Conversations with Rosh Rocheleau

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosh Rocheleau. 

Hi Rosh, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Boston. Youngest of 3 boys. 

I grew up on 70’s and 80’s music my brothers listed too Deep Purple Van Halen, Kiss 

Metallica then my own generations music… 

Nirvana, Grateful Dead…90’s music, STP, and Pink Floyd the whole way through. 

Music’s been a way to work through experiences and emotions I didn’t know how else to deal with so they came out in songs, that I only shared rarely with long time girlfriends etc. i.e., Started writing songs when I was 15 years old and didn’t really show anybody ‘till I was 25 yrs. old, when I decided to study that study music and contemplative phycology at Naropa University, a Tibetan Buddhist-based university in Boulder, CO. 

We had a class called presence voice and sound that changed my life. 

Instead of getting up on stage and performing a finished product or song or artists piece… we had ‘works in progress’ concerts…where we performed shared revealed our in-progress work… 

One practice in class was to stand on stage and perform being present to nervousness or stage fright or whatever is present at the time one stage and let the audience in on it. 

My hands were shaking, my lower skin under my left eye was twitching…and just noticed it, touched it with my fingers… pulled up my hand in front of my face on stage…and watched it shake standing on stage in front of everyone and said “I’m noticing that my hand is shaking” … etc. noticing and naming repeat repeat 

After training like that many times over a semester…I started to make really good friends with my own vulnerability when performing or on stage or in a circle at a social event. And it turns out…when someone acknowledges their own vulnerability… people respond well to that. They feel a genuine honest shared humanity and that creates sense of more trust, feeling closer, etc. 

In a studio training class, there…I was tasked to write a song and collaborate with others. I was surprised…that some my songs seemed to really. resonate with some people. And for those it did…it really truly hit home for them…heart opening/relief from having been able to feel their feelings finally. 

And so, I continued to work with others to bring my music to life with others. 

After several years of touring house concert circuits in USSA and Europe. 

I was fortunate enough to stumbled upon your Cafe In The Dark event in 2006 while I was on tour performing house concerts in Iceland. I found it to be such a powerful experience that I carried it with me for many years. 

I actually captured a video of me in the dark at that Cafe in the dark in Iceland in 2006. 

Here is the link 

In 2009 I met a blind woman in Boulder, CO who loved the idea and encouraged me to set up one in Boulder. 

In February 2010 I set up our first ‘Boulder Blind Cafe’. It was such a success that we decided to host a second one. The project became so popular that we decided to continue it as an organization. 

In summer of 2010, I moved to PDX to establish Blind Cafe there. I hitchhiked to Oregon and got a job at a cracker factory to cover my rent etc. and then got looking for an event space. Tabor Space Church hosted us! 

We sold out 140 per show for 3 nights of shows. And I met…Jimmy Jackson (now my long-time best friend) who had a friend tell him about the Blind Cafe flyer and Jimmy called me. He’s blind and so…fast friends started working together. 

Since then… I moved to Austin to get BC going in Austin. 

Then SF, Seattle, and in 2015 founder of Airbnb hired us for our first private client event for his 12 executive team members. They loved it…came out of the dark crying and hugging us! 

Then we continued to work with them as part of their Airbnb Experience R&D process. Followed by one of their first Airbnb Social Impact Experience partners i.e., we can launch a Blind Cafe Airbnb Experience anywhere in the world they’ve set it up so we don’t pay the usual cut of 80% 20% – 100% of revenue goes to our fiscal sponsor the Boulder County Arts Alliance. 

Followed by Katie Perry’s Birthday Blind Cafe Experience we did for her in Chicago, then partnering with Columbine High School Littleton CO and piloting Dismantling racism Discussions In The Programs, Couples In the Dark Experiences. 

Then any company you could name started flying us around the world up until the pandemic so we could deliver this potent experience of connect socially in 100% darkness with music, discussion, and food but without distractions of visual contingin, etc. 

Part 2 

History of the Blind Café 

Brian Rocheleau, a musician that goes by the name of Rosh, was inspired to set up a Blind Café after wandering into one in Reykjavik, Iceland. Explained Rosh, “I was on a house concert tour, traveling from home to home performing my original songs in people’s living rooms as a sort of cultural exchange. While I was walking down the street in Reykjavik, I wandered into a Blind Café. There was a woman at the entrance with laminated cards that had Icelandic words printed in braille on them. I asked her what the event was about and she told me it was a Blind Café.” 

The woman went on to tell Rosh that all the waiters where blind and that the concert was in the pitch dark, meaning he would not be able to see inside. She then told him that he would need to use a laminated card to order his coffee by giving it to the waiter. Rosh was intrigued to say the least. So, he purchased a card that had the word ‘Kaffi’, coffee in Icelandic on it and she gave Rosh a walking stick sending him into the dark. 

Rosh stumbled around a bit and found a table. He asked, “Are there any extra seats?” The other guests at the table replied, “We don’t know!,” and they all laughed. He eventually found his seat and enjoyed some conversation in the dark with people he couldn’t see. This experience had Rosh thinking about one of the main purposes of music, “Much like food, music is a glue that brings people together to relate,” said Rosh. Over the years, Rosh has thought about this experience and wondered if he could give this gift to the world. 

Producers 

The Blind Cafe LLC strives to improve the life of everyone involved, visually impaired, blind, or sighted. We do this by creating a context for people to come together and share their personal gifts/talents, discuss issues related to visual impairment, celebrate and explore spacial awareness, indulge in unencumbered music listening (without distraction of visual conditioning, cell phones, etc.), build community and advocate for a better life for the blind and visually impaired community. 

The focus of The Blind Cafe is to strengthen the ability for everyone involved to relate with one another by developing more compassion, understanding, and gratitude for themselves and others. 

We are committed to donating a portion of the proceeds to local organizations that improve the lives of the visually impaired and blind. So far, we have donated to PAWS (Pups At Work For Sight) and The Boulder Guide Dog Puppy Raisers. 

We have also had the opportunity to hire people of the visually impaired and blind community to staff the event. 

Music: Rosh & ‘One Eye Glass Broken’ 

Rosh, an international performing songwriter, house concert musician, recording artist, passionate guitar teacher, and community leader, has been an integral, innovative, and well-received artist in the world community. His leadership and commitment to creating more emotionally affluent settings for his music has brought him into the homes and living rooms of fans in communities all over the world. 

He has performed both solo and with his band ‘One Eye Glass Broken’ in the USA and around the world in such places as Iceland, Norway, Belgium, Holland & Ireland. He has done this by offering communities the opportunity to host private House Concert performances in their homes. House Concerts are a wonderful grassroots phenomenon where world-class musicians and developing local talent alike perform in the comfortable intimacy of private homes and similar nontraditional spaces. 

As a community leader, Rosh with his band ‘One Eye Glass Broken’ has been performing Benefit Concerts for local organizations such as There With Care (An outstanding organization that support families with children experiences critical and terminal illnesses www.therewithcare.org) and Food Not Bombs (An organization that collects otherwise thrown away food and feed the homeless/hungry community). 

About the BC Experience 

A Dinner In The Dark! 

You will be led into a pitch-dark room by your host and seated at your table where you will discover what it’s like to eat ‘Family Style’ with you friends and other guests in the pitch dark! Yup! You will be working together with your old and new friends at your table to make sure everyone gets some delicious food on their plate. Your meal will be prepared with love and attention and be gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian. 

‘Entertain and Educate’ 

There will be a Tibetan Singing Bowl rung 3 times and the room will become absolutely silent as you are introduced to Gerry Leary, a blind coffee roaster and owner of The Unseen Bean Inc. 

He will lead you even deeper down the rabbit hole exploring his personal story and providing a space for everyone to ask questions and share their personal experience celebrating spacial awareness, sensory deprivation, and the world of the visually impaired and blind. Spoken Word Artist Rick Hammond will bring you deeper into his world with his poetry. 

Dark Chocolate! 

A Dark Delicious Desert will then be served as your taste buds and senses run wild exploring this luscious moment of…well you’ll have to come. 

A Full Concert In The Dark! 

Remember when you use to listen to music without distractions? It wasn’t in the background while you’re were driving or on your computer while checking e-mail.  You sat down with no other focus but to listen to an entire album in one sitting, basking in the emotions of each musical nuance, your heart opening with every landing lyric? Get ready to experience this again. 

You will experience a full concert of Viola, Cello, Violin’s, Guitar and Voice of original music by ‘Rosh & One Eye Glass Broken’ 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We had our first Music in the dark concert in 2010…then over 65k people attended by March 2020. It’s been a rough and smooth road. 

In summary… 

2010 – 2012 Very excited establishing Blind Cafe Experience in cities of Boulder, Portland, OR and AUSTIN TX 

2013 – HYATUS…in the jungles of Maui for 6 months… w/ few tours back to Boulder, ATX, PDX & established Seattle BC 

2013 / 2015  Took on SF booked two BIG weekends! SF was too big a city to break through… so lost all funds had… slept car for 3 months worked as a Lyft Driver to get by. Bunk bed with 23 ppl coop… recovered and made SF a total success 

2015 – 2016 /2017 – Growing Katie Perry’s birthday in the dark, founder of Airbnb Google main client. 

2017 – BURN OUT…I collapsed…had fire worker who’d been with us for two years, found out had been stealing money than had get lawyer, etc. + Woman I loved with all my heart…past from drugs, I lost my HEALTH… no longer get any work done from 100% to 10% capacity to execute. 

2018 – 2019 – Literally had to Rebuild my self-esteem minute by minute affirmation by affirmation. Blind Cafe still grew very successful, my team took the rains 

2019/2020 – 10 Years Blind Cafe Touring! Mile Marker….financial ceiling broken…then pandemic 

2020 – 2021 – Worked on a farm…got back to my core self with and without BC 

2021 – Grant from Pandemic funds Oct 14 – 16, 2021 3 nights 4 shows of BCE it was awesome! 

2022 – Naviagint forward 

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Being 100% committed to following my artistic creative marching orders from the universe. Knowing my highest value is connection…and having thought through how I could most bring value to others… well the music is one way to share, connect, etc. but it’s the raising my energy and attracting people to come together to feel more connected and less disconnected. 

Contact Info:

• Email: theblindcafe@gmail.com
• Website: www.theblindcafe.com
• Instagram: theblindcafe
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosh1826/
• Twitter: @blindcafe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTFelWDzNoKM_lWsid81GZA