Parker Anne Devine
In Spring 2025, Ithaca College student bands awdam and All Nine Bite made a name for themselves as members of the IC music scene. awdam first played at a Prospect Street house party in March and All Nine Bite got their start at the IC Bureau of Concert’s Sound Off competition in April. In Fall 2025, each band returned to campus with something new to debut: studio recorded extended plays or EPs. An EP is a short album that usually contains 4-6 songs.
All Nine Bite’s EP, “Bordering States,” was released on all streaming platforms on Aug. 28. As of Sept. 8, “Bordering States” has 431 streams.
Awdam’s EP, “You Win!” is currently still in production with an expected release in November.
Awdam, made up of juniors Dan Boush, Wade Messier, Alex Siegelson and Sam Nejberger, recorded “You Win!” at Hidden Fortress, a recording studio in Philadelphia. Nejberger had a connection with one of the sound engineers, Kieran Ferris.
All Nine Bite, made up of sophomores Jackie Houghtaling, Jake Smith, Miles Terranova and Matt Argus, recorded “Bordering States” at Rock City Academy in Pine Bush, New York, where Smith teaches music lessons.
Messier explained that the band members knew this summer was the time to record their EP.
“I think for all of us, music never really stops,” Messier said. “In the summer, when we’re away from each other, [Boush] and I send each other probably like a million Garage Band demos a week. It’s nonstop. So to get beyond the Garage Band computer set-up and be with the band again and record was something we really wanted to do this summer.”
While the summer offered more free time and flexibility for the bands, the band members still had to travel from their hometowns in different states.
Messier drove 12 hours each way from his home in Vermont, picking up Boush in Massachusetts and Siegelson in New York on the way to the studio in Philadelphia. Houghtaling took the 14 hour train ride from Chicago to New York in order to meet up with the rest of her band mates in Pine Bush, New York.
With that much travel time involved, the members of All Nine Bite decided to make a whole week out of their recording time, which they affectionately nicknamed “All Nine Bite Week 2025” in an Instagram post. In addition to recording in the studio, the group went bowling, played mini golf and created a music video for their song “Bridal Shop,” which was released July 25.
Terranova explained that not only was “Bridal Shop” the first song that the band had released a music video for, it was also the first song All Nine Bite had written as a group.
“It just kind of felt right,” Terranova said. “It was the song we played the most. … It’s the song that most people knew. So it just kind of felt right for [“Bridal Shop”] to be the first thing to actually hit the studio.”
Smith said that even during the summer, when the IC music community is spread out across the country, it is still an incredibly supportive group to be a part of. As All Nine Bite posted promotional content for “Bordering States,” they received excited comments from their peers at IC.
“Last semester, we [didn’t] really know everyone that well [because] we were just starting,” Smith said. “But it was so nice seeing these people that we kind of know comment and be like ‘Oh, we can’t wait.’”
awdam also felt the support from the community at IC. The band was able to cover the recording cost with the money that they earned from playing shows as well as some of their personal funds, but Siegelson explained that on the way back from their recording session, the band realized that they wouldn’t have enough money to cover the $600 cost of mixing and mastering the recordings.
“I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw that all of these [student] films do GoFundMe [and thought] why don’t we just try it?” Siegelson said.
By 10 p.m. Aug. 5, seven hours after awdam posted their GoFundMe, the band had raised $1,115 in donations. Nejberger said he was surprised to find that almost all of the donations to the GoFundMe were from people that the band members knew from IC.
Awdam was blown away by the support and thanked the 37 people who donated to their GoFundMe in an Instagram post Aug. 9.
Terranova explained that the first three songs on “Bordering States” were original songs that All Nine Bite had been playing for a semester. But when it came to writing a fourth song, the band was not sure what they were going to do.
“It got down to the second to last night of All Nine Bite week so, [Houghtaling] had a train out two days from then,” Terranova said. “[Smith] showed us this riff he’d been working on and we kind of cranked out that last song in like 22 hours, pretty much a full day.”
Argus said this song is “Lavender,” the final track on the EP.
“I think that ended up being the most All Nine Bite sound we got,” Argus said. “That’s collectively our song.”
Siegelson explained awdam took advantage of their time at Hidden Fortress. Ferris made sure that the band would leave with a product that they were proud of. The band agreed that Ferris really “got” what they were trying to do with “You Win!”
“We got a lot of recording style freedom,” Siegelson said. “I sat at the board with Kieran and we were discussing ‘What are the different ways that we can record this?’”
Both awdam and All Nine Bite included some of the earliest songs that they wrote as a band into their respective EPs. Boush explained that because the songs on “You Win!” are some of the earliest that they wrote, awdam has become comfortable with the material and added details as they play. Listening back to the recording, Boush and Messier agree that these personal touches are what make each song great.
Smith said that this was not the last time that All Nine Bite would be writing and releasing their music.
“We only get four years here,” Smith said. “Not to predict the future, but I don’t want to be a [college] band that goes on forever. We just want to get out music as soon as possible so we can play shows with those songs and write more music.”
For Messier of awdam, this EP is a way to hold on to what he created with his bandmates.
“We really enjoy and cherish the art we make with each other,” Messier said. “Awdam might not last forever, this might not be something after we graduate. I think it was really important for us to record that and have that and put it into the world. If at the very least we can have that, we can say ‘We did this and we’re proud of this’ I think that makes it all worth it.”