From Ian, Dreamy Coffee:

My Punk Rock Days

Axes of Evil was my college band. And it's "axes" like guitar. We coined it after George Bush's "Axis of Evil" - you know, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. I was just a punk kid with a taxi driver mohawk at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Our Unexpected Fame

My band put up a basic website and toured around a bit - down through California, Utah, Colorado, and back through Idaho. Nothing major, just typical college band stuff. But after about a year (though it seemed like years, it was probably only seven or eight months), we checked our website stats and were shocked to discover something unbelievable: we had about 40 million hits from the Middle East.

The Explanation

We immediately joked that "we should have been touring there!" Then we figured out what happened - people in Iraq and Iran were Googling "Axis of Evil" but spelling it wrong as "Axes of Evil" and landing on our band site. Even more surprising, we discovered that both the FBI and CIA had been monitoring our website. Here we were, just some punk kids making music, and we'd accidentally triggered government surveillance.

Inside Tip 📌

If you're looking for unexpected internet traffic, try naming your project something that could be mistaken for a geopolitical keyword. Just be prepared for some interesting visitors to your analytics dashboard - including possibly federal agencies. Sometimes the best publicity comes from the most unexpected places. 

Keep on rocking and dreaming.

– Ian

Contact

☕ The Dreamy Coffee Co.

About 

Ian Montgomery grew from punk rocker to Seattle tech worker to global nomad, exploring Colombia and Peru where he met his wife Elizabeth before settling in the Hamptons in 2022. As COO of Dreamy Coffee Co., he has partnered with founder Lynda Sylvester to expand their premium, small-batch coffee throughout the East End and beyond. Ian’s journey reflects the brand's ethos - breaking free from conventional limits to create something exceptional that connects people across continents through dreamy coffee and shared experiences.

Lead-in Image

Axes of Evil / New Regard Media