The Mistics of Matunuck

Luckily for me, my friend Sue not only has very good taste in music but also knows where to find it, which lead us to the Ocean Mist in Matunuck over the Fourth of July weekend after a hot day on the beach. The combination of ice cold drafts and the laidback environment would have been more than enough to ease into a long summer twilight, but combined with the sound of the Ocean Mistics, who get together Saturday afternoons at the Mist from 3:30 to 6:30 PM, it was remarkable.

The combination of steel guitar, fiddle, and lead guitar lent itself to a unique selection of tunes from "Dead Flowers" by the Rolling Stones as well as "Not Fade Away", to "Tiger By The Tail", a Nashville standard by George Jones, to an inventive, seemingly endless version of the Doors "Riders on the Storm". At one point, I decided to stroll down the beach in front, evoking memories of oceanside Caribbean bars , endless rum punches and Red Stripes , the band's solo riffs drifting over the gentle surf, a soundtrack for the slowly setting sun.

The Mistics lineup features Gary "Guitar" Gramolini, Steve "Sonny Boy" Burke, Dean Cassell, Mike Warner and Rick Russell. Gary Gramolini is best known for playing with John Cafferty and Beaver Brown. He prefers "...anything that connects back to the golden age music of the Twentieth Century, blues, country, the folk era, 60s' my generation awakening..." and goes on to list an electic mix of artists and music as influences, all of which are evident in the Mistics repertoire.

Sometimes the best music sneaks up on you, always a pleasant surprise when you don't know what to expect. Check out the Mistics Saturday afternoons at the Ocean Mist - you won't be disappointed!