Music: Greener by Tally Hall

While I was chatting with dear Bon yesterday, I was suddenly reminded of Tally Hall and decided to introduce the band to him. God knows why. And now, I'm listening to their album again after more than 2 years. Unless you studied in Umich, you've probably never heard of them. If you do, you're awesome.

Well, as you might've guessed by now, the members of Tally Hall are from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I've been to their gig, stood at the most front row and sang along with them. I remember it was sometime around late fall, just before winter, so it was damned cold and chilly. Myself and Nik took the bus to downtown Ann Arbor, we reached there 30 minutes before, and the line has already reached the corner around the block. Crazy. Practically froze to death waiting in line for the doors to open. Once inside, squeezed my way to the front row, stood on a brick that happened to be there so I was a head taller than everyone else in the room. I was 1 feet away from the stage, I could've easily grabbed the mic on stage haha.

I bought their debut album titled Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum (MMMM), bought their t-shirts (my size was sold out, XL was so big but I bought it anyway coz I was high on Tally Hall and couldn't bear the thought of not owning one), bought their complete demos album online (and lost the CD, fak, but I still have the cover though), subscribed to their e-newsletter and became their myspace friend, read every article published about them in Michigan Daily, etc etc. Yeah I did all that. It was fun being a fan of some unknown band that nobody knows except a bunch of students in Ann Arbor and the online community that knows them. I felt cool, hahaha. But I stopped when I came back to Malaysia, and those were the days when I started going crazy over Arashi and Matsumoto Jun hehe.

Anyway, Tally Hall's music is kinda quirky. Not at all mainstream material. It's refreshing really. Their style might not suit well with most people I think. I on the other hand, like their music very much. So, if anyone's interested, you can check them out at www.tallyhall.com or www.myspace.com/tallyhall or browse youtube for their vids. There's surprisingly many clips, nearly 300 or so.

Tally Hall have performed in Craig Ferguson's show, which is pretty impressive by my standards considering how they're not very famous. For those in the dark, Craig Ferguson hosts the late night show after Dave Letterman's. They've also appeared MTV's You Hear It First segment and sang a cover song for The O.C's Mix Number 6.

I like ALL their songs in the MMMM album except Banana Man. My favorite of all their covers is Just A Friend by Biz Markie (Too Phat did a cover for this song, most might be familiar with that one). There's one song off of their complete demos album but too bad its not recorded in MMMM, but dammit I forgot the title of the song. It's my favorite. How the hell did I lose that CD. Thank god I ripped it, but its in my pc, I'm using my brother's laptop right now.

As for the band members. I like Zubin Sedghi best. He's the bass player. Next is Joe Hawley, followed by Rob Cantor. Both on guitar. All three are the vocalists as well. Its hard to point out who the lead vocalist is, they all seem to sing the equal amount. But I like Rob's vocals best. Joe's not bad too, a bit deeper than the others. Zub has a softer voice. Andrew Horowitz is on keyboard and vocal, and Ross Federman is the drummer. Their trademark, or more like band costume, is white shirt and black pants, and each where a different color tie. If I remember correctly, Zub=blue, Joe=red, Rob=yellow, Andrew=green, Ross=white. Most of their songs are written by Joe, Rob and Andrew.

Whoa, I didn't think I'd write quite a long entry on a band no one knows. Not bad, not bad, considering how long I haven't followed their progress. My memory is not that bad after all hahaha. I'm not like a die hard fan or anything though. I'd like to see them succeed and become famous and watch their video clips on MTV and everybody else claiming to be die hard fans when they finally do become famous. Tally Hall will most probably not come to Malaysia though, if the ever get famous hahaha. And Nik and I will be the only creatures in Malaysia whose been to their live show ever. hahaha. Good luck Tally Hall. I wish you guys all the best, and I'll be rooting always.