Blues Pig nears 25 years of performing around Longboat Key

It's probably safe to say Blues Pig is as ingrained in Longboat Key's music scene as sand is ingrained in island car floor mats. 

If you've been to a  Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key Lawn Party in the last decade, you've heard them.

If you set foot in Tiny's Lounge, when it was still open in Whitney Plaza, you've heard them.

If you've been to a Longboat Key Historical Society Old-Fashioned Fish Fry,  attended retirement parties around town or  Euphemia Haye’s 30th anniversary, well, you get the idea.  

“We have been playing Longboat a long time,” said Steve Mislyan, the band's frontman and a former police captain in town.  “There used to be a place called Tiny’s Lounge in Whitney Beach Shopping Mall and it was a little smoky hole in the wall, but it was a real blues bar. We had quite a following there.” 

Though the band also regularly plays on Anna Maria Island and elsewhere in Sarasota, the roots in Longboat Key are deep since forming in 1997.

The name refers to "passion, inspiration and gratitude,'' but also connects to Mislyan's love of "pigging out on the blues.''

Mislyan retired from the police department in 2009, and one of the members is James Linkogle, the projects manager of the building division of the town’s Public Works Department. He joined Blues Pig about 15 years ago after the band played at a town employee appreciation party and still plays with them to this day. 

“He can play guitar, he can play bass, he's a songwriter, a super-talented sound person, lighting person,” Mislyan said. “He can do it all, he’s a very capable individual and has been a blessing to be with the band.”

Mislyan the crew will be back to play the Lawn Party on Dec. 4 this year, which Mislyan said will be at least the 10th time Blues Pig has played there — he’s lost count over the years. He was actually part of the club for several years and was recruited to be a member after the first time he played the event. 

“John Wild, a longtime Longboat Kiwanian, he was the one that recruited us to start playing the luncheon,” Mislyan said. “He’s a big Blues Brothers fan, so he likes our setlist, because we’re kind of like a Blues Brothers type band, or we hope to be. Our goal is, we keep working at this, the goal is to tell a story in a show, kind of like the Blues Brothers did.” 

If you follow the band’s history, you’ll find plenty of stories in their shows, with characters that often include nonprofit organizations, local legends and true blues grit.

In 2001, they played Skipper Smokehouse in Tampa and helped raise $10,000 for the New York City Fire Department in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

One of the first times they played on the island was at a retirement party for a Longboat Key firefighter, and about 10 years ago, Mislyan and crew took their instruments to sea to play for the employees of Euphemia Haye on the restaurant’s 30th anniversary.

Mislyan said it’s one of the coolest gigs he’s ever had. 

“D’Arcy and Ray (Arpke, owners) closed the restaurant, put all the employees on a bus and they went out on a boat for an employee appreciation thing,” Mislyan said. “We played on the roof of LaBarge and cruised around Sarasota Bay when an electrical storm moved in. And I'll never forget being out on the roof of this party boat, plugged into a 100 watt Fender (amp), but the people kept dancing, and we kept playing. God looked out for that look out for us that day because we made it back in one piece.”

+++Where to see the blues

Mislyan and crew will be at the Lawn Party from noon until 2 p.m. on Dec. 4 at the Town Center Green at 600 Bay Isles Road. General admission tickets to the Lawn Party are $75. Visit LBKLawnParty.org for information. 

+++The sounds of the blues  

In a Blues Pig show, your ears will get a trip down the Mississippi before hanging a hard turn west into Texas. They’ll start with Chicago blues, go on down to the Big Easy with some New Orleans styles and end up in Texas with tributes to the greats of Texas blues like Stevie Ray Vaugn and Freddie King.

You’ll even hear the same era-accurate sounds you might’ve heard back in the day. Mislyan and the rest of Blues Pig play vintage instruments from the 1950s and 1960s to play their sets, like old tube amplifiers and Mislyan’s custom Stratocaster guitar from the 1960s. The goal is to make it sound like the songs did when they were recorded.

“Blues Pig as a band is trying to carry on the tradition of old-time blues, like the early electric blues in the 1950s and 1960s,” Mislyan. “We’re playing American roots music. Rock-and-roll came from the blues, and we try to pay tribute to that and capture the same sound, the same tone, by using the vintage instruments.”