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current members | former membersClick on a member's picture to read his bio.
Colin is rather an enigma among many psychological and philosophical circles. It is presumed that he crawled out of a hole in the ground approximately twenty years ago. He often finds it difficult to express his feelings to others, as most often he is misunderstood, given that his archaic language of gestures and grunts is interpretable by few. Several years ago, Colin discovered his voice, quite literally. His feelings are now only truly communicable through the power of music, specifically through his powerful vocal production. However, do not approach him, for he is considered very dangerous. It is never certain what exactly he will do next. The safest bet is to watch, and listen. And pray.
Niels is a man of many talents. Someday, they will be listed here for all the world to see and admire.
Matt is a man of many talents. Someday, they will be listed here for all the world to see and admire.
Eric is a man of many talents. Someday, they will be listed here for all the world to see and admire.
Kevin is a child of the city and a man of the country. He walks the blurred and confusing lines between artist and artiste, poet and pope, scantily clad and scandalous. Kevin is dynamical and energetic, and likes to conduct a soundtrack to his life, something he often confuses with conducting his life to the Avenue Q soundtrack, but he is always ready to answer the call to sing or to make you cringe, to dance or to drop his pants. Ultimately, Kevin's dichotomous, holistic, all-in-one, two-pronged approach to life will leave many-a-listener confused, though many more, amused.
Sturdy grew up on a tiny hippie commune in the backwoods of Vermont. The first decade of his life was spent in a kind of slow daze; herding sheep, swimming in the reservoir, and occasionally fending off bears come February. He grew up tall (very tall) and strong, but always suspected that there must be more to life than free love and organic casserole suppers. Wanting to learn more about the world, he went away for high school, where his life really began. During his sophomore year, Sturdy was bitten by a heavily-chlorinated chipmunk. For reasons that are still unclear, rather than giving him heightened agility or cheek-storage capacity, the bite caused Sturdy to develop total recall, or a photographic memory. He used this power to do remarkably well on his SATs, and soon found himself Oberlin bound.
P.B.R. was born in a junk heap somewhere on his hand where he was constantly working. Women, liquor, astronomy, music...he created them all by the age of eight, when he moved to the U of M Cancer labs. Due to the radiation he received, his brain was altered at age eleven, giving him a strange anomaly that people call "perfect pitch." His "dad" found out about this and decided that he could use his "son's" abilities to his advantage. He (Rick) lived yet again on the street corners performing pitch tricks in a blue leotard with a large capital "P" that showed off his powerful musculature. When Rick became eighteen years old, he broke away from his "parents" and underwent intensive intellectual training. He was able to fool the school system, get his GED, and start looking at colleges. A sign came to him when an empty package addressed to Oberlin College fell on him and promptly sealed itself up. He had no choice but to hop twenty-four miles in six feet of snow to the nearest post office. He finally saw salvation when the light poured through the box, and he saw that his gift could be used for the good of music. From that moment on, he has dedicated his life to his own creation, the glory that he calls music.
Alexander Paik was the average American ethnic minority in a peaceful neighborhood in Santa Monica, California. He rode his bike around town, played in an AYSO soccer league, and had incredibly vivid, manifested battles with his X-Men action figures. Then one day -- yet another forgettable moment in American history -- the skies darkened over the Paik's humble abode from scores of fighter planes, helicopters, and yellow-skinned parachuting men wielding assault rifles. They broke in, armed with safeties off, stole Alex away from his screaming family, and escorted him to a 747 headed straight for the Republic of Korea. For eight years, the South Korean government held him in a high security compound dug into the mountains of Buhk Han San, feeding him only rice, kimchi, and dried seaweed. During the day, they trained him to fight far-east Asian breeds of tigers and dragons with a bamboo stick. At night, he attended cram schools for SATs and AP courses while they beat him with the same bamboo stick. After darting across the DMZ minefield into Pyongyang on his assigned mission to assassinate Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Alex aborted the assassination and trekked up to Russia, swam across the Bering Strait, fought his way past many evil Canadians, and found refuge in Oberlin, Ohio, where the college administration benevolently took him in.
Christopher George Rice, who was almost named Christopher Robin after the character from Winnie The Pooh until his father rightly objected, originally hails from Orlando, Florida. Better known as Chris, he spent his years growing up like any other kid. Despite his chronic scrawniness -- just to give you an idea: he weighed twenty-seven pounds in kindergarten and not much has changed -- he tried many sports as a child. Everything from soccer to baseball to golf, and don't forget basketball -- he is black. Through a lengthy trial and error process, he finally found cross country. While he was no state champion, he did manage to do well and became captain of his high school varsity squad. Along with sports, music was also another major component of his upbringing. Everyone in his family sings, and not only do they sing, but they sing way better than Chris does. This naturally made Chris very apprehensive about singing himself. He finally became confident enough in high school where he vocally "busted out." It was through his high school show choir (oh yeah, show choir; it takes a real man to be in show choir), concert choir, plays, and musical performances that he honed the skills he now utilizes in the Obertones.
Matthew Scarborough (b. 1986), like all Oberlin students, was a child prodigy. He took first place in over three hundred international piano competitions at the tender age of three and a half months. Realizing that playing the piano was not his strongest talent, he then set his sights on composition; he managed to deftly blend classical, neoclassical, contemporary classical, and post-classical musical settings into his "London Derriere" (1987), the premiere of which was attended by God himself. Scarborough also fostered a love for singing around this period; he is still fondly remembered for debuting his "Bend Overture" (1988) by singing the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass parts simultaneously, as well as the orchestral accompaniment.
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