Andy Lyman
Podcast
Brian Monk, founder of NM Higher Education, still takes time to make music.
Anyone reading this who doesn’t at least recognize the name Dave Matthews is probably fresh out of their cave for the first time in three decades. But you’re excused from knowing the name Brian Monk, even though he had a somewhat indirect part in launching the now iconic Dave Matthews Band’s career. Monk was one-third of the Boyd Tinsley Trio when the band took Matthews and his crew out on tour, but that threesome quickly disbanded before Boyd Tinsley himself became the fiddle player for the Dave Matthews Band and the ants began to march.
Monk kept going musically, but started to fall in love with Santa Fe and during the COVID pandemic moved here full time and eventually found work slinging weed at Kure downtown. He says it was the barrage of questions he faced as a budtender that inspired him to launch NM Higher Education. Monk can still be found behind the counter, but he’s also working on launching educational videos he hopes will clear up a lot of those daily questions he still hears.