thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. You can comment here or there.

“Catching up” with Rob is hard to these days. In fact, I had fully planned on posting a combo review/interview of Andrew’s solo project “edu” by this point, but I’ve been too busy tracking the skyrocketing success of Rob’s solo endeavors over the last week. Even before I got a chance to write up a blog entry about the “Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf” internet meme he created, I receive word of another huge project of Rob’s in the works.

So, rightfully so, let’s first take care of the Shia business. Although, if you follow HITS on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, I don’t need to tell you much at all. So I’ll keep this brief.

Rob, being the independent musician than he is, now that Tally Hall is on unofficial hiatus, put together an online portfolio of music he’s written. He uploaded songs to a SoundCloud profile and streams them through www.robcantor.com.  But he didn’t say anything about it.  So when it was brought to my attention by Billy Vaughn, I quickly posted a link on HITS’ Facebook & Twitter, and well… through a series of actions, he ended up being interviewed by The Washington Post, created an internet meme, and has been talked about on tons of music and humor blogs, big and small.  I’m sure the craze is not close to over, either.  You can read more about how it all happened on KnowYourMeme.com.

But for those of us who are die-hard fanatics, we’ve also been wondering about the other songs on Rob’s portfolio.  Today, we now know.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo DRUM ROLL OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Rob has been working with Rick Lax on a musical!  Rick, being an author is penning the script, and Rob is writing the music and lyrics.  Rick says they’ve always envisioned it being a web miniseries.  So, when Amazon announced yesterday that it was beginning to accept proposals for original programming to be distributed via Amazon Instant Video, they uploaded everything they had.

What do they have?  It’s called

“Mr. President, There’s an Asteroid Headed Directly For the Earth: The Musical”

and you can read Act 1 of the Pilot script here: http://studios.amazon.com/projects/9984

Series concept:
In every disaster movie, some guy bursts into the Oval Office and says, “Mr. President! There’s an asteroid headed directly for the earth!” This is that guy’s story.

Pilot logline:
Calvert, our geeky hero, meets Kayla at an astronomy lecture. She misread a flyer and thought it was an astrology talk. Her mistake will prove to be the most devastating event in the course of human history.

If you go to http://asteroidmusical.com (password:calvert) you can listen to the music as you read the script.  But it’s important to download, rate, and comment on the Amazon project page if you wish to show Amazon your support of this project.

Rick says Amazon may not get back to them for at least a month or two, so we probably won’t hear much more about this anytime soon.

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. You can comment here or there.

“I think you’ll find our request to be more important than a soap opera,” said Rob.

“You say that with such indifference, but Giselle came back from the dead again.  This is serious business!” said Bora.

“Dude, calm down.  You’re on speakerphone.”

“Is Kate Beckinsale standing nearby?”

“No.”

“Then it matters not.”  It then sounded as though Bora held the phone away from himself for a moment, and he shut off his television using voice command.  After bringing the phone back to his ear he said, “What can I do for you fellows?”

Andrew tucked the model of the panther-like Deaf Prowler under his arm and walked up to the speaker.  “We’re in need of a man with an accordion,” he said.

“Accordion?  This must be a big job.”

Indeed, though there were those who scoffed at it, the accordion was one of the most powerful instruments known to musiciankind (along with the ukulele and kazoo).  More than once had Bora’s accordion been used to get Tally Hall out of a bind.  One such incident was when Joe, Rob, and Zubin’s singing had attracted some Deafcaps.  Not only was Bora able to singlehandedly ward off the aliens with his accordion, but he was also able to soothe everyone’s posttraumatic stress from the ordeal by playing a polka ditty.

“Put me on a projector,” Bora said, and Rob consented, finding a port on Coz’s keyboard to place his jPhone.  As it clicked into place, light rays from the phone’s small screen scurried together to form the hologram of Bora Karaca, a man around the same age as the Tallies who had dark curly hair, five-o-clock shadow, and some kind of visual impairment.  He was taking a pair of thick-rimmed glasses out of his shirt pocket as he simultaneously put his own jPhone into a hologram port.

“This is about Casey isn’t it?” he said casually once his glasses were on.

“How did you — ?”

“Don’t ever doubt my ability to find things out,” Bora said darkly.

Andrew crossed his arms in an unimpressed manner — the manner in which keyboardists tend to react to everything other musicians say.  “Are we the only ones ever in the dark about these things?” he said.

“It’s not that we’re in the dark,” said Joe.  “It’s just that everyone else is in the light.”  (Joe was very philosophical, i.e. a lot of the things he said were confusing.)  “Speaking of which,” Joe continued, “I’ll just bet Al knows what we’re doing this very minute, and it won’t be long ‘til he takes a teleporter here to stop us.”

“Ew, I hate teleporters,” said Bora.  “I prefer planes.”

“Yeah,” Coz said, “always comfortable.”

“Don’t encourage him,” said Zubin, suddenly straightening himself up in his seat.  “We had to suck it up and teleport here.  Don’t you dare take a plane.”

“You know, Zubin,” Bora said as his hologram strolled around the room, “you can be a real jerk when you haven’t had your coffee.”

“I did have my coffee.”

“Did I say coffee?  What I meant to say was you can be a real jerk when you breathe.”

“Just around friends,” Zubin said, relaxing back into a slumped posture and not worried at all about getting a bad back later in life.  “I only insult the people I really like or the people I can’t stand.  You guys are on the positive end of the spectrum.  Most of the time,” he added under his breath.

“Oh, I feel so honored,” Andrew said in a monotone.  “I’m just drowning in your ocean of brotherly love.”

“That’s nice, Horowitz — ”

“Drowning,” Andrew went on, “as in death by submersion in liquid.”

“Speaking of death,” Coz interjected, again grabbing everyone’s attention by being blunt as a month-old razor, “we need to help Casey before anything happens to him.”

“We?” said Rob.  He tucked Casey’s message in his pocket and sighed.  “Coz, I’m sorry, but you can’t come with us.  We know you’re a keyboardist and all, but the Music Industry has regulations.  It’s difficult enough bringing Bora without him being registered as a band member.”

“It is not difficult in the slightest,” said Bora, which prompted Ross to jab the jPhone’s mute button like an ugly mosquito.  The other band members had seen this flyswatter imitation, but they said nothing.   The last thing they wanted to bring with them on such a dangerous mission — besides an adorable little chinchilla — was one their fans.

Now, it wasn’t unheard of for a band to bring a fan with them on a mission.  In fact, Tally Hall did this more than most other bands would.  It looked unprofessional, but with ninety-nine percent of their fans being able to play at least one musical instrument and with Deafcaps roaming around like free-range chickens…well, why not?

But this mission would be a perilous one, and there was a big difference between bringing a fan and bringing in someone like Bora.  Bora was a professional.  More importantly, he had signed a pretty piece of paper.  This particular pretty piece of paper that Bora had signed for Tally Hall said, in essence, “If I am attacked by an alien on one of your band’s missions, I solemnly swear that neither I nor my family will sue you for your mortal soul.”

Of course, Coz was also trained in the Music Industry, and he probably wouldn’t have been averse to signing some kind of contract.  Really the reason why Tally Hall was unwilling to bring him was because the band only had one extra tie, for Bora, and it wouldn’t look right if they had a party member who wasn’t wearing one.

“You know,” said Coz, who was facing away from Bora and completely oblivious to his frantic hand waving, “I don’t have to actually go with you guys to help.”

“Holograms aren’t a good idea either,” said Rob.  “Sure, your Sound Waves will be able to get to the Deafcaps, but then theirs will be able to get to you.  We can’t risk that.”

“I mean there are things I can do from here at the base,” Coz offered.

Without waiting for another rebuttal, he leaned over Zubin’s slumped shoulder and tapped a few buttons on the keyboard.  On the massive screen before them, the 3-D map of the world twisted and turned in correlation with Coz’s finger movements.  The next instant had the map protruding out of the screen as a globe-shaped hologram, looking like a large man’s stomach after a long day in the buffet line.

Once removed from the screen, it zoomed around the left side of the keyboard, passing through Bora’s hologram and making him flinch as their pixels clashed.  The globe hologram minimized just before sliding into a frame propped up on the keyboard, right next to where Joe was leaning his elbow.

He looked upon the frame with curiosity as Coz plucked it from the keyboard and held it at arm’s length.  The little globe spun like a carousel within the boundaries of the frame, and Andrew instantly felt an insatiable desire to poke it.

“With this,” Coz said while tactfully keeping the frame out of Andrew’s reach, “I can keep track of y’all and direct you to Casey’s exact location.”  He paused to zoom the screen in on America, then Pennsylvania, and finally Glenside.  “That is, if you don’t see any danger in it.”

Rob rubbed his chin and considered any accidents that could occur with such an arrangement.  The worst possibility was Coz getting carpal tunnel from moving the map around, which would mean they wouldn’t have anyone to answer fan questions.  That didn’t sound so bad to Rob, though.  They could always con Ross into doing it.

“It certainly would be helpful,” Rob said finally.  “You wouldn’t mind doing that?”

“I’m here to help.  That’s what people in fan bases are paid to do after all.”

Rob looked guilty.  “But you’re not being paid.”

“I know.  I just wanted to hear you say it.”  And with that, Coz turned and walked out of the room with his handheld computer screen.

As he walked into one of the foyer’s adjacent rooms and his footsteps died away, everyone left standing in the monitor room looked to one another for what to do next, except Andrew, who returned his attention to the Deafcap models.

“Great, so we have a means of tracing Casey when we do this thing,” Joe said to the others.   “We should have codenames for this.”

“Right, I’ll be Gray,” Ross said dryly.  “You can be Red.  Zubin’s Blue…”

“Your vat of creativity astounds me.”

Meanwhile, Bora had stopped silently mouthing at the others and began instead to use violent hand motions to get their attention.  Zubin stared with a vacant expression at the jPhone’s mute button as Bora frantically pointed at it.  Growing weary of having a transparent hand so close to his personal space, however, Zubin eventually turned the volume back on.

When Bora spoke, it was as if he had been gagged the entire time the volume was off, for he immediately took a deep breath of air and his eyes bugged out like a stress toy’s.  “At the risk of being muted again,” he said in an exasperated tone, “may I make an observation?”

“You may,” said Rob.

“Your instruments,” said Bora, “are indisposed.”

“No, we just got them back,” Joe corrected.

“And those new Effects?”

“We were just about to check them.”

Joe and Rob then proceeded to withdraw their jPhones from their pockets and locate their spacesaver apps.  The other members of Tally Hall held back for the time being, because Joe and Rob both had guitars, and everyone knows that the world revolves around guitar players.

Joe braced himself for the weight on his shoulder as his Stratocaster materialized, already strapped.  Rob, however, preferred to grip his Les Paul by the neck as it reformed, and he then put the strap over his shoulder manually.  This time a few other things also appeared with the instruments.  At their feet, both had a metal board with pedals, knobs, and other shiny things on it.  These were called pedal boards, because pedals-knobs-and-other-shiny-things boards didn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

By their sides, both had a square screen suspended in mid-air next to them.  Looking at the side of these screens, one would see they were completely flat, and yet from the front they appeared to have what looked like a hotplate stuck inside them.  These screens, however, did not serve microwavable pizza, but they received sound from little magnets called pick-ups, added current to the signal to greatly increase volume, and then played said signal out of a loudspeaker.

These were called amps.  A simple name for a simple device.

With one final piece of equipment left, Joe and Rob brandished them — their trusty guitar picks — from their pockets.  They looked at each other; the others looked at them; and Andrew looked at the Deaf Flyer model he was clenching in his hands.

“After you,” said Rob.

Joe nodded and positioned his foot over one of the pedals.  Placing his fingers on the proper frets, he strummed his guitar, and a Sound Wave emerged from the amp, a transparent mass making ripples in the air like smoke from a fire.  The Sound Wave, ironically, made a sound — the deep, rich tone of an E chord.

Joe then began tapping the pedal with his foot, and the Sound Wave undulated like rolling hills.  The sound of the chord changed along with the motion of the Wave, now sounding uncannily like an obese toddler trying (and failing) to pronounce “water” over and over and over.  Despite that somewhat disturbing description, the sound was not unpleasant.

The Sound Wave faded away just before colliding with one of the monitor screens.  When Rob conjured Sound up, however, it not only collided with a monitor screen, but also the keyboard, the ceiling, and Bora’s hologram.  He hadn’t stepped on his pedal board so much as stomped on it, and the resulting Sound Wave had blasted around the room like sparklers on crack.

“Oops,” Rob muttered as the fireworks of his guitar’s Wave dispersed.

“Oops indeed!” Bora exclaimed.  Some bits of Sound that nicked his hologram were still fading away into the depths of his apartment, not revealed on the projector.  He walked around the keyboard and snatched something in the air.  When his hand made contact with the object, the holographic system revealed the orange tie he was grabbing from a shelf in his room.

“I’m gonna get my stuff ready while you finish testing your instruments.”  He picked some lint off his tie.  “Don’t you guys just love all this traveling we do without sleep?  I do.  I like to pretend I’m the vessel of an ancient power when my hands shake from all the coffee I drink.”

“Whatever, just don’t take a plane to get here,” said Zubin.

“You could use a little more coffee, Zube.”  Bora began reaching for his jPhone to switch it off.  “I’ll see you guys in a bit.  And Andrew…”

Andrew looked up from the figurine in his hands.

“Next time, don’t eat right before teleporting.  I may very well wind up using the port that you threw up  in.”

Before Andrew could again respond in an unimpressed manner, Bora vanished, leaving them all with feelings of bewilderment and slight indigestion.

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. You can comment here or there.

Suburban Sprawl Music, the other indie label from the Detroit area (Livonia, actually), who merged with Quack! Media back in 2007, released their annual holiday compilation.  ”Every year, various friends (from Michigan and beyond) use the SubSprawl Holiday comp as a way to have fun, write some totally sweet holiday songs, and collaborate.”

On it, Tally Hall’s own Joe Hawley has a short little ditty. It’s his take on the Christmas classic “Sleigh Ride.”

Short and sweet, it is, but I’m glad to see Joe’s not hanging up the proverbial music jacket in his proverbial closet.

You can learn more about the other tracks on the album here:
http://www.suburbansprawlmusic.com/xmas/

Thanks to Zach Curd for the heads up on this! He works for SSM/Quack and ALSO has a great tune on the compilation.  If you live in the Detroit area, you may have heard his work already in various commercials.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. Please leave any comments there.

We’re aware the future of Tally Hall is fuzzy.  Surely, from the information gathered, we probably won’t see much action from the band for awhile.  But that doesn’t mean the 5 guys are retiring their musical ties (pun intended).

We also know that Andrew Horowitz has been working on a solo project, has played a couple gigs in the NY area, and teased us recently by stating he’s working on a new track and debuting it soon.

That time has come.

Andrew will be making a full announcement probably tomorrow, but we’ve got a jump on the news. So here ya go!

His new project is called “edu” and he’s releasing his first demo on BandCamp of a song called “miss melody”.  The description implies this song will be on a collection called “cassette tape 1″ and reads:

“made by me for you. it’ll contain a few demos. i realize not everyone has a tape player. for the time being, however, i’d like to keep my music non-digital. this will mail out at the beginning of january.”

I had a chance to speak briefly with Andrew this evening:

HITS: Are you releasing your first demo album on cassette only?

Horowitz: Yup. I don’t want my music circulated in disposable format and I want to release quickly and make it personal. I like to think my music is intimate.

Indeed, this song definitely sounds intimate, not unlike the song “You” on Tally Hall’s recent Good & Evil.

We can’t wait to hear more.  But it seems like if you already threw away your old tape deck, you might wanna go scoping out those garage sales around town soon if you want to hear them!

Listen to “miss melody” here:

Link to Andrew’s BandCamp page: http://adhorowi.bandcamp.com/
Link to edu’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/edu/152719221491762
Link to the song’s page on the Tally Hallmanac: http://www.hiddeninthesand.com/wiki/index.php?title=Miss_Melody

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. Please leave any comments there.

Teleportation is basically when something is pulled into small pieces and put back together somewhere else, and when a person’s stomach goes through this process, the result is a mystifying feeling called nausea. Coming out of the teleporter, every member of Tally Hall swallowed their breakfast for the second time that morning. Everyone, that is, except Andrew, whose stomach contents hadn’t rematerialized as fast as the rest of him and so were sent back into the face of some poor bystander in Pittsburgh.

The Tallies were all still shaky from the vibrations felt in the warp, and for the next several yards none of them could walk in a straight line. To add to this, the bright blue lights from the warp tunnel had put a deer-caught-in-headlights look in their eyes. They looked like a group of newborn fouls tromping through the teleporting station.

Unfortunately, they were not yet in Glenside, but in Philadelphia. This was because Glenside was not significant enough to have direct teleports from large cities such as Pittsburgh. Two or more teleports were required to enter the town, so two or more teleports later, the Tallies were in Glenside’s quaint empty station with Andrew dry heaving into a nearby garbage can.

After making a gagging noise not unlike the call of a velociraptor, Andrew raised his head from the trash bin and said, “I feel like my stomach wound up where my lungs should be. I am never going to be happy again.”

“Don’t say that,” Zubin said while trying to blink out the spots in his vision. “Someone around here has to be happy when no one else is, and I refuse to fill that position.”

Ross smiled at Andrew and Zubin’s cross-eyed expressions before he checked his watch. They’d made pretty good time, and the base was only a fifteen minute walk away, that is, if they were all still capable of walking after that last teleport. Ross himself was still rather dazed and had to look at his watch five times before correctly seeing the time. Meanwhile, Rob had tried to steady his legs by supporting himself on Joe’s shoulder, and the two fell against the wall like a couple dominoes.

Joe didn’t seem to have energy enough to be annoyed by this, but he was a bit uncomfortable with the lack of personal space. He tried to shrug Rob off when he felt the side of his face being scraped against an odd texture. “Hey, is this brick?” he said with his mouth smushed against the wall. “Oh, wow, I’d never even noticed ‘til now what these walls were made of.”

“Well, we just haven’t been here in awhile,” Ross said as he helped Rob and Joe regain their balance. “It is nice, though, since we didn’t see many traditionally made buildings like this on the tour.”

“If by traditional, you mean ancient,” said Andrew. “Did you see how long it took for this garbage bin to recycle and filter everything out?”

“No, I’m glad to say I didn’t see that,” Ross replied.

There was something else that Ross would’ve been glad not to have seen if he had been paying attention, but he was too busy now trying to keep Rob from using him as a crutch. What Ross and the others had failed to notice was that through one of the old-fashioned window frames and across the train tracks was an emaciated man with a shock of brown hair wearing a dark suit, and he was staring at them.

Of course, the members of Tally Hall would not have been bothered had they seen him. They were used to people staring at them, if not because of their snappy dress style but because of their random bouts of beatboxing. They were also used to people who were either odd or completely eccentric in appearance. It also didn’t bother them that the man across the tracks was plotting their ultimate doom. After all, none of them even saw the man before he walked out of sight, let alone read his mind. The only reason they would’ve been disturbed if they had actually seen him was because he had a large booger hanging out of his nose.

And like a booger being blown into a hankie, Rob flew out the doors of Glenside station and into the open air, dashing over what he was certain was solid ground until he woke up to see the others staring down at him with amusement. With a typical smirk on his face, Zubin reached out his hand to help Rob up off the train tracks.

“We might want to just sit for awhile before we try walking to the base,” Zubin said, “unless you’re trying to lose another body part to a fast metal object.”

Rob squinted as the metal part of his hand reflected sunlight into his eyes, and Zubin hoisted him back up with a grunt.

The group was traipsing back to the terminal with Ross in the lead when he finally noticed the thin man watching them from the street corner. When their eyes met, the man opened his mouth slightly, and for a moment Ross thought he was going to say something to him, so he stopped walking to give his full attention.

The man held his mouth agape for a moment. He then unleashed a powerful sneeze that sent a snot rocket onto the pavement and made Ross recoil in disgust. When he had finally looked away from the wet spot on the concrete, the man was gone. Ross looked to the others to see of they’d also seen the man, but they had all been listening to Joe who was going on about how lovely brick walls were.

~&~

Glenside, being a suburb, did not have as many lights and noises as large cities, but compared to other towns, many aspects of Glenside were very old-fashioned. The cityscape only went up to seven levels, and some of the gas stations were so primitive they didn’t have pay-at-the-pump.

The Tallies walked casually down the street, which was odd because in most places mechs shook the ground too much for sidewalk travel to even be possible. There didn’t seem to be any mechs at all in Glenside, however, so there were actually cars travelling on the roads. The particular road Tally Hall was walking down, one might add, was very much like a movie series.

That is not to say that the road was cheesy and full of hams like modern movies; having ham and cheese all over the road would have made any passing cleaning droids commit suicide. But like a movie series, the beginning of the road was good: lined with the ritzy sort of houses typical of suburbs with bits of foliage here and there that Zubin quickly pointed out (“Happy, Joe?”).

Like movie sequels, unfortunately, everything appealing began to disappear as they continued onward. After the Tallies had crossed some railroad tracks, there was an immediate drop in class. Past a rusty fence on their left was a parking lot full of used cars, mechs, and droids for sale. On their right was a ramshackle bar/pizzeria behind which was a very conspicuous pile of scrap metal, perhaps where all the used cars and mechs had been taken from.

Eventually the Tallies strolled up to their destination. The shopping plaza before them consisted of food stores stacked lopsidedly one on top of the other. The highest level, by some epic architectural failure, happened to be the largest and required hoverpads at each corner to keep it from crushing the floors below.

The top level was a party favor company, and it advertized itself with a hologram meant to look like confetti streaming from the roof and onto the ground. It would’ve looked like confetti too if its holographic projector hadn’t conked out ten years previously. Now the pixels were too small, and it had gone sepia toned, looking like a waterfall of sand over the front of the plaza.

Because all the stores jutted out at odd angles anyway, no one complained about this hologram obscuring any part of the plaza from view. What many people did not know, however, was that there was a level directly below the party favor company, and it was the only floor completely covered by the hologram of sand. But Tally Hall knew. They knew because it was their fans’ headquarters.

Now, usually when a band walks into their fan base, they are swarmed by whatever multitude is present. This has led to many an agoraphobic musician and caused most to never even step foot in their fan base during their careers. Tally Hall’s fan base, on the other hand, wasn’t lucky enough to even have a tumbleweed blow through it. They were perfectly safe from agoraphobia.

The plaza elevator took them to their floor, and they stepped into the fan base foyer that had walls like circuit boards. It had been so long since they had been in the fan base, they’d forgotten how very much like a blogger’s basement it was, what with its cold hard floor, dim lighting, and quick Internet access. Albeit, if it was the basement of a blogger, it belonged to a blogger with cash to burn.

Their boots squeaked over the sleek floor into the main hall, and Joe called out for Coz. There was no reply.

“We are on time, right?” Andrew asked, and Joe nodded. “And why’d he close off the monitor room? He usually leaves it open.” He gestured to the large metal doors shut tight at the end of the hall.

Somewhere close by came a female voice that said, “I think Coz got tired of hearing me be awkward.”

The Tallies scanned all the doors lining the hall, looking for the source of the voice they’d recognize anywhere. Suddenly, a wispy girl with messy brown hair came bounding out of one of the doorways, holding what looked like a can of tuna in her hand.

“Hiya!” she said.

“Hi — ” Rob lost his balance momentarily as the girl threw her arms around him. The two of them hugging looked oddly like a cat attacking a scratching post.

“Sorry,” she said as she pulled away, “I got a little overexcited.”

“You just kinda surprised me,” said Rob, regaining his footing. “I wasn’t sure at first if you were actually there, or if you just came here as a hologram.”

“Yeah, my dad decided last minute that we could come in person since you guys were as well,” she said.

“Don’t I get a hug too?” Andrew said with a puppy pout.

“Of course.”

The girl continued, “We got all your Effects up to date,” and she handed the tuna can to Joe over Andrew’s shoulder. “All except your Rickenbacker. Ol’ Whatshername did something to the computer, and we had to restart the download. We’re working on it.”

“That’s okay. Thanks for doing all this,” Joe said with a smile. “Is there anyone else here besides the two of you?”

“Just us and Coz, but I expect more people will be coming later via holograms.” She went on to hug Joe and Zubin. “So, did Coz explain what was so important that he asked you to come here? ‘Cause he didn’t say anything to me, and I’m just…” Her voice trailed off as she made to hug Ross.

“Oh, you look terrible,” she blurted.

Ross looked down at the bleach stains on his tie and vest. “Yeah, thanks for noticing.”

“I’m sorry!” she said, clapping a hand to her mouth, and the others laughed.

“It’s fine,” Ross said calmly. “There was just a little mishap this morning at the hotel.”

The girl looked accusingly at Zubin. “Why are you always picking on him?”

“‘Cause it’s easy!” Rob interjected. The girl rolled her eyes.

Zubin stared back at her and said frankly, “I’d like to take credit for it, but you can blame Ross’ appearance on the wonder of cleaning droids. Unless you weren’t talking about his clothes, in which case you can blame genetics.”

Ross chuckled slightly and gave the girl a brief hug.

In the meantime, Joe had used his thumb to flip a switch on the side of the “tuna can” and a mist leaked from the top before materializing into a Stratocaster guitar. Joe caught the neck of it with his free hand before it completely solidified and fell to the ground.

“Yeah, you guys should try out the new Effects,” said the girl. “I should probably check on the download for your other guitar and make sure Jillian’s not messing with the computer again. Can you tell me what Coz says when I get back?”

Andrew answered affirmatively, and the girl turned tail for the door she came out of, trying to walk and dance at the same time and looking rather goofy doing so. “See you, guys,” she said over her shoulder.

“See ya, Jennie,” said Rob, and the Tallies headed for the monitor room.

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. Please leave any comments there.

Hiddeninthesand

on Google+

HITS is now on Google+!
“But what does that mean?” you say. “That remains to be seen!” I say.

In case you’re not aware, Google+ is a new social network by Google which takes the best features of Twitter, the best features of Facebook, nothing from Myspace, and combines them.  Moreso, it’s deeply integrated with all of the other Google products around the web, from Blogger to YouTube to Google Docs and more.

It’s really quite a great network, however it still needs people using it and no one wants to use it if they’ve already got Facebook going.  That’s ok.  I think because of the intergration with the rest of the web, Google+ will succeed.

Nevertheless, they’ve just launched Pages for businesses and brands.  Naturally, I had to jump in and create a Page for HITS.  It’s just another way you can stay on top of Tally Hall news, no matter what network you prefer to use.  So if you’re on Google+, add HITS to your circles!

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. You can comment here or there.

Once upon a time, there were alien creatures that wanted nothing more than to suck out human voices like chocolate milkshakes.  Fortunately, groups of people called “musicians” had stopped screaming and running around in circles long enough to realize how they could combat these aliens.  One such group was a five-man band called Tally Hall.  And like many others whose line of work required sweating profusely, the men of Tally Hall wore ties.

Rob Cantor’s yellow tie stuck out like a big, fat, annoying ray of sunshine.  Although it is a cheerful and friendly color, certain people can be annoyed with yellow after awhile, if for no other reason, because it is so bright.  The tie that most rivaled Rob’s when it came to sticking out in a crowd was the tie of Joe Hawley, which was a loud shade of red.  It had once been even louder, but the color had mellowed after too many tumbles in the wash.  This fading of red, however, did not disassociate the color from love, warmth, or clown noses.

Gray, the color of Ross Federman’s tie, is thankfully not related to clowns at all.  A calm color, it is not extreme in one way or another.  It is neither black nor white, neither catlike nor doglike, neither peanut butter nor jelly.  It’s just gray.  And there’s never any harm in making fun of such a color because, again, it’s just gray.  The same could not be said for the color tie of Andrew Horowitz.  His tie was green, which for some may bring grapes to mind, and most people don’t feel a need to belittle food.

Grapes, for the most part, are sweet, but you come across a sour one every once in awhile.  Of course, Andrew’s tie was not actually grape green but grass green, and grass cannot be used as a metaphor for someone’s personality, unless that someone is a corpse.

Then there was Zubin Sedghi who, being unable to find “sarcasm” on a color chart, decided that blue was sensible enough.

“Sensible,” however, was definitely not the word one would’ve used to describe what Zubin looked like at 6:00 in the morning.  Shuffling into the hotel room kitchen with bleary eyes and messy hair, he looked like he’d just been shot with a tranquilizer.

Joe stood at the window across from Zubin, aware of his presence but not of his struggle to stay awake.  Gazing through the glass drowsily, Joe took in the sights of the city.  He wondered why the tall, metallic buildings before him seemed so out of place.  This was Pittsburgh after all.  It shouldn’t have struck him as odd that there were cars zooming past the windows of every story.  The artificial lighting and holographic billboards shouldn’t have looked so foreign.  Even the mech that stomped past the window shouldn’t have phased him.  None of these were new sights to him, but it seemed that more and more mechanized things like these could be found in “rural” areas.  Since teleporting out of Michigan the day before, Tally Hall hadn’t seen anything green.  Joe sighed.

“Hey, Zubin,” he said wearily, “you ever get tired of all this?”  Initially he received no response from behind him, but after a moment there was a rhythmic thumping noise followed by a robotic voice repeating, “Denied.  Denied.”

“Zube?”  Joe turned around.  Zubin was trying to stick a Hot Pocket into a rather agitated toaster.

By then Rob had returned from the breakfast hall with a cup of coffee in his hand, and he was just about to ask what Joe was laughing at when he saw Zubin.

“Here,” Rob said, handing his friend the Styrofoam cup, “you need this more than I do.”

Zubin attempted to give a grateful smile, but he only succeeded in making it look like half his face was falling off.  Rob held back a chuckle and walked over to watch TV.  Ross had left it on and, for whatever reason, had thought that the news was going to wake him up.  One of the others would’ve changed the channel, but Ross, apparently power-hungry, had taken the remote with him into the bathroom.

Rob “fwumped” onto the couch in defeat and Joe took the cushion beside him.  On the TV screen was a woman far too chipper to look at so early in the morning.  All her teeth showed as she enthusiastically greeted the audience, telling them about a popular band she was interviewing.  Her hand shook with the fuel of black coffee as she held a mic towards the group’s designated speaker, their one and only girl.

“So, tell me,” the woman asked her, “what’s it like being in a teen rock band?”

As the girl went on to talk about the difficulties of touring while still finishing high school, a montage played of her and the other band members using their musical abilities.  The first few clips were of her singing into a mic, sending Sound Waves out to re-stitch an opening in the Divide separating the human world from that of the Deafcaps.  The rest of the band soon came into view, their instruments at the ready.  It didn’t take long for the girl’s voice to attract the aliens toward the portal suspended in midair, and the band quickly began strumming up a tune.  The Sound Waves produced by their music blasted the creatures backwards in a rather sloppy fashion, the guitarists having not waited for their drummer to properly stabilize the attack.  Still, it was a decent performance.  The Deafcaps were gone and the Divide was mended.  Thus ended the montage, and the screen returned to the band being interviewed.

“I see.  That’s quite impressive,” the woman said.  Rob noted that she was talking more to the singer than the whole band, and he gave an irritated sniff.

“I’m sure everyone’s excited for the tour,” the woman went on, all her teeth gleaming in the studio’s spotlights.  Joe got up from his seat with a bored glaze in his eyes.  “It’s amazing how far you’ve come in such a short amount of time — ”  The screen went black as Joe hit the power button, not that this seemed to bother the others.  Rob merely got up to stretch while Zubin continued sipping his coffee.

It was as he was popping his back that Rob turned to see the look of tranquil fury on Zubin’s face.  Rob furrowed his brow.

“I hope you’re not irritated that band got famous so fast?” he said uncertainly.

Zubin swallowed a mouthful of coffee and shook his head.  “You know this is just my default expression before caffeine’s kicked in.”

“That’s your default expression period,” Joe said with a wry smile.

“No, be fair,” said Rob.  “Zubin’s default expression is more one of apathy or incredulousness.”

Zubin was somewhat less than amused.

“Is Andrew up yet?” he said coolly.

“I dunno,” Rob said as he stuck his hands in his pockets.  “Probably not.”

He and Joe made their way to the bedroom to investigate, and Zubin remained in the kitchen to stare at his frozen Hot Pocket.  Walking in, the only light in the bedroom was coming from the crack under the bathroom door where Ross was finishing his attack on one of man’s worst enemies: bad breath.  In the bed closest to the window was either a sleeping human or a chainsaw trying to pass as one.  Rob was leaning towards the chainsaw idea, but Joe had his money on there actually being a bear under the covers.

“Andrew, you awake?” said Joe.

“Lights,” said Rob, and their hotel room’s interface system kicked in, shedding light over the bedroom and the bear sleeping in it.

Now would be a perfectly reasonable time to use a grass green tie to describe Andrew.  It was stated before that only a corpse could be compared to grass, and although Andrew was probably not dead, he most certainly looked like it.  Joe and Rob stepped closer to him to see a tie laying haphazardly over his eyes (which must’ve blinded him from some attack), his limbs were wrapped tightly in the sheets (which was probably why he couldn’t get away), and his mouth was agape (evidence of a dying scream).

“Oh, God, Ross killed him,” Rob said flatly.

It was then that Ross emerged from the bathroom, checking to make sure the spacesaver app on his jPhone would have enough room for a drum set.  “What’d Ross do?” he asked as he put his phone away.

“You killed Andrew,” Joe said nonchalantly, “but don’t worry.  With his insurance we can pay for your bail money.”

Andrew groaned.

“He’s alive!  It’s the miracle of money!” Rob exclaimed.

“Come on, Andy, we got a teleporter to catch,” Ross said as he shook Andrew’s shoulder.

“Yeah, seriously, man, you need to get up,” said Rob.  “We need to pick up our instruments, and Coz has something to tell us in person.”

Andrew tried rubbing his eyes, but since there was a tie covering them, he didn’t accomplish much.  He settled on pulling the covers up to his chin to make himself more comfortable.

“Get up!” Rob said as he ripped off the covers.

Upon hearing his band mates’ squabble, Zubin walked in the room and joined the group around the bed.  He then promptly dumped the remainder of his coffee on Andrew’s face, set the empty cup on the nightstand, and exited.  Andrew had shot out of bed like a drowning sailor: soaking wet and swearing loudly.

“What is wrong with you?!” he snarled.

“I’m in a band that needs to be in Glenside today, and our keyboardist still isn’t out of bed,” Zubin called back.  “And you might wanna wring the coffee out of your tie before we go.  There’s a wonky cleaning droid at the front desk that’ll scrub your face off if there’s so much as lint on your clothes.”

Ross looked at the wet piece of fabric in Andrew’s hands and said bleakly, “That’s my tie.”

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. Please leave any comments there.

As we all may know by now, Tally Hall’s video for “&” was cancelled due to a lack of resources.  I’m considering starting a Kickstarter fundraiser up for them, but I’m still waiting to find out if it would be worth it.

Luckily, Drew Mokris (AKA Drewmo) of spinnerdisc.com and lefthandedtoons.com is a friend of the band and has been waiting a long time for the chance to direct/animate a music video for the band.  He finally got his chance with Turn The Lights Off which was released last week!

Today, Drew gave us a little inside look at the development of the video with this animatic, which is a rough sketch of the concept of the video, given to the band for their approval before the real work on the video began.

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. You can comment here or there.

Hey y’all! So the tour is over and while we still have the “&” video to look forward to, I’m not aware of any future plans for the band and neither are you.  This has caused much speculation about the future of Tally Hall and if they’re breaking up, etc.

It’s true that Zubin and Ross are going back to school and Andrew appears to be embarking on some sort of solo project, but this does not mean the end of the Tally Hall.  If anything, this is the start of a hiatus; a much needed hiatus.

By the way… nothing I write here is official news.  In fact, the point I’d like to make here is that Tally Hall is not broken up until they say they’re broken up.

So sit back, relax, enjoy Good & Evil, and do everything you can to help spread the word and request your local stations to play songs from the new album.  Because I’m pretty sure that if they are indeed taking a hiatus, the length of it would probably be cut short if the band’s popularity sky-rockets.

ANYWAY…

Official Hall Monitor Shirt from 2006

I posted a video of the adventures a bunch of fans and I had at the final show of the Good & Evil tour.  We called it TALLYCON 2011.  In it, I referred to the fans as “Tally Hall Monitors” which was a term some of you had never heard before, even though I coined it back in 2005.  In 2006, an official “Hall Monitor” shirt was made by Quack! as a limited edition for street-teamers who helped promote the band during an April 2006 tour.

It got me thinking about making a new, unofficial Hall Monitor shirt. But seeing as HITS is a community effort and not that of just one man, I thought I’d give you all the opportunity to come up with some designs!  I may not decide to go with anyone’s suggested idea, so I’m not really calling this a contest.  Just a call for help.

It doesn’t have to be anything print-worthy, just give me at least a rough sketch that I can go by and I will re-interpret it full-scale.  If I end up using your idea, I will make sure you get one for free.  For everyone else, they’ll be available in the HITS Schwag Shop as soon as possible.

Please make sure it does NOT include the Tally Hall logo or the image of any band member.  This is unofficial merchandise and their image/logo is not licensed to me.

I’ll give ya a week to send me whatever ideas you got!  Email them to me, please.

UPDATE:  I haven’t gotten much response to this, which is OK, but literally everyone who’s sent in ideas so far has had the same idea.  A design to look like one is wearing a “hall monitor sash” diagonally from the shoulder to the waist.  I should have mentioned before that, since these are going to be made available through CafePress, the printable area on the shirts is only in the chest region.  So, if you’re still planning on sending me ideas, keep that in mind.  Thanks.

Printable Area

thisisnotablog

Originally published at HITS Blogs. You can comment here or there.

There are few things in life that are more important than music, and there is no better way to enjoy music than at a live performance.  So when I heard that my very favorite band was playing a few hours away, naturally I was very excited.  But it came with a sort of guarded optimism; much as was the case with Good & Evil itself, I didn’t want to get my hopes up, as there was no way it could live up to my unrealistic expectations.

And exactly as with the new album, expectations were exceeded and left in the dust.

But before I begin blathering (as my wife and I have been doing since the other night) I’ll look at the evening chronologically.  First on stage was the extremely talented Casey Shea, who as you probably know stood in for Joe during his absence.  While it’s probably not the sort of music I would listen to on my free time (to each his own), there was no doubting this man’s skill as a writer and performer.  Each of his songs, which I might describe as sort of a bluesy-classic rock, were wonderfully composed and expertly played.  The best aspect of Casey’s set however was undoubtedly his stage presence.  It was apparent after about a minute that this man was born to be onstage; his own banter, his animated tendencies, his audience participation segment—all proved his prowess as a performer and made me constantly think of how, while he’s perfectly entertaining on his own, any group of equally-talented musicians could benefit enormously by having him in the band.  I don’t know if he’ll eventually get a group together (or already has) or continue going solo, but whatever he chooses it’s clear that he’s got the potential to go places.

Next up was Speak, performing a set which honestly took me off guard.  My first reaction when they got onstage was surprise at how very young the four guys looked, but I was soon blown away by how much they rocked.  The energy they exuded was incredible, and they had no problem finishing up the crowd warm-up and psyche-out process that Casey started.  The band was incredibly tight, always in perfect rhythm amidst their blazing fast synth-laden pop melodies.   And while in my opinion the impact is significantly lessened in their studio recordings, the most fun and interesting parts of the set were whenever the three singers harmonized in their awesome falsetto.  The heavily vocal sections were what set this band apart from the rest of the genre (for me, at least), adding a rare kind of spirit to the performance.  Also fun to watch was the guitarist’s proficiency in making adjustments to his various effects pedals on the fly, which was a feat in itself.  Altogether I was surprised and delighted by the band, and it was the perfect set up for what was to come.

Finally the Guys In Ties started trickling in and after a comically, feedback-riddled sound check, they went backstage and returned with their outfits.  They then proceeded to blow me away with the most awesome performance I’ve ever witnessed.  Every concert I’ve attended I’ve looked at the people in the very front and wondered what it would be like to be right there, practically at the band’s feet as they rock pretty much to your face.  Well I’m very glad to report that my wife and I were first in line and thus first to the very front of the stage… and the opportunity couldn’t have come on a better night.

The band played every song on the new album but “Fate of the Stars” (which is understandable, it being a long and complicated song), along with a fair share of MMMM and concert staples.  I was personally hoping to hear one of MMMM’s Joe Hawley epics, but the set was already much too packed full of goodness.  Good & Evil is without a doubt one of my favorite albums of all time (and quite possibly my absolute favorite, the more I listen to it) and hearing the songs live was an experience all its own.  Being there, hearing them sing, watching them with their instruments, witnessing the chemistry between the members — it was an experience that was easily worth the measly twelve bucks it took to get in, many times over.

Those who were sad to find the easygoing goofiness of MMMM absent in G&E will find all the solace they need at a live show.  The band interaction was a joy to witness, with plenty of humorous goofs to keep the whole affair lighthearted and fun (such as needing to start a song over because one of the guitars wasn’t on, and Zubin reprimanding an audience member for shouting a longwinded message at an inopportune time).  And of course, a lucky soul by the name of George was allowed to rock out on the theremin during the “on” outro of “The Trap” (much to my intense jealousy).  I was surprised to see Bora up on stage with his own orange tie, and I thought his introduction at the beginning was particularly funny.

It was all over much too quickly, as is the case with anything as wonderful as a concert, but the greatest part of the evening came after the show.  After every concert I’ve been to the band members either retreated immediately to their bus or only met with fans reluctantly a few hours after the show, and only long enough to sign a few autographs on their way out.  It’s very fortunate, then, that this show was the exception.  Right when the lights went up the band gathered in the back to meet and greet every single fan.  There were certainly crowds to get through, but I got the opportunity to meet every single tie-clad fellow, even sharing pleasant conversation with many of them.  It was a dream-come-true to finally chat with the members of my favorite band, and certainly the best thing that’s happened to me since getting married.  Most of the artists I’ve met, while perfectly nice people, have sort of a “high and mighty” thing going on, or at least a “crap, another annoying fan” thing.  Not so with the good men of Tally Hall.  Each one seemed genuinely pleased to talk with me, repeatedly thanking me for making it to the show.  I packed a box filled with a random assortment of items I thought they might find somewhat amusing (the contents of which I’ll post somewhere else sometime) and Zubin seemed honestly curious as to what it might hold.  While I was a tad star struck (as is natural), talking to these guys was more like hanging out with old friends.  They were so welcoming and I’ve seen them so many times in sketches and THIS that it honestly felt like I’ve known them for a long time.  And that is a very special experience to have with people whose music is so important to you.

I could go on for hours.  Suffice to say, it was the greatest concert experience I’ve ever had, and it’s definitely a memory I’ll carry with me forever.  So if you like Tally Hall and live anywhere close to where they’re going to be playing, you have no excuse.  Grab some extra cash for a few shirts, head on over to the venue and have the time of your life.  You’ll always be glad you did.