< of New Student Week drawing near, a group of freshman decided to think of a creative way to return their frisbees at the Variety Show. They decided to sing to their frisbees’ owners. What started off as a quest to find certain Frisbee owners quickly turned into a makeshift a cappella group, The Fribsees.
“It was a fun way to all get something done that we had all been putting off. And it would also be fun for the person who was getting the Frisbee,” said member Paula Mattlin.
Mattlin joined the group shortly after founding members Julia Miller and Jake Woodward discovered that both of the students’ Frisbees they possessed lived in Nourse. While waiting for one of the recipients, they decided to do jazz hands and harmonize to her name.
This spontaneous musical moment was the beginning of the group. After gaining three more members in Nourse, the group of five began returning Frisbees to various freshmen around campus.
“It’s fun because people hear the music and are like ‘wow, people are singing’ so the person gets serenaded, gets some publicity and we get new members,” said Woodward.
After a couple of stops, the group began parodying famous songs by adding in as many references to Frisbees, Carleton, and the person’s name as they could. The first attempt the Fribsees made at this was to Fort Minor’s “Remember the Name”. With the success from this song, the group decided to continue using familiar melodies.
Member Veronica Davis said her favorite parody was to John Denver’s “Country Roads” where the group sang, “Take me home, back to the dorm where I belong. Goodhue 133, come and get me, the Frisbee needs a home.”
On the conclusion of their first night singing and delivering Frisbees to their fellow freshmen, Miller proposed a name: the Fribsees. The name has been a point of confusion in the last two weeks because of its similarity to the word Frisbee, but Miller stressed, “We are the Fribsees, not the Frisbees. We are not a disc that one throws around in the park like a hooligan. We are a group of classy and intelligent adults sharing a musical space together.”
The group was relatively unknown until they performed in the Class of 2018 Variety Show. According to Mattlin, several members still wanted to continue singing but were out of Frisbees to deliver. Later they discovered two unreturned Frisbees on the day of the show. The Fribsees reunited to take the stage. Mattlin wrote original songs for the two students and eight members performed with the group.
Woodward and Miller emphasized, however, that this show was far from the group’s finale. They both hope the Fribsees can continue as Carleton’s first comedic a cappella group. “I think that if we keep it comedic, it definitely has a lot of room to grow,” said Miller.
Mattlin is currently working on organizing the continuation of the group. Like Woodward and Miller, she wants to create a completely new type of a cappella group which would be open to anyone and meet once a week to practice.
The group would be themed but would switch music styles each term, so one term the group could sing only Disney songs and then, next term sing only songs by women from the 80’s.
She hopes to have the group sing carols as well. Instead of caroling during the traditional holiday season, however, Mattlin wants to add some spirit to holidays like Earth Day or President’s Day.
Whatever the future holds for the Fribsees, Woodward and Miller are confident that the group will continue to embody their makeshift motto, taken from an a cappella group at Miller’s high school.
Miller says, “We are an experimental a cappella group. We push the boundaries of what is considered talent. We push the boundaries of what it means to have good music. It just goes on.”
