Why Tally Hall is a Gem of the Internet

Tally Hall is a Fa-Bloo rock band that consists of 5 color coordinated handsome boys, who have grown a very decent following over the years due to a few viral music videos, an internet show, and having a reputation for creating genuinely fun music. (If you’re wondering what a Fa-Bloo rock band sounds like, it basically means that they don’t stick to a genre.)

Fa-Bloo is almost too perfect to describe their style: When you first look at it, it just seems like a jumbled mess with too many parts, just like a Marvelous Mechanical Museum owned by Marvin. But once you listen all the way through that album, you notice a few key things:

It’s got spunk,

it’s got plenty of weirdness,

it’s got enough energy to fuel a rocket to space.

Overall, it’s a great experience.

One thing that stood out to me about this band, is the wholesome dynamic between the members. This includes not only the music which they play, but their interactions outside of the studio. We can notice this through several different videos in the archive of Tally Hall’s YouTube channel, which include New York City vlogs, skits, and a series documenting their tour life known as BORALOGUEs.

With 5 years worth of content being hidden in the sand on YouTube, this group of individuals have also created several music videos, some of which gained a lot of attention. Which does make a lot of sense since each music video is not only COMPLETELY different every single time, being paired with their unique songs, but are amazingly crafted since most of them are animated.

They are literally the BEST music videos I’ve ever seen…that’s how good they are.

(The animator that made these masterpieces is Drew Mokris, and was literally the ONLY name I could find as to who animated these specific videos.)

Another form of art, are their album covers. The perfect example is their first album, which rewards you the more you look at it. In the background we see “Bung Vulchungo and the Zimbabwe songbirds”, which a direct reference to the beginning of their song “Banana Man”. It’s also a metaphor for their music, to say that each song they create is different from the rest, and may borrow styles from other genres, which very often occurs in the same song.

Not only is it a metaphor, as well as an album with a cool design, but it’s a tribute to a place in their town that was literally called “Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum”, which gives it more of a personal meaning to the band.

There’s always a specific thing I’m looking for whenever I listen to album, and that is the transition between songs. Although not a critical thing, if you can make the ending of one song flow perfectly to the beginning of the next song, it’s honestly beautiful, and shows true talent.

Speaking of talent, whoever designed their website was a genius: Under the logo hides the portals to different realms of the internet. We’ve got the social medias, their internet show made in 2008, Tally Mail (which is basically Tally Hall’s comedic Q & A show), their albums on apple music, and if you click the question mark on the site, it sends you to 2 other albums that they’ve made.

In total they actually have 5 albums. Besides “Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum” and “Good & Evil”, there’s 3 others. In 2005, there was one called “The Pingry EP”, which is actually the rarest of Tally Hall albums and has 4 songs that are specifically only on that album. The other two are: “Complete Demos”, which was made in 2004, and has 2 songs that aren’t on other albums. And “Admittedly Incomplete Demos”, which was made in 2015, has a grand total of 29 songs.

On the same page, we see recommendations. In this section, there are some other creative side projects made by individual members of the team.

While only 3 of the members projects appear here, there are 5 members of the band in total. These individuals are: Joe Hawley, Andrew Horowitz, Ross Federman, Zubin Sedghi, & Rob Cantor.

Red tie, who’s Joe Hawley, has made 3 albums:

Joe Hawley Joe Hawley

Hawaii: Part II

& Hawaii Part II: part ii.

Joe Hawley Joe Hawley, believe it or not, is a self titled album. It’s very Tally Hall-esc, in the sense that it sounds like Fa-Bloo rock, and actually has a lot of rap, way more then Tally Hall. If you’re like me, and enjoy Tally Hall’s weirder songs like “Ruler of Everything”, “Banana Man”, & “Taken for a Ride”, then you’ll most likely enjoy his self titled album since Joe is the composer of those 3 songs in Tally Hall.

Hawaii Part 2 is on the same lines as the self titled, except there’s less rap, and more synth, as well as more traditional instruments like trumpet & violin. It’s under the artist name Miracle Musical, which was created in 2012. According to the spotify about page, it’s a “once-in-a-lifetime musical”, which I agree with since it is very melodious.

Hawaii part 2 part 2 is literally just the instrumental version of hawaii part 2.

Green Tie, Andrew Horowitz, created 2 side projects:

The first one, is an EP titled “sketches”, which can be found on bandcamp. The first two songs have a very whimsical feel to them, especially in contrast to the last song, which is more of a road trip vibe.

The second one is “etudes”. This EP has 7 songs, and is solely piano tunes. (It’s a little humorous to me how simple the sound of this EP is compared to every other creative project we’ve looked at thus far.)

Grey tie, Ross Federman, has 1 side project called “Mr. F”. This would be his name whenever he DJs and makes mix tapes. He’s actually made 3 of these mix tapes, which are basically mashups of other songs mixed into one.

Blue tie, Zubin Sedghi, has had only 1 side project, ”Song About Girls”. This is a very old EP made in 2002, and is made under the name “listedBlack”. These 4 songs were made with guitar and drums, as well as including another member of Tally Hall…Rob Cantor.

Yellow tie, Rob Cantor, has made 6 albums, and is my personal favorite out of the 5 members.

It’s actually more like 1 album, because 5 of these are Disney Junior albums…and I choose to pretend those don’t exist.

The one album by Rob is Not A Trampoline, and to no surprise, it’s very Tally Hall esc.

In my research, I’ve also discovered there’s a few sites that may interest some Tally Hall fans. A YouTube channel called TallyAll, which isn’t an official channel, but has many songs from the members that I cannot find anywhere else. And a forum/blog called “Hidden in the sand”, self disclaimed as “The Ultimate Tally Hall Fan Headquarters”. Definitely check those out.

So…

it’s been 7 years since they’re last album…

why is there no new album?

Well it’s either one of two things:

A.

it takes them 6 years to make an album, which isn’t the probable choice since that would mean we would’ve gotten one in 2017..

Or B.

Tally Hall is history and the band members have moved on to their own creative pursuits.

While there was never an official announcement of the band’s end, I’m not gonna expect anything from them, since they’re all scattered across the states for one, and most of them already have great careers going for them. Everyone except Zubin have stayed in the music bubble, even after Tally Hall’s 2nd album. Andrew, Joe, and Rob all made their albums, and Ross DJ-ed every once in a while. Andrew and Rob are the ones who have actually made music their careers: Andrew with his ability as a studio musician for various people, and Rob as a songwriter who also made several viral videos. The other 3, Joe, Ross, and Zubin, all went back to school for various degrees.

Whether they come back with a 3rd album or not, I’m just happy that this music exists in the world. Whenever I see a creative group of people who find success just by being themselves and not trying to copy anyone else, It’s refreshing to see something different in a world full of stereotypes, especially in the music scene. Tally Hall obviously makes that list with flying colors by throwing genre out the window to create something one of a kind and special to not only themselves, but the thousands of fans who love what they make.