
(You know my name)
We’ll create a world that’s not the same.
They say we don’t remember
But it’s written on our souls.
Did we really come all this way
And not know what we came here for?
Just leave what you’ve known behind.
Ride this dream while we still have the time.
One night, back when Brian and I first started writing songs
together, I was sitting on the couch with my foot up (I was recovering from
surgery on my foot) when Brian came into the room and said he wanted to write a
sad song.“How sad?” I asked.“Really sad,” he answered, “the saddest.”He went back into the studio and started
writing and arranging the music, leaving me on the couch (with a brain full of
post-surgery painkillers) to write the lyrics.
As you can tell from some of these lyrics, I am a big fan of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass
(the books, not the movies – although the movies are really good).In fact, the original working title for this
song was “The Incredible Sadness of Alice” but the Tim Burton movie (the one
with Johnny Depp *swoon*) came out just as we finished writing the song, so we
had to change the name a bit.But why
did we choose to change the name from Alice to Sonia?Well …
Sonia is another name for Sophia.Sophia is a goddess of wisdom.While the song deals overtly with depression
and suicide, the sub context is the death of wisdom (the ability to make
correct judgments and decisions based on experience) by the accumulation of too
much knowledge (information gained through researching a subject, with the
intention to use it for a purpose).In
today’s world, it often seems that people are so full of knowledge and facts
that they no longer realize or embrace the wisdom of personal experience.As T.S. Elliott asked, “Where is the wisdom
we have lost in knowledge?”
Incidentally, this is also a theme in the book Kasojeni Bay
that Brian wrote (you can order a copy here or here or here).In this book, he meets Sonia and learns about
the depth and reason behind her incredible sadness and, in the process,
rediscovers his own true wisdom.If you
ever wondered how our songs all tie together, this is the book for you.
The Incredible Sadness of Sonia
In a garden full of little heads
The cat no longer smiled
Mad as any hatter
She looked around and sighed
Children laughing at her
She turned her back and cried
She turned her head and lied
Then turned off her mind and died
Did you hear of what happened?
She died in the black of the night
She was a precious child
She was her daddy’s smile
All that remains is a dream
Did you hear of what happened?
She died in the black of the night
Now my poor heart it seems
Is all shredded and cold
For my dear Sonia
Like the Woolf before her
She loaded her pockets with stones
And not looking back
She waded in deeper
“It’s cold,” she gasped, “Oh, so cold.”
Wine-soaked and sleep deprived
She’d somehow lost her way
With silent screams of apathy
She hummed the song of day
Did you hear of what happened?
She died in the black of the night
She was a precious child
She was her daddy’s smile
All that remains is a dream
Did you hear of what happened?
She died in the black of the night
Now my poor heart it seems
Is all shredded and cold
For my dear Sonia
Sonia, cara mia, quanto ti amo
Non รจ giusto che ne sei andata
The ghostly embrace of winter’s first kiss
On Ferris wheels in the dark
She gestured with a hand that shook
With the sadness of her soul
The rabbit hole is empty now
The hatter’s no longer mad
The Cheshire cat no longer smiles
The Red Queen only laughs
Did you hear of what happened?
She died in the black of the night
She was a precious child
She was her daddy’s smile
All that remains is a dream
Did you hear of what happened?
She died in the black of the night
Now my poor heart it seems
Is all shredded and cold
