Marianne Paton Now playing each Monday evening at Miceli’s Restaurant in Matlacha is 4the newly formed band Skinny Water. Teaming up are local musicians Tim Kelly, Kip Lawrence, Bob Brandt and Jim Seldin.

Any day of the week, residents and visitors of Pine Island can spend an evening enjoying music from local performers. Choose from oldies to modern rock, one only needs to decide whether to take a right or left out of the driveway to find a variety of musical offerings. Recently one more option has appeared on the scene. Spear headed by Matlacha’s own Kip Lawrence is a new group, “Skinny Water” which is performing what they call “Seagrass” music. According to Lawrence, the music style of his new group is a combination of genres including bluegrass, folk and blues.

“Our music, which we call seagrass, has an emphasis on bluegrass-style picking incorporating originality with some pretty nifty tunes,” Lawrence said. “As for the name of the group, we are calling it Skinny Water because it reflects the area we live in. This term means the water is shallow enough to be able to strand your boat in.”

Band members include front man and guitarist Kip Lawrence, Bob Brandt on bass, Tim Kelly on percussion and Jim Seldin on dobro.

Kip Lawrence has earn recognition through is membership with the popular band the Yard Dogs. An accomplished songwriter, Kip has produce serval solo CDs containing his original melodies as well as playing guitjo and writing songs for the Yard Dogs. Prior to the Yard Dogs, Kip also had a very successful run as a solo performer in his own right. He also was the first to establish the Southwest Florida Blues Festival now under the guidance of the Matlacha Mariners and has been responsible for organizing many free concerts to benefit a number of island charities.

For more then 45 years, Bob Brandt has played bass guitar along side his brothers in the group Ronnie Don’t Call Me Ronnie. The group ran the gambit from Classic Rock to Chicago Blues with numerous cover pieces ranging from Jimi Hendrix to James Taylor and much more.

As a member of the Aimee Linn Band, Tim Kelly honed his skills as an accomplished percussionist. With his performances with Aimee Linn, he has master the art of playing the most popular songs from the last four decades including blues and new and classic rock.

Hailing from the Tampa area, Jim Seldin’s performance on the dobro or resonating guitar, captivates the audience with his seemingly effortless slide guitar work.

“I have always wanted to start a new band. Of course I am still with the Yard Dogs and I love those guys, but sometimes you just have to stretch your brain a little,” said Lawrence. “I was real lucky. Bob Brandt agreed to play bass for me and just arrived is Tim who joined up on percussion. Then in November we were joined by Jim Seldin and I think we will play a style of music like a mixture of bluegrass with an island sound. The result is what we have dubbed “seagrass” music.”

Skinny Water can be seen each Monday evening at Miceli’s Restaurant in Matlacha from 6 to 9 p.m.