The latest Black Star Safari includes a sighting of the never-seen-before-at-Tahoe Ten Foot Tiger.
Black Star Safari is the rock duo Dan Green and Matt Mandella, who met at music school and started the band while living at South Lake Tahoe. Ten Foot Tiger is a side-project band Green recently put together. The two groups will perform Friday, Sept. 29, in the American Legion Hall. Black Star Safari takes the stage first at 9 p.m. The cover is $8.
Ten Foot Tiger was created this summer to play at the For The Funk Of It Festival.
“Matt couldn’t make it so I put together a group of Sacramento musicians to jam,” Green told Tahoe Onstage. “After we had about two weeks of practice, we played the festival.
“For the first time in quite a while, I was nervous, but everyone just clicked once we hit the stage. It was very well received at the festival, and all of us agreed that we should keep it going. It just felt natural. We all have our main gigs, so this is side project for all of us. I just had a bunch of material that wouldn’t work with Black Star Safari.”
A Whittell High alumnus, Green plays guitar. He described the Ten Foot Tiger members.
Keyboard player Alex Agius: “I met him at Jazz Jam in Sacramento and he totally blew me away. So I knew we needed to play together.”
Drummer Billy Thompson: “I met him at the Davis Music Festival. He was playing with a Latin jazz band and we got along immediately.”
Bassist Mikey Palmer: “He’s a funk legend who plays with The Nibblers and Mumbo Gumbo. Black Star Safari had played a few gigs with his bands and had him sit in, so he was my first choice.”
The band’s sound?
“As far as styles goes, it’s truly all over the map, to define is to confine,” Green said. “We have funk, jazz, Latin, pop, ballads, blues, electronic, rock, folk. I’d like to think a little something for everyone.”
At the American Legion show, South Lake Tahoe artist Simone Sannazzaro will create a live painting.
Donations will be accepted for a GoFundMe account for hurricane victims in Culebra and Vieques, Puerto Rico.
-Tim Parsons
