Welcome to the inaugural episode of Common Thread.

This podcast will explore territory beyond the typical interview questions about musical influences and favorite bands. It will feature organic discussions that illuminate how hardcore and punk rock influenced the trajectory of our lives in unexpected ways.

Common Thread will showcase authentic conversations with small business owners, educators, activists, artists and people who have lived unique and interesting lives. We will introduce you to individuals who have found ways to apply the values, philosophies, and sense of community found in hardcore punk to overcome obstacles, resolve problems using innovative solutions, and forge their own path in life.

In this three-part episode, co-hosts Rory Van Grol and Greg Benoit talk about the role hardcore had in influencing their adolescence years, their choices as parents, their role as the leaders of Ugly Duck Coffee and Irondequoit Public Library respectively, and their shared experience overcoming past trauma. Rory discusses his move from Rochester, NY to Rhode Island, how he came to be in Soul Control, his eventual move back to Rochester, and the founding of Ugly Duck Coffee. Greg discusses his career as a public librarian, how late 90s hardcore show fliers influenced the way people in the Rochester area learned about ebooks, and how he came to occupy a leadership role in public libraries.

This conversation is as inviting and humorous as it is vulnerable and unvarnished., and sets the pace and tone for future interviews.

This episode was recorded using a Zoom 2H4n Pro microphone and Blue Snowball microphone, and was edited with Audacity. If you live in the Rochester area you can borrow these microphones for free from the 1839 Maker's Lab located at the Irondequoit Public Library to record a podcast, oral histories, interviews, and live music. The 1839 Maker's Lab also features a high end PC that you can use to edit your audio recording using Audacity. Visit irondequoitlibrary.org/services/makers-lab for more information.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mind of Magnus

Check out Mind of Magnus at magnusapollo.com, and leave him factoids at 585-310-2473! https://mind-of-magnus.captivate.fm

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Common Thread.

I'm Greg Benoit.

This podcast will explore territory beyond the typical interview, questions about musical influences and favorite bands.

It will feature organic discussions that illuminate how hardcore and punk rock influence the trajectory of our lives in unexpected ways.

Common Thread will feature authentic conversations with small business owners, educators, activists, artists, and people who have lived unique and interesting lives.

We will introduce you to individuals who have found ways to apply the values, philosophies, and sense of community found in hardcore punk to overcome obstacles, resolve problems using innovative solutions, and forge their own path in life.

In this three part episode, my co host, Rory Van Grohl and I talk about how hardcore has influenced our choices as parents, our ability to lead people in the workplace, and our shared experience overcoming past trauma.

Our conversation is as inviting and humorous as it is vulnerable and unvarnished.

Thank you for joining us.

Let's get started.

It's always funny, like, being in a service environment and someone will tag you on, like, Instagram or like, oh, Aziz Ansari was here.

Like, what is going on?

Like, just like wild, Wild stuff.

Yeah, like at work, at the library, we get a little bit of that.

I feel like Ugly Duck is a more hip place than the library, although libraries are pretty hip sometimes too.

But I've like, done Evan Dawson a handful of times, which I know I've heard you on.

And it always, it always, like, not that he's like a huge celebrity or anything, but you get a little.

You get a little star struck and then you like encounter people and they're like, I heard you on the radio.

And you're like, oh, wow.

I'm like, I'm like an adult doing an important thing in the community.

So let's, let's talk about what this podcast might entail.

Yeah.

So I think.

I think at least the first couple episodes will probably mostly be people who know us either through bands or through the last podcast that I did.

But just quickly, who are you?

Where are you?

At the high school reunion summary of what your life is to bring everyone up to speed who maybe, you know, hasn't checked in on you in a little while.

Yeah.

So Rory Van Grohl, and I'm the owner, operator of Ugly Duck Coffee in Rochester, New York.

We turned 10 this year, which is pretty awesome.

And that's where I'm at.

That's the big picture.

You know, father, married husband, two kids.

How old are they?

Six and nine.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

And then you've got.

You've got Achilles still, which is.

Yeah, yeah.

Bandwise, yeah.

Achilles, which is.

So, yeah, last year was okay.

Wild.

Yeah.

So, you know, Achilles will never.

We've talked about it like will never go away just because we're all friends.

It was Josh's birthday the other day, so it's like, you know, like we stay in touch even though everyone besides Rob and I are somewhere else on.

Either on the west coast or wherever because we just added Phil Speed as another guitar player and he lives in Maryland now.

But you know, whenever the possibility arises, we come back to each other and it's.

It's a friendship more than anything.

And it's.

That's.

There's a beauty in that.

Yeah.

It's nice to see a band in Rochester playing, you know, the kind of music I like that's been around for as long as Achilles has.

Because in some ways it like adds continuity to the scene as a whole.

Because you've been there for like 20 years, popping up at shows periodically, doing shows.

You've also got hard to know which is the.

The newer of your.

Your three bands that you're in now and is a little more, I think, traditional hardcore.

What do they call now, like capital H hardcore?

Is that what they call.

Is it a genius?

I don't know.

You're like not quite old school hardcore, so you can't say that it's that.

But yeah, there's been a def line at this point.

Right.

Like there's.

When I feel like when we started going to shows, there was like old school, new school hardcore.

Now it's like so broad, like it's so wild.

It would be like.

It would be like the old school, like youth of today and earlier.

And then you'd have like hardcore which would be like.

There'd be heavier breakdowns and then you'd have metal core.

And that was like the three distinct.

And now there's like heavy hardcore.

And somehow that's just.

That's like different than Beat down.

Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, I'm losing track here.

And then even within Old School, it's like you got old school hardcore, but then there's like two step hardcore.

It's like every song's got a two step part.

So.

And I think of all your bands, probably hard to know is the one that resonates the most with me.

But I like all of them.

And then still coming down.

And how old is coming down now too?

Is that like 10?

10 years?

Okay, okay.

Which is crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I sometimes think about where I was like 20 years ago.

And right now in my life, that feels closer to me than stuff that was like eight or 10 years ago to me for some reason.

But man, 10 years is an important milestone for the business and, and for the band.

Okay, so we've got.

Those are your three active bands.

You don't have anything.

You don't have any other.

Any other titles or, you know.

No, that's.

I mean, you know, besides being a parent, you know, that's kind of.

Yeah.

Takes up everything I have at the moment, you know, nothing else adding.

Yeah.

All right, so then for me, and I think people who know both of us will probably know we were in Witness together and that's probably the band that most people who know me from back in the day are familiar with.

But I've been like you in, you know, sort of.

Yeah.

Of Wolves and now World Purge and then like Sundry Joke bands that, you know, maybe played a show or didn't.

Didn't.

Didn't play a show, but made a, you know, like a lame recording in a basement somewhere.

So that's like my hardcore cred.

And then my.

My day job is.

I'm the director of the Irondequoit Public Library.

I've been.

I've been doing that for.

For five years now.

And I'm super proud to be there.

It's a beautiful building.

It's a great community, I think of it.

You know, it's a job, obviously, but it's also a platform for me to kind of help the community get involved in other people's lives and help them on their own terms, improve their life.

I've had a lot of really meaningful experiences connecting with.

With folks through the library.

I've helped, you know, people complete immigration paperwork that I don't know that they would have been able to finish on their own and bring family members out of dangerous situations.

I've helped people find jobs, probably more than I could even possibly count.

And that's one of my favorite things to do with my.

My time at work.

So, you know, the librarian thing.

But I also have two sons.

They're five and eight.

Actually.

Yesterday was my.

My eight year old his birthday.

So that just becomes so all encompassing, as you know.

And I've learned so much, you know, about psychology and human development through.

Through being a parent.

Both of my kids have adhd, which is fine because I probably do too.

Same.

You know, my wife probably does too.

And then my oldest has autism.

And I've learned just so much about that in a way that I was, I was familiar with it somewhat just through working in a library.

You meet all kinds of people, all sorts of groups use the library.

We've had a number of employees on the spectrum that I've worked really well with.

So then when my son came along and we figured out he had autism, I was at least familiar with it in concept, enough that I could hit the ground running maybe a little bit sooner than if I hadn't.

But being a parent, being a parent to a kid with autism is a huge part of my identity.

And then so rewinding a little bit, the library thing.

I was also, for a period, about seven years, the director of the Gates Public Library, where I got my start.

And I'm very proud of the work I did there and being a part of that community.

I was also, for a period of three years, the president of the Gates Charlie Chamber of Commerce, which was like a totally weird thing that I never would have thought I would do.

And when I was like 17, if someone's like, you're gonna be the president of a chamber of commerce, I'd be like, oh, holy shit, I'm gonna turn out to be lame.

What does that even entail?

Like, I mean, I wouldn't even know.

Yeah, so like, that was adjacent to my library stuff.

And I kind of came in contact with the Chamber of Commerce through working in the library.

They, like, met at the library.

They did some fundraisers that benefited the, the Gates Library and the Chailai Library.

And then I got, I got involved, you know, like volunteering with them.

It was all volunteer run.

And then I guess I did too good of a job.

And they were like, hey, you should be the president.

And at that point in my life, I thought, you know, this will help me build a skill set that is applicable to my work, you know, as a library director.

It'll help me build connections in the community and learn something about nonprofits.

Libraries are a function of government, but they're very similar to non profits in the way that they're organized and make decisions.

So I did that for three years in addition to working at the library.

So it was like having a part time job on top of my full time job.

And I managed until I had kids, and then my life kind of broke down.

Did not realize just how much time kids were going to take, even just having one kid.

Um, but you know, the type of things we did, you know, we would organize, you know, fundraisers, we'd organize, like networking events for people in various types of lines of work.

We'd also do some outreach and make information available to people who were looking to start their own business, which was something I was pretty proud of and I thought was very much adjacent to helping people find jobs, helping people write resumes and prepare for job interviews in the library.

So, yeah, that was kind of.

That was kind of a weird little detour in my life, but I'm grateful for the experience, and still I'm in touch with some of the people I knew through that.

And then beyond that, you know, I participate in.

In substance abuse recovery.

I facilitate a meeting once a week.

I, you know, am very, very active in, like, mental health and recovery spaces.

You know, fitness is an important part of my life and has always been, or at least has been since I was a teenager.

But once I started having, like, the real serious problems, you know, problems with, like, ptsd, it kind of took on a new meaning for me, and I realized, like, I've kind of been engaging with fitness for as long as I have to, to cope with that.

So that's kind of who I am and.

And where I'm at.

And now, of course, I'm a podcast host again, along with you, apparently.

Yeah.

So a question I have for you, even, like, involving that, you know, there's like, this common thread.

Yeah.

Of you being involved in community, which is really amazing.

And that's where I find myself, too, is, you know, getting involved in skateboarding at a young age.

And then that moved into hardcore punk, and then that moved into coffee for me.

And that's the big reason, the big overlying thing that I love about each one of those things and keeps me grounded in it.

And that seems to be the same for you with recovery groups and all of these little sectors.

Like, the library is such a community, and just the impact you have, you don't even realize you have.

Yeah.

When did.

Do you feel like there's a moment?

Yeah.

And I think.

I think for me, I think you're absolutely right.

What.

What keeps me engaged is not only participating in a community, but having a role in assembling the community and facilitating, like, healthy communication between people and groups within a community.

Very much what the library does.

You know, we'll partner with nonprofits in the community, bring them into the library to make their services available in the building.

One of the things that I was told by a former director of a nonprofit that is kind of adjacent to social services, you know, they said they would offer their workshops at their facility, and they wouldn't get very good attendance because people felt like they're walking into an office building that looks like a social services office and there's stigma to that.

But when they offer that same workshop at a public library, they'll have great attendance.

And they surmised it was because there's not stigma in going to a library and saying, I need help.

I don't know what to do next.

I'm stuck in life.

And I think what I get out of libraries and hardcore is the connection to community, the authentic community and non judgment.

Because hardcore is really of all the places I've been in my life, all the communities I've participated in, from work to my family to, you know, hobby groups.

Hardcore offers the greatest potential for people to just come as they are without having to put on a performative version of their self.

And the library is somewhat like that too.

You know, we help people all the time.

They're basically illiterate and we're helping them, you know, find work.

People come in all the time, they don't know how to use a computer.

They've got all sorts of important work they need to do to get a job or to get, you know, some kind of form filled out for, for health care or social services.

You know, we'll help them with that.

And we help people with all kinds of, you know, we're not clinicians, we're not social workers, we're not, you know, doing any therapy there.

But people come in and they want books on self help and we're not judging, you know.

So for me it's.

There was a certain point where, you know, I had built up this skill in public libraries, having been a library director for, I don't know, like six or seven years, where I was bringing disparate groups together, putting people in the room and just starting a conversation and seeing where it goes.

One of the things I was really proud of doing when I was at Gates was we built a community room onto the library.

And for part of the day we worked with the YMCA and they offered a preschool class there and in the town at that point in time, there weren't enough slots for every kid in the town to go to preschool.

In the school district it was limited.

There was like a lottery system and this helped address that communal need.

We would also bring in groups, like I mentioned the chamber of commerce, you know, I was able to connect through that work.

A group of people that were meeting at the library, they were a group of nurses, they wanted to start a hospice house in the town because there wasn't a hospice house like in the area.

And I knew a guy who was like a property developer and owned a construction company.

And I just kind of got them in the same room together and we were able to work out a deal where they could get like a really great deal on some donated land that he gave them to build this hospice house.

And I kind of at some point realized, like, I'm doing all this work, it's doing great things in the community.

I'm feeling good about myself, and I've figured out how to put together different people into a community.

And I thought, I wish I had known how to do all this when I was younger, because this is the kind of contribution I would have liked to have made when I was in my, like late teens, teens and early 20s to hardcore.

But I just didn't know.

I didn't know how to do it.

It was too up in my own head.

And so when I got into recovery, you know, after a period of being really stuck in a bad place in life, one of the things they emphasize in recovery is you got to have connections to community.

And I think I like, knew that intuitively as like a teenager, you know, I had some serious childhood trauma.

And one way I would distract myself from that would be to get involved with my friends, kind of take my thoughts off myself for a while and think about other people.

And I knew, you know, after I had been in recovery for a while, I've got to re engage with a community that isn't just the people at work or the people that like support group meetings or recovery meetings.

It's got to be something around my hobby.

And forever and always the best hobby I've ever had was playing music and going to shows.

So I tried to re engage, you know, in the ways that I could.

I did not have a lot of time.

So I started the Instagram where I was just posting a Rochester show flyers, digitizing, you know, old recordings from records and.

And cassette tapes, putting that on Soundcloud, you know, that's definitely also adjacent to my library thing, you know, the archivist and wanting to preserve kind of some of this great music that, you know, I don't know.

You know, and I don't know that like, I think the discern demo was probably out there on YouTube.

But that was like that Someday Somehow song.

Yeah, that was like a song where it's like it never got the mileage they could have gotten out of that.

Like they could have been Mxpx or Blink182.

I agree, I agree.

So I sent many people the Link to the Soundcloud.

Like, you should check this.

Yeah, I mean it's.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's.

And it like.

So I got involved in that way and then I started, you know, I started the other podcast, got more involved in going to shows again, which, you know, for like 10 years it was like a Terror Bane or Earth Crisis is playing a show.

I'm going to go, go.

Of course.

But I wasn't engaged with the local community in a way where.

And I guess like when you're like 20, it doesn't seem like time is going to be like this.

But like all of a sudden you're like 37 years old and you're like, where the fuck did the last 10 to 15 years go?

I like, you know, like did.

The time just went so quickly and I kind of was checked out.

So I got reacquainted with the local scene again.

I wouldn't say that you like, you checked out or anything.

It's like you just, you folk, you, you shifted.

Right.

Like, because you wouldn't be where you're at now if you didn't focus so much on the other aspects, you know, so it's like.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of people do that.

And I, and I believe that Covid almost like brought people back to be like, what.

What speaks to me.

Yeah.

I'm with myself so much more than I ever have been because of folks isolating and staying safe and distancing.

And so they, they really tried to like what fulfills me.

And I think a lot of people drew back to art.

Yeah.

And connection to community in a way that was different.

And I think Covet was like, it a negative thing in so many ways.

But some of the positives are.

I think you're absolutely right.

Like the number of bands reuniting, the number of people coming back out, old friends connecting, that was like one of the, the gifts of.

Of COVID And so like there was a point in time where I was like, oh, I'm so.

I'm beating myself up.

I wish I had been more engaged over that, you know, 10 year period.

But now my perspective is I kind of had to focus on all this stuff at work and take advantage of these opportunities at work so I could build the skills, work on myself and be a person who can, you know, play a positive role in connecting people.

And you, I mean, you're someone who, you've had that knack like right from what, the time I met you when I was, I don't know, probably in like you know, eighth or ninth grade, you've.

You've got the X factor where you can really kind of get to know people well and connect them to each other.

And I've thought of you periodically even though I, you know, I haven't seen you for a while.

So just to kind of.

I'm curious to hear a little bit about your path because I know you moved to Rhode island at some point.

You were doing soul control and you know, you had a lot of success with that.

How did that experience of like leaving Rochester?

Because like when you left Rochester, I was like, oh wow, this is kind of a loss for the city because you know the music scene because you had such a presence here.

And that was like, you know, I think of Rochester hardcore.

You're one of the people that I like think of first.

What was that experience like moving to Rhode island and kind of starting that new band?

Yeah, I mean it's.

So the story is pretty much like I was working at Abundance Co Op grocery store wise.

Like I was working a lot.

That was always my thing.

I worked in food in various ways in Rochester, whether it was restaurants or grocery stores.

But I was like honestly looking to buy a house in Rochester and my friend Brian was in Boston and he's like, I'm going to go to school in Rhode Island.

Do you want to move there with me?

And I was at the time where I was like, you know what if I don't move now and experience something, I'm not going to.

And I was like, gave myself a year.

I was like, sure, let's go, I'll move sight unseen of the apartment.

He figured it out.

Like I knew two people in Rhode island at the time that I would consider, like people I would reach out to and be friendly with outside of Brian and moved down there and with a one van full of stuff that I had a van, I packed it, moved down there.

No job expectations or anything, but I would, I did initially, not that I found coffee yet, but I was like, I want to do coffee for whatever reason.

So I moved down there, ended up just because Brian asked me to.

There was no band aspirations at all.

Achilles was like on hold because Chris was moving to Boston actually to go to law school.

So that was also a time where we were taking time and how we are just broken up.

So I was like, you know, I got really nothing going on, nothing keeping me in Rochester.

So that helped me and I just got a job at Whole Foods after a while doing grocery.

And that's kind of like I Met a couple more people just from going to some shows and like just going to like their vegan food spots.

There was this place, Nice Slice that was.

Had awesome vegan pizza.

And I met just people for whatever reason.

It's funny you say that like this weird X factor.

It's like, I guess I don't realize I have it.

I'm just like.

I just talk to people.

I was at this place that was a restaurant.

There's this non profit called as 220 which is.

Seems amazing from the outside and the little bit that I know about it.

But they do.

They have like an artist space where like bands play and they have a gallery and then like next to it they have a bar and a restaurant.

And then I think they've added onto.

They have like artists in residence upstairs.

It's like amazing.

Like downtown.

It's just like this really awesome hub, but there's a restaurant in there.

And I would, I sat down and I was just got something to eat and like random people would sit next to me and I would just start talking to them.

And the person working was just like, are you from here?

And I'm like, no.

And he's like, this doesn't happen.

You people like, like locals don't talk to people that aren't local here.

Like this is weird.

So it's just.

I just created this like really funny like interactions with random people.

And through that like I just met more people and ended up just working at Nice Slice eventually.

And that kind of led me into being asked to join Soul Control.

Okay.

And they were already going when you got in?

Yep.

Yeah.

So they had already released like a.

A 7 inch and a demo before I joined the band.

They asked me to try out and I showed up, we played a couple songs and I was like, what do you have new?

Like, like I just don't want to be in a cover band.

So like what else do you have?

And they played me this like kind of like the song ended up being called Flux, but it was like a dirgy, dirgier like kind of like more like tribal.

Kind of like not nest like hardcore band, but like not your typical hard.

I was like, okay, cool, I can get behind this.

And I just did some stuff over it.

And then they were like, do you want to be in the band?

I was like, sure.

And then they're like, we're going to be touring xyz.

And I was like, holy cow.

Like this is wild.

Yeah.

All right.

It was weird.

Like I had to.

I remember calling some Friends and be like, I got asked to join this band.

What do you guys think about this?

Like, it's the first time I've ever been in a band.

Not from the beginning.

Yeah.

So that was different.

And joining a band with people that I didn't really know was a challenge just to figure out relationships.

Yeah.

Are you still living with Brian at that point?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We.

Me and Brian were still living together.

He ended up doing his internship overseas.

So then I was.

I was essentially by myself for a couple months.

And then I found a new place to live after that.

One year was up, he never came back.

And I ended up just living with new people and finding spots to live based on that community.

But it was awesome.

And what, like.

Because one of the things, like, when Soul Control got picked up by Bridge 9, I thought that was like a great.

Like, of all the people from Rochester who deserve to be on, like a record label like Bridge 9, you were.

You were it.

What was like, the build up to getting on to Bridge nine, Was it like, pretty quick after that tour or was it like kind of a longer slog?

Because I can't remember what the timeline was.

I felt like.

I felt like it was pretty quick from my perspective because we put out these singles.

This is like we had this idea.

The other thing I liked eventually, like, about the Soul Control group of Minds, we ended up.

Alyssa, the drummer at the time, left, and we got Ryan, who was in a band, Wasteland, who had played up here.

And so I had a connection with Ryan.

Okay.

So he ended up joining on drums.

But right before that, we recorded a group of single seven Inches.

Like one sided seven Inches.

Okay.

And if you got each one, each one was on a different label.

And if you put them all together, it was like a bigger picture.

Like, it was more of like an art project.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it was really neat to like be a.

I found like a creative bunch of people.

Yeah.

Into doing, like, weird stuff because, like, bands I was in were hardcore bands under the umbrella, but always kind of like not your traditional hardcore bands.

But it was a lot of kids from like, RIT who are artists and would do, like, creative on top of, you know, kind of your standard fair.

And that seems like very much in keeping.

And like, I'm thinking of people like Daniel Danger and this, the artwork that Hewitt too Would of course have and.

Right.

You know, just so many.

So many people kind of from that era.

Yeah.

Even like Sean Creed and doing bad business stuff.

Yeah.

There was like, you know, you have Lauren Seake taking awesome photos and who's someone that I connected with in Rhode island even further because she was one of the people who lived down there.

But yeah, there's layers to that where it wasn't just music, it was a creative artistic community.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like we did that and then we.

Bridge 9 reached out to us.

I don't know, we just toured a lot and wrote a full length and the same person who got in touch with us is the same person who was.

Got in touch with Polar Bear Club and those.

Okay.

So yeah, so it was.

It was a connection that was ultimately just kind of wild.

So did you like turn them on to like, hey, there's this band Polar Bear Club that I know or that was that.

Was that already on there already in the works?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, already in the works for sure.

Because they were just going at a hard.

You know, they were touring, they were.

They were doing a lot of cool stuff and bigger stuff than we were then.

The genesis of that was always was kind of cool to watch because it was like you had like Breaking Project and Fetty and like Achilles and like every band that those folks would start, it would like distill it down a little bit more until you've got like basically just like an all star lineup of like, you know, Rochester folks in a band that, you know is.

Is of the caliber that you would find on.

On Bridge 9.

And I remember thinking it was like cool too because at that point and.

And I'm probably wrong because I haven't listened to their entire back catalog on Bridge 9 records.

But it was like mostly straight up hardcore bands that, you know, like Polar Bear Club seemed like a little bit of a new.

A new thing for them to.

To pick up as.

As a record label.

Yeah, things kind of.

Yeah.

So things started to shift with Carl, the person that we were connected with that asked us to join.

He, I feel like had a wider scope.

So he was the one involved with getting like connecting with Crime and Stereo, which was like a little bit more.

So then, you know, Polar Bear Club wasn't as big of a reach and then Lemuria wasn't as big of a reach then and strike anywhere, you know.

So there was like a batch of bands that weren't your typical Bridge 9 band that they just started to attract and get out of it.

You Know, and you had Half Heart, which is, like, at that time and still is one of the biggest hardcore bands, but you had that.

That umbrella.

That was a very broad umbrella.

And Carl, I think, really created that in that moment, for sure.

Okay, so then, like, what.

How did you wind up back in Rochester?

Like, let's.

I want to hear that story, too.

Yeah.

So after about three years of living in Providence, I had just gotten a.

Nine months before I moved home.

I got a job at this place called New Harvest Coffee Roasters, and that's where I found coffee.

Okay.

It's where I fell in love with coffee.

They still exist today.

You know, like, Rick, who.

The owner was awesome.

I actually interviewed with Todd Mackey, who is the same for.

With Honor.

Yeah, it's like a weird.

Yeah, weird, you know, circle.

Like, Witness had played with With Honor and Sick of the Wall at Penny Arcade.

Yeah.

Randomly.

We got thrown on that last minute, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's still, like, the best show I've ever played.

That was a good one.

Sick of it all, you know, and just, like, they were the first legit hardcore band I listened to.

So.

Yeah.

Fun.

Fun memory there.

So.

So it's kind of funny how, like, this, like, weird circle moment where I interview with Todd and this woman, Jarrah, and my roommate at the time, Devlin, actually was like, hey, you should apply.

Because we were playing Magic the Gathering one day, and I was never, like, a big coffee drinker.

Yeah.

But I would drink it from time to time.

And we were at home and playing Magic the Gathering, and he was, like, making coffee.

And I was like, why?

Does this taste better?

And he went on this, like, crazy tirade.

Yeah.

Nerdy, like, stuff.

Coffee stuff, which I won't get into.

But then he was like, oh, I'm sorry.

I just, you know, I'm really excited about coffee.

I was like, dude, we're playing Magic the Gathering.

You don't have to apologize for being, like, so excited about this, you know, diving into this.

And so that, like.

And he came back, was like, you should apply.

And so then I applied, and I got the job.

And it was.

It was me just packing bags, doing production, delivering coffee to local coffee shops in the community.

And I was like, this is awesome.

I got to taste a bunch of different coffees and learn about the process, sourcing, what goes into it beyond just serving coffee.

Yeah.

You know, so.

So, you know, being part of, like, a food chain, an agricultural project.

Prod.

Product that wanted to do more than just serve.

You know, like, they wanted to serve the people growing it.

Yeah.

Pay them a better wage and just repeat that process along the way.

And one of the things I see about coffee that I think probably resonates with you is, like, there's just tons of, like, food and agriculture products out there.

And it's like, you know, whatever.

It's.

It's the bottom line.

It's capitalism.

But with coffee, there seems to be a movement within the community that's fair trade, sustainable.

Are we paying the people in these small countries, you know, absolutely.

A decent price for what we're charging for it here in the United States.

And so I've, like, kind of always respected that about, like, coffee culture in a way that, like, you know, and I think it exists in, like, wine culture and other food cultures, too.

But, like, no one gives a fuck about corn.

Like, no one's paying, like, corn farmers, like, what.

We're distilling it down to our, like, corn syrup sludge.

No one cares.

But, like, coffee, it's got, like, a higher standard to it.

Yeah.

I mean, I would say I would push back on the wine aspect because people care more about wine, because white people are growing it.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

And so I would even pull back and say, people don't think about it as sacred as wine because people of color are picking it.

Yeah.

And they are growing it, and they're more affected because they don't see themselves in that.

But the industry and part of the coffee industry that I'm involved in is pushing back against that narrative, and it's really trying to, like, no, like, this was colonialism.

This was capitalism at its worst.

And we're trying to do better by telling those stories and connecting people with the farms and thinking about the environment, because that's going to affect coffee production.

And all of that is interconnected, you know, So.

I get the sense that this is a whole podcast.

It is.

Maybe we can get Todd Mackey on the podcast and we can go really deep into it.

People can go look up the old episodes of the Evan Dawson program on Connection, and.

And here you probably go on my.

My experience with coffee is fairly limited.

That's okay.

I judge a good coffee if.

If the coffee smells the same coming out of me as it did going in, then that's.

I'm like, that must have been a good coffee because it still smells pretty appetizing even.

Even on its way out.

All right.

And we're back.

Right on.

All right.

Yeah.

So coffee, you know, my toe has been dipped into the shallow end, but my.

My true love My true drug of choice at this stage in my life is Diet Mountain Dew.

So I got to take my sip, start the process over again, shout out Diet Mountain Dew.

Something I don't indulge in, but, no, I'm sure I'm drinking right now a locally produced beverage by folks using the name Lucky Frog.

It's a social tonic.

Plum and pomelo and cardamom.

So I've read about those quite a bit because those are kind of adjacent to kombucha, which is something I really like.

Like, there was a period of time where I was, like, super stressed out during the pandemic, and I was getting ulcers like crazy.

Oh, man.

And they, like, put me on some kind of ulcer medicine, which I don't know what it did, but I think the thing that actually helped me was I would drink kombucha, like, high potency kombucha.

That was basically like taking a probiotic.

Yep.

And the more I got into it, the more I would read about it, you know, like, your.

Your.

Your gut health has a lot to do with serotonin production, you know, which helps with stress, too.

The.

The actual probiotics, I guess, have some benefit for addressing, like, ulcers.

So every day now, I, like, drink kombucha.

Awesome.

You know, and I like all the local producers, too.

But, you know, I'm very fond of GT's synergy because that one is, like, basically like eating a cup of yogurt but without all the sugar.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we.

We.

We got into coffee.

You got into coffee in.

In Rhode island, and you kind of started to build your skill set there.

Yeah.

Were you just like, it's time to move back to Rochester or was there, like.

No, there was a.

There wasn't time.

It was.

It was, but it wasn't.

Right.

So I was on a tour or something, but it was Father's Day.

I called my dad, and he never responded.

Called again, never responded.

And then two weeks go by or three weeks go by, I was home or whatever and finally connect with my mom.

And she was like, your dad has.

Your dad has colon cancer and he doesn't want to talk about it, this whole thing.

And I was like, okay, well, I'm moving home.

So, you know, the next day I went to work, and I was like, I don't want to do this, but I'm doing this.

Like, I found.

I found the thing that I wanted to pursue, which was coffee, like, in a professional way.

You know, it ticked a lot of boxes for me.

But I knew I couldn't stay here if my dad wasn't.

Or my.

My dad and my, My mom were not open about what's going on with them.

Yeah.

And in a.

Health wise.

And my brother wasn't in a good spot at that time.

He was struggling with addiction and, and alcoholism and a bunch of stuff.

So he wasn't reliable.

You know, he's.

He's sober now, which is amazing.

He's the best version of himself now.

And him and I have the best relationship we've ever had.

Yeah.

In our lives, which is amazing.

But like, that was a moment where I was like, no, I'm moving home.

You know, Soul Control was still a band.

You know, coffee was the thing I really wanted to do.

Okay.

Okay.

And then you were at like Joe Bean, I think, for a while.

Yeah.

So I moved home and I jumped in.

My friend.

So Brian, who moved me down or got me to move down to Rhode island, he was helping open the Owl House.

Yeah.

Which is still exists today.

And Jeff Chang, who, you know, is a friend of mine, played in Delta Force 23.

I lived with him as well, like up in Rochester.

He was living in Boston too, but moved back with Andrea, who now owns Redfern.

So they were opening the Owl House.

They needed help, so I helped.

You know, they knew the deal that I was in a touring band and so on and so forth.

I moved home.

The great thing about Rhode island, you don't have to own a vehicle.

My van had died.

I didn't have a vehicle.

I moved home without a vehicle.

I was living with my parents in Fairport.

I had a bike, so I was like biking from Fairport to the city.

Oh, man.

What route are you taking?

Are you just like going on?

So, you know.

Yeah, it was like, it was a.

I think for Rochester it was a trek.

But for me at that time, I was like in the best fitness of my life.

Okay.

So it wasn't.

The worst part was the roads.

They were terrible.

People in Rochester don't respect cyclists either way.

You know, at that time, the restaurant quickly.

I was hired to be like a glorified host.

Yeah, initially, but once we opened, it was so busy.

Jeff and Andrea were like, you want to manage?

And I was like, okay.

I think it's.

It's just that, like, mentality of like, I've never done this, but I can do this.

I can figure it out on the fly.

You adapt.

Like all the band things just were like ticking the boxes for Me, it's like you can adapt.

You can talk to people, you can navigate situations, because you're used to doing that differently.

Like, you're on tour, you wake up, every day is a little different, and you figure it out.

Yeah, no, and it's.

That's a good segue into kind of one of the things that this podcast is going to be about, which is, you know, hey, what's your favorite band?

How'd you get into hardcore?

We'll probably.

We'll probably talk to people about that.

But how does hardcore show up in unexpected ways in your life in things that are completely unrelated to music?

And I think you just touched upon it right there, which is the mentality of, I can figure it out.

I can do it myself.

I can take some skill from some unrelated area and apply it to this.

This new opportunity.

Like, for me, I was just kind of a rank and file librarian and ordering books and answering questions at the desk for people.

And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, we've had this huge demand that just, like, dropped into our laps.

I think it was probably the year before the first iPhone came out.

So when that became, like the iPhone 2 or 3, whatever it was, came out, that was another threshold where it was like, now this is even bigger.

This is like a huge deal.

And the library system kind of was, like, behind.

And, you know, I don't know what it was.

I've always been interested in technology, so I put together these guides on how to, like, download ebooks to a Kindle or to a Nook.

At that point, I don't think we had Kindle compatibility.

And I modeled it after a bus schedule for some reason, because I really like stuff that looks like other things.

Like, my business card is like one of those cards you would put in the little envelope at the front of a library book.

Why re.

Why recreate the wheel when there's a.

No.

Yeah, there's already a bus.

An RTS bus schedule I can copy.

So I made that, and we just distributed them at the library I was working at the time, which is Webster.

And then other libraries were like, oh, hey, I heard you got this great.

This Great flyer.

You know, can I, can I take a look at it?

And it, it very much was, you know, influenced by the flyers that you'd pick up at shows, the layouts.

There was probably a little bit of John 25 in there.

There was probably a little bit of Sean Creedon in there too.

And so, like, in short order, like, all these libraries in the area were distributing, you know, the flyer, the brochure I had made.

And now it's like, hey, you're the expert now.

Apparently I'm like, oh, shit, I feel so sorry for you.

So I started giving, like, classes to the public and other staff.

And like, somehow that bus schedule, look and brochure for ebooks got me the opportunity to interview for the director job.

And, like, I honestly think if I had never copied that bus schedule and, like, been like, I'm gonna make this look like something people are already familiar with, because that's what I like.

And use these.

Like, never went to design school or anything.

Just saw flyers and layouts and stuff and always was into that.

I, I don't think I would be where I am career wise today.

And in fact, I think there are still some brochures.

I don't know who maintains them anymore.

That's long go.

But they're still, like, in libraries.

I still see them from time to time, but it was very much that, like, I'll figure it out.

I'll figure it out.

I'll take one new opportunity and gets me a couple steps ahead of where I was before.

And nothing earth shattering.

And before you know it, you're like, wow, I'm miles from home.

So how.

So how did.

If we want to pull back just a moment.

How did you get into wanting to do library sciences?

So, yeah, I mean, that is also very punk rock.

There's even a T shirt I've seen.

I don't own one, but I got to get one.

It's like, there's nothing more punk rock than the public library.

And, you know, as far as, like, government shit goes, the library's pretty punk rock.

I mean, you know, I believe that's 100% true because.

And I didn't really respect the library until I was a parent.

Yeah, I didn't realize how important libraries were until I had kids.

And maybe I hold a little resentment because I applied to the Fairport Library many, many, many years ago and I didn't get the job.

I could put a good word.

I could put a good word in for you if the coffee thing doesn't work.

But, yeah, So, I mean, that was very much influenced by my.

My other big love in my life.

You know, the first love in my life is really my family.

Like, in, you know, you talking about your dad and the connection you've got with your family and moving home, that.

That resonates with me.

You know, I.

I've had, at times a complicated relationship with my.

My family and my parents, but I love them tremendously, and I know that they love me same, you know, so my mom was a children's librarian when I was growing up.

My grandmother, who lived in Buffalo, was a library director.

And, you know, I don't know, I went to college.

I took it as seriously as I could.

I wanted to get good grades, but I didn't put a ton of thought into, like, what do I want to actually do, to the point where sometimes even presently, I'm like, did I.

Did I squander that?

I think I squandered that.

I probably should have done something different, like, you know, made websites or wrote computer programs or something.

But, you know, I was sitting there, you know, like, okay, well, I'm doing this.

And I didn't, you know, really broaden my horizons quite enough.

So I'm like, I don't want to be a teacher.

Like, my dad.

He has to spend a shitload of time grading papers late into the night.

But what my mom does seems pretty cool.

She gets to work with technology.

You know, I like tech.

Excuse me?

I like technology, so I'm gonna.

I'm gonna pursue that.

And it also, like.

And I don't judge anybody.

Like, you know, you can work at a vape shop, and I.

And I can think you're a good dude, but, like, I don't want to do something where I'm just, like, selling people time shares that they don't actually need and aren't actually a good investment.

I want to actually help people.

And the library seemed like an avenue for me to do that and also get to work with technology, so that, you know, it was kind of a lack of forethought as to what to do with college.

And.

And, you know, I made a panicked decision based on, like, the two career paths I had seen.

Teaching my dad and librarianship, my mother.

So I went with that.

And.

And it's, you know, changed me in ways that I never thought it would.

But what keeps me coming back is that I can actually make a positive change in the broader community through the services we offer, but in the individual lives of.

Of people that I meet.

And it does have, like, A little bit of an element to it that's like social justice.

Like, I, you know, being a function of government, I can't really be like, too out there and do activist things through work.

But, you know, there are seven people right now living in Irondequoit that the staff and I helped intervene.

You know, the day that the government collapsed in Afghanistan, we noticed several families using the computer lab to try to get information about their family or to try to print off, like, you know, immigration forms.

And there was one family, a couple women helped, and they got quite far, this family on their own, but they needed a little bit more help.

And so we kind of set aside some of our regular activities to help them print off just hundreds of pages of documents.

You know, once they got their documents in order, we let them use one of our meeting rooms for like a whole day.

They brought in, like, friends and family, they set up, like this assembly line.

I think they can completed something like 5 or 600 pages of documentation in like, 48 hours.

That's amazing.

And they needed a little bit more help.

They had, like, some money that they could use to bring people over.

But when you bring someone in, like on an immigration visa, even if it's like an emergency situation, you've got to have, like, a certain amount of money available to you per person so that, you know, they can settle.

And we started connecting them with some non profits that could, you know, make up that.

That gap in funding.

And it was, like, super critical for them, too.

They're, you know, their, their family member.

They had a family member in Afghanistan that was murdered because it was believed that that family member had, like, helped the US in some way.

And I don't know if that was actually true or just the rumor that went around, but they were, like, concerned for their, their safety, you know, the Taliban taking over.

They were concerned for the, the women in the family who had started to enjoy, you know, freedom wouldn't have been able to enjoy.

And we were able to get in touch with like, the congressman, and he helped expedite their paperwork.

And then, like, I think it was about a year later, you know, one of the kids from the family.

It was really cool too, because the whole effort was like being led by this kid who was like, 19.

And I could tell this was like, maybe one of the first times in his life, you know, the elder members of his family are like, looking to him as a leader.

Yeah, maybe like a language gap.

Barrier.

Yeah, barriers.

And he seemed to know what was possible with, like, technology and computers.

And the resources at the library.

And so he, like, really had, like, stepped up, I think, in a.

In a major way.

And this was probably like a threshold moment in his own life.

But it just.

One of my best memories of working in a public library was walking into this room where they were all just sitting at a table and being like, hey, I just got off the phone with, you know, the, like, congressman's chief of staff.

They're going to.

Once your paperwork is done, I'm going to send it right to them, and they're going to try to expedite this a little bit faster than if you went through the State Department, like we were planning to do.

And they were just, like, so floored that I, you know, could even do that.

So then, like a year later, he comes back into the library and he's like, hey, they're coming, they're coming.

So now there's like, at that point, there were four people that they brought over, and then now there's a total of seven.

And it just, like, I have shitty days at work.

Like, it's.

Libraries are very contentious right now.

They're a target in, like, the culture war.

But I think about that experience and it really just makes me feel like this was.

This was worthwhile because these.

These folks have a better shot at a good life, you know, here now than they might have had.

And I don't know, they probably would have been successful even if we hadn't intervened, even if the library never existed or we didn't notice them.

But I'm just so grateful I got to play a role in that, in that, you know, family story.

So, you know, I can help folks through setting up, like, job fairs and workforce development training and literacy classes, English as a Second language classes, GED classes.

That's like, kind of for the broader community.

But every once in a while, you have those experiences that really, like, they change your life as much as they change the other person.

Common Thread is co hosted by Greg Benoit and Rory Van Grohl with creative support from Rob Antonucci.

Follow us on Instagram at commonthreadhxcpodcast for news and updates.

Contact us@commonthreadhxcpodcastmail.com CommonThread is a part of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.

Visit lunchadore.org for more information on other great podcasts.

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