Hello all - no, Joe has not become a blond woman over spring break. I am the woman behind the man in this publication, the assistant as it were.
And I am invading Cup o' Joe this week.
Why? Well, in case you haven't noticed, our cover story this week involves Tempe's beloved hippie hangout - Sail Inn. I love this place.
To be honest, when I moved to Tempe I wasn't too impressed with the bar scene. I'm not the type to strap on some uncomfortable shoes and a skirt that shows my ass just to pay a fortune to get into a bar that hosts a DJ spinning some kind of horrible crap. But that's just me, and to clarify my stance: I'm from Wisconsin. Suddenly my credibility on music, I'm sure, has flown out the window for some of you.
I thought this was the type of lifestyle I'd have to live in order to be social here though, and stuck it out for a year or so before just going antisocial.
Until, that is, I stepped foot into the Sail Inn. Nostalgic feelings of sitting in a basement in the Midwest flooded back to me. Live music reverberated in the small, concrete room while people dressed in jeans and T-shirts sipped beers and danced in circles like children.
Staff writer Matthew Garcia who is responsible for Swan Song and the others who accompanied us, agreed this was where we would live on weekends. Young bra-less mothers carrying children on their backs, old Santa Claus look-a-likes dressed in tie-dye and broke students like ourselves danced with us for hours. We left, sweaty and tired but content. We found a place that didn't care who we were or what we did.
And we wished there were more places like it in Tempe.
Unfortunately, there aren't. Amazing jam bands like Kindred, The High Grass Pickers and The Overtones made their home in this small bar on Farmer Avenue and First Street, not only because they feel the same hominess about it like I do, but also because Tempe does not open its arms to these types of groups.
While places like The Brickyard, RA and others have taken Sail Inn's space on Mill Avenue cater to the professional crowd, the small neighborhood bar humbly sits in a corner of Tempe that they continue to hold onto despite the urban developments springing up around them.
My nightmare, along with other loyal Sail Inn patrons, is that Sail Inn will get torn down or replaced with a Saki's or condominium.
But until that day, I will dance the nights away with a group I can be social with to music I love.
