Tally Hall (band)


Tally Hall is an American rock band formed in December 2002 and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The band has a relatively significant cult following, and is known for upbeat melodies and whimsical lyrics. The members used to describe their musical style as "wonky rock," later changed to "fabloo," in an effort to not let their music be defined by any particular genres.
Tally Hall has five members, distinguished by the color of their neckties: vocalist and guitarist Rob Cantor, drummer Ross Federman, vocalist and guitarist Joe Hawley, vocalist and keyboardist Andrew Horowitz, and vocalist and bassist Zubin Sedghi.
Once under the Atlantic Records recording label, Tally Hall was, again, signed to indie label Quack!Media, who previously helped finance and nationally distribute their debut studio album, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. They released their second album, Good & Evil, on June 21, 2011.
Tally Hall also provided the vocals and music for all of the songs in Happy Monster Band, a children's television series that aired on Playhouse Disney.

History

Early years

Horowitz, the only member not originally from Michigan, began writing songs when he was eight years old, and attended the University of Michigan, studying composition. There he met Cantor, who had both attended high school with Sedghi and joined Hawley's film production group. When Tally Hall's original drummer, Steve Gallagher, left the band in 2004, they recruited Federman, who had gone to high school with Hawley.
The name "Tally Hall" comes from its use as the name of an indoor shopping plaza on Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, the arcade whose name shares the title of their debut album, remains there, though the shopping center has changed names.
In 2005, the band released their debut studio album, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. Violinist Jeremy Kittel contributed strings to the album.
The band has received national media attention, performing their song "Good Day" on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on August 2, 2006, as well as appearing in MTV's segment You Hear It First in September 2006. The band appeared at the 2007 South by Southwest Music Festival. On August 3, 2008, Tally Hall was a performer on the BMI stage at Lollapalooza.
Tally Hall was invited back by The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on September 16, 2008, to help promote the launch of Tally Hall's Internet Show. They performed "Welcome to Tally Hall" in newly donned black vests over top of their traditional colored ties, white shirts, and black pants.
The band worked on several projects after the completion of Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, including covering the song "Smile Like You Mean It" by The Killers for the sixth The O.C. soundtrack: .
The band re-released Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum on April 1, 2008, with their new record label, Atlantic Records after some re-recording and re-mixing.

Tours and ''Good & Evil''

On September 9, 2009, Hidden in the Sand, a prominent Tally Hall fan site, broke the news that Tally Hall was going to release a collaborative song, featuring Nellie McKay, which would be released as a free download from mp3.walmart.com when customers of Walmart purchased a book called The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. The book had been made available for purchase earlier that day. The same day, HITS reported the title of the song, "Light & Night", along with a short audio clip of it in another update.
In their 2010 March tour with Jukebox the Ghost and Skybox, it was reported that Joe Hawley had unexpectedly backed out of the tour. Hawley was replaced with Casey Shea, who wore a black tie. On March 25, 2011, the band announced that all five original band members were still together.
The band was managed by The Hornblow Group, who also manages They Might Be Giants, OK Go, and Oppenheimer, until 2010, when Tally Hall changed management to Stiletto Entertainment, who manages Barry Manilow, in addition to several other solo performance acts.
With the release of Good & Evil, Tally Hall returned to their original label, Quack!Media.
After the release of Good & Evil, the band became inactive, and all of its members went on to more or less independent endeavors. As of 2020, the band has been on an indefinite hiatus.

Post-''Good & Evil''

Horowitz, under the moniker "edu", released a solo album called sketches in 2012. He also was involved in production and piano on John Legend's Love in the Future.
Hawley returned to school, but released an album, Hawaii: Part II, as part of his musical side project ミラクルミュージカル. He collaborated with Tally Hall members Sedghi, Federman, and Cantor on the album. Hawley later released Hawaii: Part II: Part ii, a compilation of outtakes, demos, and instrumentals of the original album, as well as Hawaii Partii, a collection of songs from the game Labyrinth, based off the music video for the Hawaii: Part II song of the same name. The track titled Labyrinth featured a collaboration with pop singer Charlene Kaye.
Federman has made occasional appearances as producer, percussionist, and DJ with the pseudonym "Mr. F", although his main focus has been school. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a 4.0 science GPA, and has just recently graduated from Yale University with a Ph. D in Immunology.
Sedghi, aside from appearing in Hawaii: Part II, has simply stayed in school. As of 2020, Horowitz stated during his Instagram livestream Keep Up the Good Work:
So Zubin, correct me if I'm wrong, but he's on the frontline right now, working at a hospital. Well, last we heard, he was like, he was quarantined for, he couldn't... they thought he might be sick, so he was in for two weeks, then he went back to work in the hospital, and, as far as I know, he's working.

Cantor released his solo album, Not a Trampoline, on April 14, 2014. In addition, he has made several viral videos on YouTube, including "SHIA LABEOUF" and "29 Celebrity Impressions, 1 Original Song - Rob Cantor". He also records songs for Disney Junior Musical Nursery Rhymes.
In 2015 Tally Hall's Bandcamp page was updated with a demo LP titled “Admittedly Incomplete Demos”, In reference to their earlier “Complete Demos”. This LP included demos for songs from Good & Evil as well as demos for unreleased songs, live performances, and studio versions of covers such as Just A Friend and The Minstrel Boy.
In mid-2016, Hawley announced a comedy hip-hop album Joe Hawley Joe Hawley, which was released October of that year. In 2019, Hawley's γɘlwɒH ɘoႱ γɘlwɒH ɘoႱ, a reversed version of the album, was released. This was due to the large amounts of sampling he used, and to avoid copyright.
In 2018, Horowitz released studio versions of piano compositions written in 2003 for the album etudes.
In April 2019, Horowitz released studio versions of piano compositions written in 2005 while he was a student at Michigan university for the album etudes II.
In August 2019, the band released their archived cover of Biz Markie's "Just a Friend", which was originally only found on their album "Admittedly Incomplete Demos".
In May 2020, Horowitz started a weekly Instagram livestream series titled Keep Up The Good Work, where he has one or two guests on each stream. Some of these guests have included fellow members Federman and Sedghi.

Videos

In addition to music, the band has also created numerous movies. These movies include both music videos and humorous skits. The best known of these videos is the music video for "Banana Man", which resulted in significant publicity among online users visiting the website Albino Blacksheep, along with "The Bidding", another popular title by the group.
Corresponding with their single "Good Day", released on February 26, 2008, the band released a music video for the song on YouTube.
In August 2008, the band performed a three-song live video set for LiveDaily Sessions, including the songs "Good Day", "Be Born", and "Greener", which premiered on August 28, 2008. They have appeared on Fearless Music several times, playing songs such as "Be Born", "Ruler of Everything", "Misery Fell", "Good Day", and "Banana Man". These recordings can be found on YouTube.
In July 2014, band member Rob Cantor released a video in which he seemed to perform his song "Perfect" by singing spot-on impressions of 29 celebrities. In the video, Cantor is accompanied by another band member, Andrew Horowitz, on piano and backing vocals. The video received more than 7,000,000 hits in 10 days. Shortly thereafter, Cantor revealed the video to be an elaborate hoax.

''Tally Hall's Internet Show'' and music videos

Taking on an even larger role within the band's video portfolio was the ten part bi-weekly variety-show series Tally Hall's Internet Show, which debuted on September 15, 2008. Each episode ran 10 minutes long and was posted on their website. The content primarily included comedy sketches and music videos.
With the release of Tally Hall's Internet Show in September 2008, it became clear that many music videos would be released within the Internet Show. "Good Day" was the first music video to be seen in episode one. Other music videos include "Dream", "Greener", "Hidden in the Sand", "Ruler of Everything", "Taken for a Ride", "The Whole World and You", "Two Wuv", and "Welcome to Tally Hall". A song from their second album, "Turn the Lights Off", also has a music video. The music video for their song "&' was abandoned before its release.

Episode List

  1. Good Day – 9:24
  2. Death Request – 11:35
  3. Taken for a Ride – 9:17
  4. Welcome to Tally Hall – 11:37
  5. Who Cares – 9:24
  6. Two Wuv – 10:31
  7. Fifteen Seconds of Bora – 9:08
  8. The Whole World and You – 11:06
  9. Potato Vs. Spoon – 8:32
  10. Good Night – 10:53

    Band members

Current members

Studio albums