\n\tAyden Mayeri, Jessica Hall, and Janet Washburn were 11 going on 12 at the time. They had seen enough teen movies and had some anxiety about what to expect, but they had a few months before entering junior high. They ran around their safe, idyllic neighborhood, riding bikes and walking between their homes, which were all within the same couple of blocks. Rounding out their quartet was Washburn\u2019s younger sister, Mary. She was two and a half years younger but a crucial part of her older friend group.<\/p>\n
\n\tJanet and Mary\u2019s mom, Robin O\u2019Brien, and their stepdad, Don Campau, had always filled their home with music: a mix of Campau\u2019s extensive collection of tapes and the popular grunge, alt, and indie rock of the time. O\u2019Brien was a musician herself and part of the underground \u201chome taping\u201d scene since the Eighties. The scene was built around independent artists who self-recorded their own music on cassettes, mailing out their music to one another, and creating an extensive do-it-yourself network.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThat spring, her daughters and their friends had a surprising request: that O\u2019Brien help turn the songs they had written into a proper album. O\u2019Brien didn\u2019t hesitate. She set them up in her home studio and guided them through a cappella vocal takes and melody construction, leaving the young girls\u2019 lyrics unedited.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tBut O\u2019Brien needed music for the vocals, and her guitar skills didn\u2019t feel like a fit. The girls wanted a pop album, reflective of the music they loved at the time. She turned to Campau, a community radio host and archivist she met through the home taping scene. He had a new album of synth-y compositions by his friend Achim Treu, a successful German composer and experimental musician. The compositions were pulsing, dark, and a bit ominous. It was freakier and heavier than the Spice Girls, for sure, but O\u2019Brien\u2019s more experimental sensibilities figured it could work.<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n
\n\tO\u2019Brien worked for months, fitting the songs and melodies to Treu\u2019s compositions. The girls had chosen their band name, X-Cetra, from a list in a long-lost journal. They finished their debut album, Stardust<\/a>, by the end of 2000. O\u2019Brien burned it to a CD and even made an insert with photocopied images from a shoot they had done in the yard. The girls were wearing butterfly clips in the photos. Campau printed the inserts on a special shimmery, purple, holographic paper with mini bios of each girl, complete with quotes and their star signs.<\/p>\n \n\tBut by the time X-Cetra heard the album, the band had essentially \u201cbroken up.\u201d The older girls were now in the throes of the middle school experience they feared, hanging out with Mary less as they navigated puberty. When they first listened to Stardust, that self-consciousness took hold. They sounded like kids, not professional pop stars. On top of that, the music didn\u2019t sound like pop music at all to them. They decided to never talk about it again, letting it disappear.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tChildhood best friends X-Cetra grew up in Santa Rosa, California.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of X-Cetra<\/p>\n \n\tOver the next 20 years, the girls grew up, moved out of Santa Rosa, and moved on with their lives. They dated boys, made new friends, and settled down into new cities, schools, and jobs. They hadn\u2019t thought about X-Cetra or Stardust in years. But they would soon learn that an alternate universe existed where their pop star dreams had come true. Stardust lived on without them, online, in YouTube rips and forum discussions. The album they hid was not only out in the open but beloved. They had no idea how it happened. Soon, they would have no choice but to let X-Cetra live again.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\tSANTA ROSA IN the Nineties was a picturesque, family-friendly American dream. Located in Sonoma County, it\u2019s the largest city in California\u2019s wine country. But it didn\u2019t feel big at all, exuding a kind of small-town energy with its tight-knit community.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was a really great place to grow up,\u201d Jessica Hall recalls. She was the first member of X-Cetra to live there, surrounded by immediate family; her aunt and grandmother lived on neighboring streets. \u201cWe used to play outside all the time,\u201d she continues. \u201cWe were just either always on our bicycles or playing basketball or walking to the elementary school.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJessica met Ayden Mayeri first. When they were three, the Mayeri family had moved in next to Hall\u2019s aunt. Hall used to peek over her aunt\u2019s fence to get a glimpse of the mysterious new kid on the block until her aunt introduced them. They invited each other to their respective birthday parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAll of a sudden, we were just like glue,\u201d Jessica says. \u201cShe was an only child. I was the youngest of three. My sisters are significantly older than me at that age, so it felt like we became siblings.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe pair were inseparable, walking back and forth from each other\u2019s houses. Even though Ayden had made plenty of new friends at her Montessori school, she still preferred Jessica\u2019s company. They were both extroverted and ambitious. They recruited other friends to their \u201cdance company,\u201d choreographing numbers in their living rooms. They also created \u201cGenieland,\u201d an imagined world where they were genies.<\/p>\n Jessica and Ayden were also avid pop culture fiends. They were obsessed with the Spice Girls and Destiny\u2019s Child as much as they were Fiona Apple and Alanis Morrissette. Jessica\u2019s \u201creally cool\u201d teenage older sisters were into n\u00fc-metal groups like Limp Bizkit and Korn as well as the dance music of the time, playing the younger girls songs by La Bouche, Ace of Base, and the Real McCoy.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI feel like I was just taking in pop culture,\u201d Ayden says. \u201cI just loved everything happening on TRL or Pop-Up Video on VH1.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tX-Cetra in Los Angeles, May 2025.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJessica Lehrman for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n \n\tIn 1998, when Jessica and Ayden were around nine-years-old, a new family moved into the neighborhood. Janet and Mary Washburn were born in New Jersey and lived there until shortly after their parents divorced. Their mom, Robin O\u2019Brien, married San Jose-based radio host Don Campau. The couple had been pen pals through the home taping scene for seven years before beginning their \u201ccourtship,\u201d as O\u2019Brien says. Campau asked her to marry him before they even met. After they wed, they decided to relocate the family to San Jose before settling down in Santa Rosa.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI really felt a sense of ownership over keeping [Mary] safe and protected from what was going on,\u201d Janet says. \u201cIt was a lot of transition. It was a difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe sisters were close enough in age and just young enough that there was a real friendship beneath the familial bond as well. They had their own imagined worlds too and played together often. So when they met Ayden and Jessica, who were the same year in school as Janet, Mary was immediately part of the crew. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAcross the street from our house, there was this basketball hoop that our neighbors had put on the side of their yard, and Ayden and Jessica were playing basketball out there,\u201d Janet recalls. \u201cI think we immediately went out and there was a little bit of an intro there. I can\u2019t even remember how we ended up hanging out all the time. It just happened.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTogether, the four became inseparable. The Washburns soon entered the creative dreamworld their new friends were building in their yards and living rooms and playgrounds, like \u201cGenieland.\u201d In Jessica\u2019s jacuzzi, they would sing in the round, taking turns belting out the chorus of Dido\u2019s \u201cThank You,\u201d as sampled on Eminem\u2019s \u201cStan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOutside of pop music, the girls had a deep love for all the teen movies the era had to offer. With a camcorder in hand and a limitless well of creative ideas at their fingertips, the four would write and film feature-length movies around their neighborhood. Ayden and Jessica had begun exploring filmmaking before the Washburns moved in; the sisters helped round out the cast and crew for these projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cJessica and Ayden had this really active imaginary world,\u201d Janet explains. \u201cAyden\u2019s a really strong driving force in the energy and fun, and Jessica\u2019s so organized and loves to do all the editing and cutting. She brings it to fruition.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMary was just as extroverted as Ayden and Jessica, maybe even more confident than the older girls who were starting to become aware of what it means to fit in. Janet, however, was a shy perfectionist.\u00a0 \u201cIt took a lot to get me out of that and actually participate in these things,\u201d she admits. \u201cBut I really wanted to do something with my friends, so it was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tBefore writing songs, X-Cetra had active imaginations, making homemade movies and dream worlds like \u201cGenieland.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of X-Cetra<\/p>\n \n\tIt didn\u2019t take long for the quartet\u2019s creative pursuits to lead them to songwriting. Jessica remembers a yellow notebook where they would jot down ideas. They would sit on Ayden\u2019s bed or the blue guest room where O\u2019Brien\u2019s studio was located. Ideas and themes would surface and then lyrics would emerge, freely and without the fear of thinking anyone would hear these songs.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere are some songs where a couple of us, or one of us maybe wrote the majority, but all of them have a little bit of all of us,\u201d Mary says. \u201cWe would test things out, where someone would say something and we would kind of edit it. Get everything down, and then somebody might be like, \u2018No, I don\u2019t think that [works]. Let\u2019s try this\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe lyrics were from an older perspective, a reflection of the world they anticipated being part of one day. The song \u201cConversation<\/a>\u201d was about domestic abuse, something none of the girls had experienced in their lives or their homes but had surely seen on TV or in movies. \u201cWe wanted a more adult, mature theme in the music,\u201d Janet explains. \u201cIt\u2019s almost a child\u2019s interpretation of what an adult relationship could be like, which is a little odd.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut their childhood realities and anxieties were hard to ignore. The songs became outlets for their real, lived experiences as well. Mary wrote \u201cAnother Girl\u201d on her own, about getting rejected by a crush. Ayden and Jessica wrote \u201cWonderland<\/a>\u201d about Ayden\u2019s fear of junior high.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was convinced I was going to get bullied for being Jewish,\u201d Ayden explains, having seen one too many movies where kids were shoved into lockers for being or looking different. It would be her first time in public school, having only attended Montessori and Hebrew school before. That summer, her parents took Jessica on their family road trip through a national park. The two recall ignoring all the beautiful landscapes and wild buffalo out the window the entire time, hunkering down in their notebook to write the song.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI do think kids have really big, deep feelings from a very young age,\u201d Ayden says. \u201cI think people think that they don\u2019t, which is strange. If everyone remembers being a kid, everything would just rock you the first time you felt something major. I just think we were having a lot of big feelings and experiences.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tNO ONE REMEMBERS who exactly asked O\u2019Brien to help. But once the songs were written, she felt like the next logical step.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tStardust was the first time they let an adult touch anything they worked on. Ayden remembers refusing film editing classes when her mom offered. They were very \u201canti-adult\u201d when it came to their creative pursuits.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tRobin O\u2019Brien (center) had built a name for herself in the home-taping scene and offered to help her record her daughters and their friends.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of X-Cetra<\/p>\n \n\tBut O\u2019Brien was different. Her daughters and their friends had a real reverence for her skills. The blue guest room was outfitted with the type of studio equipment they saw on MTV: microphones, mixers, speakers. They would wear the big headphones while recording vocal takes and it made it all feel real.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tUntil they asked her to help them record, O\u2019Brien had no idea the girls had been writing songs. She related to that hunger. As a kid growing up in Chicago\u2019s North Shore, she started writing songs when she was six years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy impulse when I wrote it down was to hide it,\u201d she admits, sharing the same shyness as her eldest daughter. The impulse that moved her to write a song in the first place was intense, she describes, and visceral. It took a few years for her to try writing again. When she was 13, she started writing songs with another girl in her neighborhood, a near parallel to what her daughters would do decades later.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tEventually, O\u2019Brien learned how to record herself over two cassette players. She would sing into one, then play it back while harmonizing over it. She studied music at Berklee College then moved to New York with her first husband. She wrote jingles for a while, sang in a band, and even signed to Atlantic Records. The music she made and was interested in, however, was not pop-oriented. She liked progressive rock and chamber music. Her early songs were classically oriented, and she was already a skilled producer. But under her short-lived recording contract, she struggled with people who wanted to make the sound more digestible for a mass audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t like being in the limelight, but I thought, \u2018Well, I\u2019m going to give it a try and see what happens,\u2019\u201d she says. Eventually, she gave it up and moved to New Jersey. \u201cI really just wanted a baby. I was really looking at my watch.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Brien eventually found her way into the home-taping scene, an extensive, international network of underground, independent artists who would record music in their homes. In the mid-Eighties, the scene began to emerge as a community through magazines like Sound Choice, Option and Factsheet Five. In those magazines were mailing addresses, encouraging the trading of cassettes and letters with fellow artists and fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThis whole thing was not in any way associated with the music industry, although some of the people that were home-tapers in the early days wanted to be full-time musicians or wanted to make a career out of music,\u201d explains Campau. It was this network that led him to O\u2019Brien, who was one of thousands of home-tapers he began writing to and trading music with. In 1984, Campau launched a popular community radio show called No Pigeonholes where he would play exclusively home recorded music.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was more about people than the music, actually,\u201d he says. \u201cI enjoyed all the different personalities that I ran into over the years. I got a wife out of the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Brien continued making tapes through her daughters\u2019 childhood, even as the home-taping scene entered a transitional period in the Nineties as the magazines folded and the internet emerged. Their garage in Santa Rosa became exclusively a home for Campau\u2019s tape collection, the cars banished to the driveway. They filled their home with music, playing the popular indie rock of the time for the young girls, encouraging their curiosity. Campau had done the same with his three older daughters, who had since moved out of the house. Funny enough, he had helped his daughter Nicole Campau record an album<\/a> she had also written when she was 11.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDon Campau (right) met Achim Treu (left) through the home-taping scene.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of X-Cetra<\/p>\n \n\tIt was O\u2019Brien\u2019s duty to help translate the girls\u2019 wishes to tape. Each girl recalls how seriously she took them, speaking to them like they were peers and not just children. Twenty-five years later, her reverence for each of their capabilities is still apparent, rattling off their strengths at length. To her, Jessica had a \u201cfantastic ear\u201d and was always on point, pitch-wise. Mary also had a good ear but was so uncensored and willing that each take was done with maximum passion. Janet\u2019s voice was the most beautiful, even though she didn\u2019t want to be on the mic very much. Ayden\u2019s enthusiasm and drive kept the project focused.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI never for a minute didn\u2019t take it absolutely seriously, because I take myself seriously,\u201d O\u2019Brien explains.<\/p>\n \n\tThe vocals were fully recorded by the time O\u2019Brien heard Achim Treu\u2019s compositions. Both she and Campau were friends with Treu through their scene; Treu had even visited their home and met Janet and Mary. Jessica and Ayden even remember hearing some of his earlier work playing around their friends\u2019 house. There was one CD in particular they would dance around to that reminded them of the B-52\u2019s.<\/p>\n \n\tArtists like Treu would share compositions to other tapers for them to record their own vocals on or remix. Campau had just received a copy, debating if he would use it for his own project. She played the music for the girls during the summer, before trying to fit them with the vocals.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe felt like it was weird and kind of cool, and it had enough going on in it that we could make it work,\u201d Janet says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIn our heads we were envisioning bubblegum pop, which I\u2019m so grateful that that\u2019s not what we did,\u201d Jessica explains. \u201cI definitely have a much better appreciation for it as I\u2019ve gotten older and have gotten more into music. But at the time I just thought, \u2018These are really cool and different and it\u2019s awesome that he\u2019s going to let us sing to these.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs middle school began for three-quarters of X-Cetra, O\u2019Brien tinkered away at the mixes, trying not to mess too much with what the original intentions were. When she was done, she could already see the spark they once had dim with their growing self-consciousness. She cared more about them maintaining community in the face of those treacherous middle school waters than she did their feelings about X-Cetra.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen girls are 13, this is what happens: they rise up from the ground and then they hover for like four years,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a trauma response to culture or [something].\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tClockwise from top left: Ayden Mayeri, Jessica Hall, Mary Washburn, Janet Washburn<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of X-Cetra<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Brien played the album for the girls and sent it to Treu as well. \u201cHe liked it. I hope he did,\u201d she says. [Treu declined to be interviewed for this article.] \u201cIt was very generous of him to let us use these.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLike the girls themselves, O\u2019Brien believed it was a private project. But Campau is an archivist first and foremost. He attached his label name, Lonely Whistle Music, to the CD and, like any home taper, mailed out some copies to his extended network. He estimates about 50 to 100 physical copies were shipped to his acquaintances. He even played it a few times on his radio show, too.<\/p>\n \n\tEventually, Campau put the album online. Like everything he has made or attached his label name to, X-Cetra\u2019s Stardust was uploaded to the Internet Archive<\/a>. The upload didn\u2019t make the girls overnight celebrities. But to a small, niche corner of the internet, it did make them stars.<\/p>\n \n\t______<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was expecting some cookie-cutter American Idol wannabes, but these girls aren\u2019t that. There\u2019s a bit of retro-Eighties\/electro going on, plus the last song uses a sample loop from Martin Denny. I think they aimed for derivative (which the lyrics lean toward) but hit original, more or less.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn 2003, WFMU\u2019s blog ran a review<\/a> of Stardust as part of their 365 Days Project, where more than 200 contributors highlighted \u201ccool and strange and often obscure audio selections,\u201d particularly from the subgenre. Most of the songs and albums highlighted fall under the umbrella of \u201coutsider music,\u201d a way of describing music made by people who have little or no traditional musical training or experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBefore X-Cetra, there were bands like Sixties outfit The Shaggs, a group of sisters whose music has been lauded as both the worst of all time and quite unintentionally brilliant. They found a revival in the Eighties after their only album Philosophy of the World was reissued and developed a cult following, with famous fans like Kurt Cobain, Frank Zappa and Jonathan Richman.<\/p>\n \n\tMuch like the Shaggs, X-Cetra\u2019s only album was labeled as \u201cbizarre\u201d but \u201coddly endearing\u201d in the WFMU blog. The write-up led to more fans of outsider music discovering them. \u201cAt first I figured it was some Planet Mu artist trying to sound retro or else some Spanish techno with cut-up english language lyrics stolen from paedophile (in the old sense) surveillance \u2014 then it sort of tries to be POP but misses the mark a little and turns into something altogether stranger,\u201d wrote one Blogspot user<\/a> three years later. A commenter calls the album \u201csurprisingly groovesome.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs the years wore on, the album racked up thousands of views on YouTube. There were comments on Discogs, forums and Reddit threads. Some commenters recall hearing their songs on local radio stations, likely college and community radio or even Campau\u2019s own show.<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Brien, Campau and the members of X-Cetra hadn\u2019t thought about Stardust in years. One day. O\u2019Brien received a call. A man on the phone asked if she was the same Robin O\u2019Brien who produced X-Cetra\u2019s Stardust. He revealed he wanted to clear up some internet theories about the album.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cApparently there were all these things people were saying, \u2018Oh, these evil parents made their kids make this thing,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just weird stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhile living in Wilmington, North Carolina, Mary had become friends with lots of people in bands, though she never attempted joining one again herself. She played one of the YouTube rips for a group of them. \u201cThere were four of them there, and three of them were just like, \u2018Oh, cute. This is so funny.\u2019 My friend Derek was like, \u2018I genuinely think this is really cool.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tJanet ended up finding the reviews and discussions online. During Covid, the four girls created a group chat to talk about what they found, including rampant discussions on Rate Your Music.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAyden, an actress who had a recurring role on New Girl, similarly began sharing the music with her friends. She was filming a movie in Italy with director Jeff Baena (who died earlier this year). Baena became obsessed with the album, calling it \u201cgenius.\u201d She went back to the chat to tell the girls how Baena wanted to direct a music video for them.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe fact that anyone seriously thought it was cool, we couldn\u2019t believe,\u201d she admits. \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tX-Cetra in Los Angeles, May 2024.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJessica Lehrman for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n \n\tBefore the reissue came out, George Clanton and TV Girl sampled \u201cSummer 2000\u201d on their track \u201cSummer 2000 Baby,\u201d from 2024 collaborative album Fauxllennium. Brad Petering of TV Girl has had a longstanding relationship with Numero, having cleared samples with them before. X-Cetra\u2019s \u201cmutated take on a teeny-bopper girl group\u201d caught his attention right away. When he first played the song for Clanton, his collaborator wasn\u2019t sure how they could make it work.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was just dumbfounded at what he is showing me, thinking that this is going to be so difficult and it virtually sounds unpleasant,\u201d Clanton admits. \u201cA lot of it doesn\u2019t lend itself to being sampled. It\u2019s very muddy, and there\u2019s this bizarre music going on the whole time. But [Brad] was listening and the isolated vocals of the end of \u2018Summer 2000\u2019 where the girls do the chant [worked for us].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTheir version became a hit with audiences during their live shows and later Fcukers remixed the song for the deluxe edition of the album, released earlier this summer. Clanton and TV Girl would later produce Magdalena Bay\u2019s cover of X-Cetra\u2019s \u201cSpeechless,\u201d reworking it for a new track called \u201cMessy Hair<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tElectronic musician Pictureplane caught the release in a newsletter from indie music specialist Boomkat and was instantly drawn to the \u201cwild lo-fi electronic pop music\u201d the girls had made.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was really nostalgic for me,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a younger sister, and it just reminded me of being in junior high when her and her friends would record music at my house. I started making music when I was a teenager, and my sister and her friends would sometimes record themselves on my equipment in my room.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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In 2023, Numero Group A&R Douglas Mcgowan reached out after a colleague found X-Cetra on a playlist. They reminded him of the Shaggs and sister act Wendy and Bonnie. The archival label was interested in reissuing the album in time for its 25th anniversary. Titled Summer 2000<\/a> after one of the songs on the original, the vinyl release dropped in January. The \u201cCrazy Fan Pack\u201d includes a custom \u201cBrain Freeze\u201d nail polish and an X-Cetra slap bracelet, as well as three previously unreleased songs from their sessions with O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n