The great thing about the Stumblin' Inn is that owners Steve and Jim Goff give every musician who walked through the door and had the courage to ask for a spot on the stage a chance to perform.
They did it for Dylan Desmit when he was first starting his music career.
"The first time we were here, my keyboard player put my amp through the window," Desmit said. "I was mortified. I thought for sure we would never play here again but Jim just kind of laughed it off. We’ve been playing here ever since and it just felt like a second home."
Desmit lost count of how many times he played the Stumblin', whether with one of his bands for an acoustic open mic night.
So many musicians have benefited from the largess of the Goffs that many of them are coming together for one more Thursday open mic nite in Elba where they will play music and pass the hat to raise money to assist Steve and Jim, who lost not just their business but their homes in a fire July 8.
Desmit and Paul Draper (who had last-minute work commitments that kept him from participating in the photo above) organized the event for tonight, starting at 8 p.m. in front of Chap's Elba Diner, and Desmit said the outpouring of musicians wanting to help Steve and Jim has been substantial.
The Stumblin' Inn was the place in the area for local musicians to congregate and get a chance to be heard and those musicians want to repay the favor.
"I saw someone compared it to the Penny Arcade in Rochester and that’s pretty much, yeah, every local band, ever, played here," Desmit said. "There’s so many musicians, and judging by the reaction on Facebook for the benefit, there are so many people devastated by losing it."
