Website Features

Ethan Rayburn

Most Elusive

Ethan is a junior from Blacklick, Ohio. He has a birthday in January and can’t play the violin or trumpet anymore because they suck. He likes architecture, specifically the cool, unconventional colors and textures postmodern designers use in houses. He mixes with house and techno music and is trying to do more jungle and breakbeat. Zoe McGuire is his muse because she gave him her old deck and taught him to mix when he was just a young boy who didn’t know anything. Ethan has been mixing for about a year, but he learned to read music in 4th grade. He claims he has no DJ name and no talent, but his adoring friends call him DJ Broccoli Mug, and he is confident he could destroy Lil Pump in a freestyle competition. He’s really unlucky. He likes ceramics. With a billion dollars, Ethan would buy a 10 acre ranch with fertile ground for vegetable growing and raise 6 goats and 6 chickens in a sustainable manner. Also he’d buy clothes, a new deck, nice headphones, and make small but impactful donations to a bunch of charities. He has phobias but none of them are of small, tight spaces with pipes on the ceiling eight feet above the ground.

Aidan Richman

Throws the Best Potluck

How long have you been making music?

Since the beginning. 

When’s the beginning?

When I first started doing it.

When did you first start doing it?

When I began. 

Do you have anything to plug?

WRBC. And Enterprise Records in Portland Maine. And the music of Billy Harper.

What was the last dream you had?

I had a strange dream the other night that some of my friends were going abroad. Like, they were leaving right now. That probably has something to do with abandonment.

Yeah, and imminent graduation and expulsion from this place.

I’m glad you brought that up. The dream I had before that, I was playing the drums, and Billy Harper was going to come to my potluck and I was worried because I was so deep into this heavy groove on the drums that I was going to miss his arrival.

Did you miss his arrival?

I don’t know, I woke up before. Because the whole thing was like this crazy groove that was kinda off, loping. And it was set against this irregular chirp, pitch, and I kept hearing this and the drums kept working around it and— this was a nap I was taking— and as I woke up I realized that it was a bird outside my window. It was cool. But I don’t know if Billy made it to the dinner.

Do you think you’re talented?

Talented? I’ll put it this way: more talented than dedicated.

How dedicated are you?

Not dedicated enough. That’s the real talent, is devotion to the practice, to the constant fashioning and refashioning of the voice, technique. That’s actually a talent. I don’t think I have that one.

How often do you practice?

Since I’m on the record, every day.

Do you think you’re elusive?

I hope not. Oh, hey, you should publish my phone number with this, so I don’t have to be so elusive to people. They could just text me if they need me. I like that idea. Just have my name, and under it, my phone number. Encourage them to!

Who’s your muse?

My friends. They’re all my muse. That’s not bad. It’s probably true. They inspire me very much. I’ve learned a lot from working with them. Three fantastic musicians are Giancarlo Carlucci, Jakob Adler, and Jeremy Brogan. That’s my dream team. I wouldn’t rather play music with anybody else.

Do you guys write music together?

No. Probably should. Something obstructive about ownership, or alienation. Fear of failure. I don’t know.

Who’s your biggest fan?

I don’t know. I haven’t met my biggest fan. If you’re out there, please call me at 207-450-6449. I’ve got a lot of free time.

What is the longest art project you’ve ever worked on?

It’s playing music. Which I’ve been doing since the beginning. I’ve been doing it fairly consistently since I started.

Which was when?

When it happened.

When did it happen?

I was young. I was small. And my uncle helped bring me up in the guitar playing. I got a lot of it from my dad, a lot of it from Bob, who owns the record store. Those are my two great musical mentors, even though neither of them were involved in teaching me how to play. They taught me to listen, and about the music, and that was more important. Cause the playing became an outgrowth of that.

What do you miss?

I miss feeling like I wasn’t in a rush, or that I didn’t have someplace next. I miss these long days where I had inconceivable amounts of time… I might be depressed. But I might not be. I miss the good ol’ days. That’s probably not true. I miss a lot of stuff that goes on. And I wish sometimes that I had a more focused attention on things. I wish I had a wider view of things cause I’ve missed a lot! I’ve missed a lot of films (I hardly watch any movies), I’ve missed a lot of books (I haven’t read as much as I should have), I’ve missed a lot of different kinds of music that I could have been exposed to. Instead I’ve gone really far into certain things, and naturally that’s to the neglect of other things. So I’ve missed a lot.

Do you think you’re old?

Old? No, I think I’m pretty young. It’s just that there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve missed but there’s time to find it, that’s the good thing. With any luck, there’s still a lot of time.

Who should you call more?

My mother. And my grandfather.

Victoria’s Band (A.K.A. The Upstairs Neighbors) (A.K.A. The other band Jeremy Brogan is in?) (A.K.A. The Band Without a Name)

Victoria Gibian ‘24 of Ridgefield, Connecticut

Victoria is an Anthropology major and Japanese minor who has played music since the first grade. After making music that will make her friends dance, Victoria enjoys crafting scenarios in her head to fall asleep to. She thinks of Hannah Montana as her first musical influence, but her influences now include Taylor Swift, Bobby Weir, Jason Isbell, John Mayer, and Zach Bryan. Victoria has been in her Jay-Z era lately, and can be found listening to “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)”, or watching her favorite music video, “Boyfriend” by Big Time Rush ft. Snoop Dogg.

Victoria is also an artist in the kitchen and loves baking classic cookies, although she’s tried to “ball out on cakes.” When asked about her current crush, Victoria declined to comment. But, she did reveal her campus crush - a mysterious figure, known only by her friends as “King of the Darkness.”

Harry Stevenson ‘24 of West Hartford, Connecticut

Harry is a Economics major and Music minor who grew up playing classical piano, but picked up the drums at the beginning of the semester for the band. He draws inspiration from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and has been spending time lately listening to “Wild Child” by the Black Keys, four on the floor, and classic rock. In his music and day-to-day life, Harry lives by the motto, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” Although Harry’s not a horseback rider, his favorite horse is Secretariat.

When forced to play FMK with Harry Potter, Harry Styles, and Prince Harry, he made the bold choice to kill Prince Harry, marry Harry Potter, and fuck Harry Styles.

Andrew Monteith ‘24 of Monroe,Washington

Andrew is a Philosophy major who started his music career on the clarinet. After playing for seven years, he quit and taught himself guitar during the pandemic — “Music teaches you the way.” Andrew says that Mark Knoffler is his musical influence and that his music takes a physical shape as “a bunch of tangled up stuff.” Andrew also draws inspiration from his favorite philosophers, Iris Murdoch and Christine Korsgaard, and “the sovereignty of good over other concepts.”

“Music teaches you the way.”

Andrew has been listening to Champion Sound by Crystal Fires lately, and recommends Snarky Puppy (a jazz fusion band) or classic hip-hop, like Milky Chance. Andrew doesn’t think he has a doppelganger, but one time some kids mistook him for Jack Harlow and asked for his autograph in New York. When asked to rank his band members, Andrew respectfully declined, choosing to “remain agnostic.” Right now, his favorite “people” on campus are the Frye St. cats.

Stella Gould ‘25 of San Francisco, CA

While we may be lacking Stella’s presence this semester as she studies indigenous identities and globalization in Cusco, Peru, she spent last year being a musical force on campus, actively playing in three different bands and putting together a funk group during short term. At home, Stella plays with her friends from high school jazz band in a group called Maisy and Friends (named after her dog, Maisy). Stella describes her relationship with playing music as an “ebb and flow.” Recently, she was excited to find a jazz club in Cusco that sparked her desire to play, saying, “I’ll have those moments where I’ll go to a bar and be totally infatuated by somebody playing live and think- I gotta go home and pick up my guitar and write!... It comes in waves.” While Stella claims little interest in ever being the front-person of a band, she says, “In some capacity I’ll have music in my life forever, and I'm not pressed about what exactly that looks like.”

As of late, Stella has been enjoying listening to albums top to bottom (“but not, like, in a douchey way”): “A must: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, you gotta do it, top to bottom. Stevie Wonder, Innervisions, no skips. Anything on An Evening with Silk Sonic, 7 songs- all gas, so good.” She’s also been loving Maggie Rogers’ Surrender, Black Classical Music by Yussef Dayes, and Bismillah by Peter Cat Recording Co.