If you’re a sports fan living in New England, chances you know Tom Caron, sportscaster and news anchor for New England Sports Network (NESN), the primary broadcaster for both the MLB’s Boston Red Sox and the NHL’s Boston Bruins. Yesterday, he was honored at the annual “Champions of Mentoring” ceremony at Fenway Park, where he’s worked for over 20 years.

What you probably didn’t know was that Tom is a big music fan. Last night, during a rain delay in the Red Sox vs. Twins game broadcast on NESN, Caron and the other TV took some questions from their Twitter followers to fill the unplanned bonus time on camera. When it came time for Caron to name his favorites, he name-dropped two bands: Red Hot Chili Peppers, and, “for new bands, Twiddle. They’re kind of a new kinda ‘Dead’ type of band out of Vermont. Watch for them, they’re going places.” You can watch footage of the on-air exchange below, courtesy of iTwiddle member Nicholas Kenneth:

After name-dropping the Vermont quartet, Tom also took the chance to give love to his 20-year-old son Jack Caron‘s young band, Spunhouse, who you “can’t see anywhere” yet but is “coming soon to a place near you.” Of course, it’s not all that surprising that Tom Caron knows the Northeast live music scene. He was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine, studied journalism at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. From there, he worked his way up through the ranks of the sports media world with various broadcasters and sports franchises throughout the region before landing with NESN in 1995.

However, while it helped spawn a successful broadcasting career, Caron’s time in Vermont taught him to love more than just sports media. As Tom’s son Jack Caron explains to Live For Live Music, “He and my mom got me into the Grateful Dead and Phish when I was growing up because they were both deadheads who went to school in Burlington when Phish was first starting out.”

Later, Jack returned the favor, introducing his dad to Twiddle, another young Burlington jam band. While Jack says his dad has not yet seen the band live, they did go together to see Dead & Company last summer at Fenway–a venue with which the Red Sox TV personality particularly familiar. “One story in particular comes to mind about,” Jack recalls, “He told me the first song he ever saw live at a concert was ‘Sugaree’ at the Cumberland County Civic Center in May of ’79 [listen to Tom’s first show here]. When my parents and I were at Dead & Co at Fenway last year, where he’s worked the last 20-odd years, they played ‘Sugaree’ and my dad said he felt like he had come full-circle.”

[Cover photo via @TomCaron on Twitter]

You can see three nights of Twiddle as well as an extensive lineup of exciting late-night shows during Phish’s upcoming 13-night “Baker’s Dozen” residency at Madison Square Garden in New York. Check our our guide to Baker’s Dozen late-nights for all the info.