After exploring Boston, we arrived 3 hours early and were the first ones there, and we had a grand old time just talking until more and more fans of both bands arrived. The fun didn’t stop as a lot more people I knew were here, among them my good friends Shark, Zach, Kelden, and Maddie. I was overjoyed to see that they’d all made it safely! Melody of course was able to make it to this one as well, making her and I the only 2 who saw all 3 acts! Something that shocked me about this particular event is that I had 4 or 5 people ask to take pictures with me specifically, which felt odd, but also enjoyable!

We made our way into the venue where some JTG fans allowed me front row access to the performance. My big group of friends and I had a blast talking while waiting for the show itself to begin, we karaoke’d, talked, and all of us signed the pizza box that Zach had brought his vinyl in!

Finally the lights dimmed, and out came Andrew, followed by Bora, and Ross, and the show began. No Illicit Ghost this time, as her and I seemingly switched places, since she was in Philadelphia. The show featured many of the same tunes we’ve grown accustomed to from these performances, with a mix of Edu and Tally Hall alike, although one song took everyone off guard, and had the crowd raving.

Bora began singing Moon Waltz, a song by his band Cojum Dip, and one that hadn’t been performed live…ever! It was the most surreal moment (performance wise) I think I’ve ever witnessed, and everyone was eating it right up. I’m still in shock that that moment actually happened, and I’m very lucky to have the set list that says “Moon Waltz” on it, a piece of history.

The remainder of the show was perfect. Andrew, Ross, and Bora continue to prove that they are stellar musicians through and through. Ross did extra well this time around, since the show was on his home turf and he could provide a full drumset. Bora’s outfit was absolutely killer, and Andrew…he almost destroyed his keyboard…

They cleaned up and I was able to get my setlist, as well as a Hey You! Lyric sheet, and Bora’s guitar pick that he used to play Moon Waltz, absolutely amazing.

The show was over and the lot of us piled into the lobby area where we each talked to the 3 for hours on end…I don’t think any of us were paying attention to JTG…

The gentlemen once again showed off how kind and caring they are for the fans, each fan getting their respective time with the gang. After many signings and pictures with everyone and everything, I got my chance to talk to each of them, all of them remembering me without fail. Ross and I discussed our interview, both of us agreeing it came out very well and we talked percussion and life like we do best, it’s nice talking to a fellow percussionist. Bora was super down to earth and we exchanged jokes at each other’s expense, and overall had a lovely time together talking Cojum Dip. Last was Andrew, and he personally thanked me for all of the support I had offered up throughout each night, which really warmed my heart. It’s a super special thing to be a big part of something after you’ve idolized it for however long.

After talking about Tally Hall and related things for a while, Andrew went to grab something that I knew was coming, a trophy of sorts if you will. He brought out the keyboard he had used for all 3 shows, in its box, and signed it to me in my name. It was an absolutely heartwarming gesture and a solemn goodbye of sorts, and it was something to behold. I will treasure that board forever and use it for all future music endeavors.

After the venue spilled out, I made my way back to Goose’s car but not before catching Tommy Siegel at his tour van. Despite not going specifically for him, he seemed to have the kindest words of all. He said “These shows will feel a little more empty without you here”. That meant a lot to me, those 3 were also amazing to meet and see live, so I’ll be going to more hopefully soon.

And with that, the shows were over, and while I’m saddened, I’m happy I got to be there. I got to meet 3 of my idols, and form friendships with many that will last a lifetime. Hopefully with the conclusion of these shows, the doors will open for more Tally Hall content delivered by me to you guys, and hopefully more interviews!

Thank you Andrew + friends for performing, Jukebox the Ghost for hosting, all of my amazing friends (new + old) for standing by my side at these shows, and an extra special thanks to Andrew specifically for all the special gifts along the way, and for treating me like more than just another fan.
Thank you most of all to HITS, for engaging with my articles and welcoming me with open arms as a part of the team. Thank you. I look forward to Sonic Lunch 2024 where Andrew will be performing again, hopefully with added support from his friends as well!

Until next time, stay Red my friends

–Ruby Red

Night 2 was relatively close to home for me, so it was just a 3 hour drive down to the nation’s capital for another night of excellence from the green tie himself. I had VIP access once again, and got to have a lovely rooftop meetup with Jukebox the Ghost, who had complimented my Edu Shirt, claiming that they haven’t seen one in a while, and that they were impressed. Tommy Siegel had actually asked the other’s if they had listened to Sketches 3D before, which I thought was nice. They seem to be very fond of Andrew’s work. After that meetup, and another Q&A with Jukebox, I made my way down to the front of the stage with a new group of concert friends. I was again joined by my friend Melody, as well as some new faces both local, and from the HITS Discord server, among that group being my friends Miles and Harmony.

It was a relatively long wait for Andrew to come on, and I only saw him once before showtime on his way to get ready for the night’s events. After some more waiting, the lights dimmed and Andrew walked on stage, once again joined by the amazing Illicit Ghost as well as a guest guitarist Marcio Philomena. The three of them played a very similar set to that of Chicago, with fan favorites like Miss Melody, HEY YOU!, Taken for a Ride, and of course, The Whole World and You. In lieu of Fate of the Stars Part 3, Andrew played “You” for the first time in a few years. It was an absolutely beautiful performance of an often overlooked song (And yes, I am guilty of overlooking You).

Andrew and Illicit Ghost performed a few of their new tracks: Good Morning, Mr. Butterfly, Monsters, Fishes, Worlds in my Head, and Someone WIll Be There. Those last two in particular are my favorites of the new lineup. The development of Worlds in my Head from its debut in New York City until now has been one of my favorite parts of the Edu live show journey, and I cannot wait to hear a finished studio version. I also must note that Someone Will Be There continues to be an emotionally moving piece, especially when performed live by Andrew and Illicit Ghost. Their chemistry together as performers as well as artists really brought out the emotion in the piece, and brought tears to my eyes.

The last note I have on the performance is my disappointment with the crowd during The Whole World and You. During the segment of the song where people typically clap along, it was only my group as well as a couple others who joined in. Going from the whole venue in Chicago clapping along to just the few of us left me feeling rather saddened by the crowd’s enthusiasm, so I hope that the performance in Boston will make up for that.

All in all, I’d consider the show a complete success. Andrew and Illicit Ghost prove time and time again that they can give a damn good stage performance. Andrew always brings that little but of charm that makes him a good performer. To match the “glasses falling off incident” of Chicago, this time he forgot some of the words to HEY YOU! And that’s okay! He said that “There’s just so many words to this one, so many changing verses, it’s hard to remember!”. Thankfully the crowd didn’t give him a hard time.
Illicit Ghost once again showed that she is a perfect performing partner to Andrew, her harmonies striking all the right spots in each and every piece. I was very impressed at Marcio’s captivating guitar work for this set, it really brought a new vibe to the songs that were played, and I welcome it! My final note for the performance is that the lack of percussion for HEY YOU! And Taken for a Ride was a stark contrast to what I was used to, and yet the songs didn’t feel hollow, they just felt like Andrew bringing his somber energy to admittedly energetic tracks, and I think the change up as quite nice to see.

After the show was done, there was a short intermission between sets in which I talked to quite a few fans. It’s always super lovely to be able to talk face to face to other fellow Tally Hall/Edu fans, and this was no exception. I had moved away from my front row spot to allow for some Jukebox The Ghost fans to have their turn in the front. I accompanied my friend Miles in the corner of the venue to get a view from the side stage. Despite having the speakers nearly blowing my eardrums out, Jukebox the Ghost put on yet another stellar performance of their debut album, “Let Live & Let Ghosts”. I can’t stress enough how good of a stage presence these 3 put on, I highly recommend catching any of their shows if they come to your area.

After one of the songs they performed during their second set, they told a story about seeing Tally Hall together while they were still just a fledgling band, and that one of them had given their demo CD to Andrew, and that to this day, Andrew has gone to every Jukebox the Ghost performance. It’s touching to hear that Jukebox and Andrew have such a solid relationship with one another, and it’s a true testament to the power that music can have on people.

Right before we all left, we reconvened with Andrew on the upper level, where a large group of us formed a line to have our chance to talk to Andrew. I must commend Andrew once again for really taking each fan into consideration, giving us each ample time to talk, ask our questions, and take our pictures. Eventually it was my turn to talk with Andrew, and he remembered me from last time. After exchanging a few words, Andrew noted that he had brought me something and went to retrieve it. After emerging from a back hallway with a manila envelope, he apologized to everyone else for not bringing enough, and while yes I was worried that the crowd would be upset, they were quite encouraging of the upcoming exchange. It was particularly nice to know that they felt I had earned whatever was about to enter my possession.

After a solid few moments of anticipation, Andrew pulled out 2 very special discs from the envelope. A copy of Party Boobytrap, as well as a Tally Hall Internet Show Sneak Preview DVD with the Natural Ketchup skit on it. Needless to say, I was floored. He had not only remembered that I asked about PBT in Chicago, but also that he fulfilled my request and brought it for me AND That he thought about me along the way. It was a truly touching gesture by him, and a moment I will never forget.
He signed my setlist and WTTH Photo, we got a picture, and I moved to the back of the line. The remainder of my time was spent engaging with other fans and generally having a good time.

After everyone had their turn and had left. I spoke to Andrew just one last time to get my Good Day single signed, and to give him the developed photo we took together in Chicago. I got to share a few words with him in an interaction that I also will never forget. I thanked him for everything that he had done that night, and for being so patient with and interacting with all the fans equally.
I shared my excitement for the finished version of Worlds in my Head, as well as some other positive words. It was at the end that I confided in him some words about Someone will be There. The week before the show was not an easy one for me, and the night before was exceptionally a bummer, so I shared with him that his song really touched me in a way I had not expected it to, being the light at the end of a strain of bad days. I told him that Tally Hall had always been there for me during my darkest moments, and I think that resonated with him. It was amazing to know that he shared the same sentiment, and that he was happy his work had struck such an accord with me. We hugged and I departed the venue, but not before double checking that Andrew was still keeping his big promise for Boston.

After rushing to the Metro, and finally getting to my car. I immediately listened to Party Boobytrap in all its glory. I then made the long drive home with my bounty and had quite the story to share the next day. I will admit that I had an absolute hay day with Hailey while ripping and scanning the discs, as well as making entries on Discogs. Just some of the many amazing aspects about my “Job” with HITS. It’s always been a labor of love for Coz, Joshface, and everyone who dedicates their time, me included. I highly anticipate the final show in Boston, and am once again reminded that there is Nowhere Else I’d rather be. 

Until next time, stay green and don’t grow daisies for fingers. 

–Ruby Red

I flew out to Chicago all the way from Philadelphia to catch this show, and I am super glad that I did. Upon making my way into the venue, I heard Andrew, Ross, Bora, and Illicit Ghost sound checking, working on tunes like ‘Taken for a Ride‘ and ‘HEY YOU!‘ I was fortunate enough during this time to meet 3 amazing and lovely people who would become my concert buddies for the evening: Bella and her brother Frank, as well as another girl, Elise. I was also accompanied by my good friend Melody and her best friend Maddie. The 7 of us stuck together for the entirety of the night’s events, and I like to believe we form long lasting bonds with one another.

After meeting the talented Jukebox the Ghost, we were given access to the mainstage, where I was lucky enough to catch Ross Federman at an upper booth (Carter Altruda, too) and I was able to speak with them briefly. Ross was super cool about everything despite my rather shaky tone of voice due to the sheer amount of excitement I was feeling. We had a brief chat about the night’s events and how he was nervous about his first stage performance in 13 years, and after some positive conversation, and the promise of a setlist, I made my way downstairs.

Before the big performance, Andrew had come on stage to fetch something, which is where me and my group of friends had congregated, and we got to wave and cheer him on. After more waiting, and an improvised karaoke of “Welcome to Tally Hall” performed by the ultimate concert group, the lights dimmed down and the show started.

The show began when the magnificent Illicit Ghost walked onto stage and began singing the first number, a new song called “Good Morning, Mr. Butterfly”. Illicit Ghost accompanied Andrew, Ross, and Bora for the duration of the show, for songs both new and old. I feel that her contribution to the performance may have been undervalued by other fans/listeners, however I personally feel she meshed perfectly with the songs from ‘Sketches‘ and Tally Hall, and brought forth new and positive vibes to the existing songs. I very much look forward to hearing her vocals on new tracks with Andrew, and she was a delightful addition to a stellar cast.

Other songs continued as normal, with the members absolutely living it up on stage. New songs like ‘Monsters‘, ‘Fishes‘, ‘Worlds in my Head‘, and ‘Someone Will Be There‘ were a joy to hear for the first time, and were living proof that Andrew + Illicit Ghost were equally as good writers as they were performers (However, I’m certain we already knew this). Returning classics like ‘Taken for a Ride‘, ‘The Whole World and You‘, ‘Miss Melody‘ and ‘HEY YOU!‘ were crowd favorites and had everyone with a smile on their face. For seemingly the first time, a finished part of Fate of the Stars was also played, specifically part 3 featuring Andrew’s vocals. I won’t ever forget hearing that one live, it felt like a moment in history. Interestingly, Ben Thornewill of Jukebox the Ghost joined for some vocals on TFAR, and Ross provided an amazing drum breakdown in one of the new songs. During one of the songs, Andrew lost his glasses and the whole crowd had a laugh, another instance of the joy these artists bring to their performances. Lastly, Andrew announced that his new album would be released this year, and it was made in conjunction with Illicit Ghost, and I am beyond stoked to see what direction this goes in. If their songs from the performance were any indication, I’d say they knocked it outta the park.

The show ended to raving applause and as they left the stage, Ross had not forgotten his promise, and provided me with the setlist from the stage. Something I must note is that when everyone was packing up, Elise and I had called over to Bora, in order to get her fanart to him. It was then I flashed my CD copy of the Anthropomorphic Bible Assault EP to see what Bora would say. I think the reaction he had was absolutely priceless and on par with how I would’ve expected him to react. His eyes widened, he stuck his tongue out with a disgusted expression, then walked away, a hilarious way to react and something I will always remember.  The show was over, but that was only half the fun. I got to talk to the 4 of them over the course of the night, as well as to some other amazing individuals, but that means I did miss the Jukebox set, so Jukebox the Ghost if you are reading this, I apologize heavily.

I think it would be best to break down the rest of the events based on who they occurred with, since everything was all sprawled out. 

First, I’ll start with Bora Karaca. Bora seemed slightly apprehensive/introverted at first, but he warmed up to the fan reception pretty quickly. I got to speak with him on a variety of topics, including Cojum Dip, Miracle Musical, as well as him personally. I talked to him about ABA a little and he said that he burnt them for a live show in 2005, which answered a lot of my questions. In regards to Cojum Dip he told me quite a lot, and for his own privacy I will not share certain details unless he gives me permission to do so, but he told me he still has his Bodur Mask, and that he cooks great ethnic food. He is still actively working on tunes and has told me some about his writing process. Whatever he chooses to release, and whatever name he releases it under, I am very much looking forward to what he’s put together. 

Next, I talked to Ross Federman. Ross was very happy to talk with me, and was exactly how kind and respectful you would expect him to be. We talked about HITS, to which he thanked me for my contributions (which truly meant a lot to me). We talked about Miracle Musical also, and the prospect for a future interview to be conducted (which will be happening, hopefully soon!) as well as just a boatload of other things. Ross was absolutely a delight to talk with, I think if he didn’t have other people to see, then we would have talked for hours on end. I very much look forward to seeing him again the next time I have the chance to do so. Also Ross, if you’re reading this, thank you for the drumstick!!

After that, I spoke with Andrew Horowitz and Illicit Ghost. Illicit Ghost by far was one of the sweetest people I have ever spoken with. We had talked about the show, and about the traveling I had done to make it there. She was super interested in hearing about my journey, and offered uplifting moral support on my dreams in regards to HITS and my own record store. I raved to her about her contributions to the performance as well as expressed great interest in hearing all of what’s to come. I cannot wait to talk to her again, which will hopefully be soon! Andrew was super polite and sweet, and really let me yap my ear off to him about everything. He too was appreciative of my HITS work and was happy to know that he inspired my musical journey. We too talked about the show as well as Tally Hall, among other things. He was super lenient about telling me stuff about PartyBoobytrap and 1-1, as well as other tally hall related questions I had. Both he and Illicit Ghost agreed to let me conduct an interview for the new album, that will be released leading up to the new album. All in all, both were extremely pleasant to talk to, I look forward to talking to them again. Andrew, if you’re reading this, don’t forget our promise!! And Illicit Ghost if you are reading this, Keep on slaying up there, you’re doing great :)!!! 

I also got the pleasure of meeting Frankie Cordero, the director of The Whole World and You Music Video. Frankie was also a delight to talk to, alongside his wife Marea. He expressed great joy in hearing TWWAY live and we discussed the behind the scenes process of the video. It was a pleasure to meet him, and he too agreed to an interview on the process of that video. Stay Tuned! Frankie, if you’re reading this, I extend my sincerest gratitude to you and your wife, It was a pleasure to meet you both!

I spent the other bits and pieces of the evening talking with friends, nerding out, buying all the sketches CDs…oops. The night was absolutely unforgettable and was like a living dream to me. I formed new friendships, as well as promising relationships with both members of my favorite band, as well as other amazing and talented individuals. I hope those relationships continue to blossom and pave the way for more new opportunities just like this one. 

One thing I wanted to note separately is that both Andrew and Ross expressed missing Coz when I brought him up, and I was thinking about Coz nearly the whole time. It is with his website, HiddenInTheSand.com, that eventually led me to that night, and it was his hard work that paved the way for all of my experiences with Tally Hall. I would like to extend my greatest thanks and my sincerest gratitude towards Coz. His life’s work has given my life meaning, and I will continue to serve HITS until the end of time. Coz, this one’s for you my friend, may you continue to rest in peace.  

To wrap things up, I did catch Ben Thornewill at the bar before I left, and got a couple signatures and good words in with him. I additionally bumped into Bora outside before making my way to the train station. I spent the next 14 hours wide awake at the airport just thinking about the night’s events and all the positivity I was feeling.

I made it home safe and I carefully displayed some of the many things I had the members sign for me (and trust me, it was a lot, and I am super thankful for that)  

I would consider the 4/27/24 Edu + Friends performance a blowout hit, and I eagerly await the subsequent 2 performances. 

Until next time, stay green, and keep your hummingbirds close. 

-Ruby Red

I had ordered tickets to see Jukebox the Ghost perform the entirety of their Everything Under the Sun album, and just a week before the show, it was announced that Andrew Horowitz (as well as a surprise guest) would be the opening act!

As I arrived in New York City for the big event, a whopping 4 hours away from my home, I shook in excitement as just before the doors opened for us, I watched Andrew, as well as our favorite honorary member Bora Karaca, walk into the building, his first live performance in ~12 years. I entered the venue and I got to witness JTG do a short Q&A and I got to meet them as well.

After I made myself comfortable standing directly behind the sound mixing box, I had a bird’s eye view of all of the impending excitement. The lights dimmed and out walked Jukebox, with Andrew in tow. They did a 20 minute interview for their podcast and before I knew it, it was time to watch Andrew and Bora work their magic.

Time seemed to freeze as I heard the opening chords for Taken For a Ride, and it felt like it was 2006. I was absolutely mesmerized hearing these songs I’ve grown to love be performed for me by the man that wrote them. The high energy of Taken For a Ride, the somberness of Miss Melody, and of course, the absolute bundle of joy that is The Whole World and You.

Hearing The Whole World and You live is something I will never forget, and I was absolutely entranced by every second of it. Andrew even performed some unreleased content that was unnamed. Bora did a fantastic job providing the guitar work that excellently complimented Andrew’s bedazzling keyboard work. The two of them put on an absolute stellar performance that I would watch a thousand more times. The two of them did appear rather nervous, Bora especially, as not a lot of people there knew of Tally Hall, much less of edu. Regardless of this fact, the whole crowd was clapping along to TWWAY and was having the time of their lives. After their set they were met to roaring applause (and my rather boisterous cheering), but the best part of the evening was yet to come.

Towards the back end of the Jukebox the Ghost set, around the last song, it was revealed that Andrew had been watching the performance a mere 10 feet from where I was standing, and in a frenzy to meet my idol I shuffled over to near his seat and waited for my chance to see him. I eventually caught him and his lady friend as they were making their way to leave and I got to have a short talk with him. I was shaking from head to toe and fumbling my words, but my musical inspiration and idol was right in front of me. I made him aware of how much of a fan I was of both Tally Hall and of his solo work (to which he thanked me) and I told him of the work I do with Hidden In The Sand (which he also thanked me for). I presented him with my Pingry EP and a sharpie, and he was very excited to sign it (He showed it to his lady friend, to which he claimed “I haven’t seen one of these in years!”) It was a very happy moment for me.

We closed out the short-lived rendezvous with a picture of the two of us, and a nice hug. Not one of those forced awkward hugs, a genuine hug of appreciation, and it meant the world to me. I honestly had to wait 20 minutes before moving downstairs because I was so anxious. I made my way out (But not before buying edu CDs for all of my friends) and I left.

During my time there I did end up running into my friends Nicky and Jupiter, as well as making a new friend, Melody. I spoke to them about their experiences at this show:
Jupiter said “Andrew was really sweet and really accommodating. He treated me like a regular person. He knew I was a fan but talked to me like a friend. He didn’t make me feel uncomfortable at all even though I was awkward. It was nerve wracking to talk to one of your idols, but he was very sweet.”

It seemed that other people got as lucky as I did to meet Andrew, and I am very grateful for that, it’s not everyday you get to meet someone as kind hearted and genuine as the green tie himself. It also warms my heart that fellow tally hall fans had a blast at the show.

To quote Melody: “It was 10/10. Amazing experience. That was the first and only concert I attended in 2023 and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was great! It was very surreal getting to see not one but 2 Tally Hall members in person, and I had been dreaming of that day forever. It was so crazy to see him walk out on that stage, it was such a magical moment for me.”

Overall, in my experience, the performance they did was truly stellar, and I will never ever stop telling people about it. If you ever get the chance to see Andrew or any Tally Hall member play live, do it. You will not regret it. I look forward to hearing about any and all of Andrew (and Bora’s) next performances, should there be any. If I had to summarize my experience in one sentence, I would say that Andrew and Bora’s stage presence really makes you feel like No One’s Better Than You.

–Ruby “Daisy Fingers” Red

Hey! It was I, notfire, the whole time. Yup, I wrote the first post, and am now writing this one! Hopefully I got some of you guys. I just wanted to show a bit of behind-the-scenes on how the whole prank went from thought to reality. It all sort of started on December 29th, 2021. I had been playing a mod to a game called The Stanley Parable, and came to a point in the game with a little music selection menu. I flipped through some of the songs, and heard a song that genuinely sounded like it could have been The Kazoo Song. I looked around in the game files for the song but couldn’t manage to find it, so I asked a friend for help. After quite a lot of digging, he eventually found out that the song plays when typing “secret” on the title screen of the game and clicking the credits button. I also had been able to find the original .wav by going through the game files a bit deeper. After that, I re-labelled the file and waited until April 1st to post it.

*ACTUAL* New Stuff

So… I’ve been collecting some ACTUAL unheard stuff as a way to apologize to those that I tricked yesterday. Thanks to the people who provided me these files, you know who you are! :] There’s more details about how I got some of these files in the README.txt file in the download of the release itself. Sorted versions of the files in the .7z will appear around TallyAll in some time. (some stuff is already up)

Me, Dwight, and my friend Hailey have also uploaded all of the new stuff to YouTube, so check these links out if you don’t want to go digging through the files:

• Live @ Pingry School, 2005
• Live @ World Cafe, 2006 (2 Separate Shows)
• Live @ Union Hall, 2009 (2 Separate Shows)
• Live @ Rocks Off! Concert Cruise, 2009
• Extras from Rugby Store & Most of The Haunt

Enjoy this new content!

~ notfire

If you missed the original post, here it is below!

Today, Tally Hallmanac contributor and internet archivist notfire found an early demo for Tally Hall’s “Kazoo Song“. It was found on an archived site of one of the many venues that Tally Hall has played at. The venue, The Ark, had a so-called “Jukebox” on their website where viewers could listen to select songs from artists that had played there or that were going to play there in the future.

The Kazoo Song had only been played a few select times in 2006 (it’s the one where they played in the dark with the Christmas Light Suits) and had seemed very bare-bones when it was played. This demo, however, seems to be completely different to the recordings previously found by the community. According to the date the demo was tagged, it was finalized in May of 2005, much earlier than the live recordings from April of 2006. Joe is the only “singer” in this, and it seems very Mucka Blucka-esque, with some clucks and the occasional weird noise throughout the song.

For those who don’t know, the animator of the Turn the Lights Off music video, Drew Morkis, had once mentioned that Joe Hawley sent him a demo of the Kazoo Song titled 1 N 1 S 2, but he had lost the file at some point. Some fans speculated that the demo was called this because of what it sounds like when pronounced quickly: “1 and 1 is 2”.

So, without further ado, please enjoy this new, excellent find!

I’ve never heard any of what you’re about to hear so I assume almost all of you haven’t either, unless you were also around during the listedBlack and earliest of Tally Hall days.

To my Tally Hallmanac editors: You know what to do!

OK, without further ado…

The long-sought-after ‘Welcome to Tally Hall EP’ Recordings

listedBlack Live Recordings

Early, Unknown Rob Era Live Recordings

A handful of these songs reference someone that goes by the name “D Spectacular”. This is a mysterious name and new to me. Rob did not immediately respond to my inquiry about this person, either.

EDIT: Rob confirmed that D Spectacular was a guy named Dan P. who lived across the hall from Rob at the U of M. They used to play some shows and open mics together.

I’m pretty sure that’s Zubin singing the backup vocals through most of these, but sometimes it doesn’t sound like him and I wonder if it’s D Spectacular. The one track seems to refer to him in a manner that makes it sound like he’s a member of the band at that time. Are they a drummer? Singer? Maybe keyboardist? Because I also wonder who is playing the keyboard in these recordings. If I learn, I will update this post.

I also got a handful of old photos that I have uploaded to HITS Galleries (SmugMug). Until then, enjoy them at the bottom of this post!

My apologies to the band for this leak of items that they probably would have preferred be kept in the past!

“And the book says: ‘We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.'”

Gallery of Old Photos

These vary between 2002-2004, so take your best guesses as to when each one was taken. UPDATE: Got all the dates! They seem right!

EDIT: Note from Ross: “The pictures where our banner is affixed to two of the giant concrete columns of the @ummamuseum facade are from my very first performance with the band.”

It was a free dance party event in the middle of a street in Ann Arbor with Ross Federman and Michael Dykehouse as DJs. After a day of visiting record stores and of course making a stop at Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, I decided to show up a little bit early. It was just me and a few other Tally Hall fans, each of us stopping to talk with Ross. He was super nice to us all, taking photos with fans and signing stuff after a short chat.

It was around 7 when the show started, Ross was playing a bunch of oldies on reel to reel tapes for a crowd mixed of people there just to dance and people there because it’s a Tally Hall member performing. It was cool seeing other people interested in this semi obscure band that hasn’t done anything for 10 years in person. I was planning on recording audio of the show but unfortunately my audio recorder refused to work, if you want to experience the setlist though Ross has made a playlist of the songs he played on Spotify.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the full show, but it was great from what I got to see. Being able to meet Ross and chat with him a little bit alone made it worth it. I will definitely try to make it to any other Tally Hall related concerts I have the chance to see. My complete set of photos is available here on Smugmug.

Thank you to Coz for letting me write this!

Below is a photo of me and the band — with Ryan Scott eerily peering over Andrew’s right shoulder. It was a great moment but I had no idea it would become so important to me.

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to re-publish my story from that day, which was originally published on the Tally Hall LiveJournal; the first fan-site I made for the band before HITS came along.

LIVE AT THE PINGRY, 5.13.05

I left a little after 4:30pm to get to the event at 7pm.   Despite a slight misunderstanding in exactly which campus the Spring Fling was being held at and ending up at The Short Hills campus of The Pingry School slight after 7pm, my friend Liz and I finally made it to Martinsville around 7:45.   Luckily the band didn’t go on till a bit later.   To our surprise, the admissions stand immediately recognized that we were not students and let us go right through without paying a cent!

Their mics didn’t work when they first went on stage and the band tried to improvise by playing The Mario Brothers theme for 5 minutes or so until the mics got working.   A string on Joe’s guitar broke after a few songs.   Later on, Rob broke one, too.   This would be the first two casualties in about a year, they said.   They were having a hard time hearing themselves clearly in the tent.   It was not exactly the BEST time for the boys, but the important thing is it didn’t make a damn bit of difference to any individual listening to the show because it sounded great.   Just great.   Just… just great.   The crowd of hyper high schoolers appeared to be loving every song and bouncing to even the most intricate of rhythms.   I was a little nervous to hear Ross play since I hadn’t heard any recordings of him aside from the most recent cut of “The Bidding” just days prior to this show.   I was blown away by his skills!   I think because my dad was a drummer and I’m a singer, I focus a lot on the drums and singer of any band.   Not that Steve sounded bad at all, but the addition of Ross to the fantastic harmonies of Joe, Rob, and Zubin, makes Tally Hall a band I have little to critique on… if anything.

After the show, I was approached by friend of the band and little merchandise helper, Ryan, who I had emailed with a few times in the past.   He recognized me and took be “backstage” to meet the band.   To my surprise, they all seemed to recognize me off the bat and I was greeted with handshakes and words of gratitude from all of them.   Call me modest, but I still don’t think I have done much, or at least as much as I could for the band but I’m happy to do whatever I can for them and will continue to do so.   I purchased 2 copies of the exclusive EP release at the show called The Pingry EP.   It contains a handful of delightful songs as well as the infamous cell phone call from Joe made to Rob during a concert just before Joe joined the band.   If you don’t know the story, read the bios on  www.tallyhall.com [Editor’s note: This is no longer on their website].   I got a great picture of me and the band and they invited me to Andrew’s house for their after-party.   Whoo! I was debating it a bit because I was so far from home and the later I delayed my departure just meant the later I would have to drive for 2+ hours back home.   Then I realized I would be an idiot to pass it up and I got directions to the house and headed over.   On our way, I almost ended up going to New York but luckily found a place to turn around and made it through the dark and lonely roads to The Horowitz Estate.   We stayed there for a few hours and got to talk in depth with the guys, getting to know each other better.   Joe told me his ideas for a few new videos including one for “Be Born” which the more I think about, I can totally see and I really hope he is able to do it.   I think it’s a safe bet that whenever they are able to book a gig in the Philly area, they’ll be staying here.   Nice.   These guys are not only extraordinary musicians but also extraordinary people who I’d hang out with any day I had the chance to.

Before I left, Joe gave me a DVD copy of a film he completed recently for his thesis entitled “The Other Way.”   I hope this short film will be available on the internet at some point for all to see.   He will be submitting it for one or two or three festivals so maybe one day it will begin to make its rounds on the net.   Brilliantly made and conceived, this film is definitely unlike anything you’ve seen before.   If I had the means to get it on the net, I would, and make sure people see it.

Thanks Tally Hall!   Hope to see you again soon.

Well, I did see them again. 15 more times, if my records are correct. And that short film? You’ve probably seen it by now, now that it’s “on the net.”

You can view all my photos from this concert on HITS Galleries, if you’re interested in going down more of this memory lane with me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take many photos from Andrew’s house. If I had, you’d have seen Ricky Lax performing some magic for us and I THINK Bora was there but I had no idea who either of them were at the time so it wouldn’t have meant anything to me at the time.

Anyhow, the Pingry EP is 15 and man… I am old.

So, a thing happened last night and people are kind of maybe getting the wrong idea. Or maybe they’re just trolling. Not sure. But even though this website has its own FAQ section, I figured I’d make a post about this specific thing that happened.

I just woke up. What happened?

Tally Hall, in all their wisdom, realized they have a lot of listeners, nearly 350k monthly, on streaming platforms (particularly Spotify) and wanted to expand their library by uploading an old song — a damn good one, at that — which was never uploaded before. That song is their cover of Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend”. It went live today! Hooray!

TALLY HALL RELEASED A NEW SONG?!?!

No. Well, not exactly. I mean, it’s not new. It’s been out since 2008. It’s just not been on Spotify.

TALLY HALL IS BACK?!?!

No! I mean, they never went away. They’re on hiatus. I know a lot of people like to say they’re dead. As of today, they’re not dead. They’re just not recording or touring – and they won’t for the foreseeable future. Recording and touring are 2 very important things, I grant you, but still… not dead, so, not “back.”

#RALLYHALL?!?!

No! It’s just a song!
It’s just a song!
It’s just a song… it’s just a song… it’s just a song… it’s just a song…

A musical interlude begins…

I started throwin’ bass, she started throwin’ back mid-range
But when I sprung the question, she acted kinda strange

Then when I asked “Are you a new song?” she tried to pretend
She said “No I’m not. I’m just an old song that people should have the opportunity to share online more.”

Listen on Spotify…

Listen on YouTube…

The show was a free outdoor concert in Ann Arbor with the band JR JR, sponsored by Ann Arbor’s 107one.   Joe Hawley was slated to do a 30-minute opening set.   I got there early, so I caught a lot of sound checks before the concert started.   Slowly a meager crowd of fans with black Tally Hall shirts began filling in the space in front of the stage.   Joe himself was waiting around nearby and spoke with us for a little while before the show started.   He was very nice.

During sound checks, Joe took the stage with his guitar and cell phone to test mic levels when used with some backing tracks.   He actually played the entirety of an unreleased song, which appeared to be Bahamian Rap City from the Joe Hawley Joe Hawley ad twins video!   It was a catchy tune mixing sung vocals and rapping.   The lyrics seemed to be about protecting the environment.

Finally, the show formally started around 11:30.   Joe took the stage with his acoustic guitar, kazoo, and megaphone, and played a short kazoo intro before introducing himself.   The introduction was a little somber, as he recalled the days of rehearsing with Tally Hall nearby and said how much he missed the guys.   He also stated that some the songs would have a few verses omitted since he was playing without his fellow band members.

The show started with a few purely acoustic songs- A Lady, The Bidding, and Hymn for a Scarecrow. After the bridge, Hymn for a Scarecrow moved into a short cover of Space Oddity by David Bowie, which replaced the usually chaotic orchestration in the middle of the song.   Joe then plugged in his phone and played Spring and a Storm and Variations on a Cloud with backing tracks.   Variations on a Cloud fittingly transitioned into a short cover of Jump by Van Halen, giving the song a whole new meaning.   Jump’s lyrics in context with Variations on a Cloud take on a much darker meaning, considering the September 11th-themed video released last year (especially during the chorus; “Might as well Jump”).   After that, Joe introduced JR JR and took his leave.

Overall it was a great show, and it was very exciting to get to hear Variations on a Cloud and Bahamian Rap City* played for the first time live.   Joe played barefoot, which he said was calling back to one of Tally Hall’s earliest shows at the Blind Pig years back in 2005.   I feel pretty lucky for getting to catch this rare appearance.   I hope more shows will come as Joe releases his new album later this year!

* Bahamian Rap City was played during sound check only

Set List:

• Kazoo Intro
• A Lady
• The Bidding
• Hymn for a Scarecrow (w/ cover of Space Oddity by David Bowie)
• Spring and a Storm
• Variations on a Cloud (w/ cover from Jump by Van Halen)

A cool fan named Ryan caught some footage of Spring and a Storm here:

Thanks Coz for letting me write this review up!

And it’s all PAY WHAT YOU WANT!  (WHICH SHOULD BE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!)

Along with demos from most of the  songs off Good & Evil, there’s a few demos from the Marvin’s era and a few other random pieces which we’ll get into a little later. [Edit: Yes, the download of this new album includes 29 tracks, despite the amount of tracks that currently show on the Bandcamp page!]

But first, what does this all mean?

We could chalk it up as simply a wonderful Christmas Miracle, which, we should do either way. But I can’t help think this might say other things. I can only speak for myself here, but I wouldn’t feel inclined to unload a ton (all?) of my band’s demos unless I was doing it as an act of solemn resignation. Especially if I’d been holding on to them for a number of years. Especially-especially after the last song on this new collection.

HITS has always remained optimistic in terms of the band regrouping; reinforcing the fact that they’re on hiatus. This evening, however, I find it harder to believe that as much. (Skip to the end if you have no patience.)

But hey, that’s all speculation. We should definitely enjoy this on a superficial level before looking deeper into it. Speaking of which, let’s take a look at what we’ve got here on this new collection of tunes!  Here are my thoughts and  first impressions on what we’ve got here:

1. Another Minute (Live at the Frieze Basement, December 2002)
   Presumably from one of their first shows before they even had Joe in the band and therefore weren’t even known as Tally Hall yet. Possibly a song carried over from ListedBlack?
2. Mobile Phone Premonition (Live at the Frieze Basement, December 2002)
   As heard on The Pingry EP.
3. Welcome to Tally Hall (Acoustic Demo)
   I’ve heard a demo from before Ross joined but this appears to be the original demo before lyrics were written.
4. Marvin’s SFX – “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Sample)
   I don’t know what to make of this. I’ve heard tell of the band wanting to cover this song, perhaps even rehearsing it, but I don’t know what this little ditty is all about.
5. Banana Man (Lounge Version)
   I can’t tell if this is simply an early demo of the song or them simply rehearsing an alternate version of the song for live performance. [EDIT: Robin Brown reminds us that this was used very briefly in the Banana Man Sketch within Episode 3 of Tally Hall’s Internet Show and indeed it does sound very much like it could be the same recording!]
6. Blind Pig Introduction (January 2008)
   Ryan Scott being introduced as the host of a show? Hmm. Ya got me!
7. Spring and a Storm (Original Demo feat. Ryan Scott)
   There’s a number of things to take away here.  First, the intro to The Bidding came from this.  Secondly, Ryan was partly responsible for the writing/creation of the song! This sounds like Ryan and Joe just riffing around on an idea.
8. Two Wuv (Alternate Bridges)
   This is great.  So you’ve got this song and you’ve got these movie clips of Mary-Kate Olsen talking and you need to put them together. Which clips do you use?  I woulda gone with the last one on this track.
9. The Whole World and You (Punk Rehearsal)
   How can you not love this?!  I mean, sound quality aside, this REALLY livens up the song, makes it very different, and it works!  Longtime fan Dwight tells me they played this live at a show, too.  We think it was around Spring or Summer of 2009.  
10. Just a Friend
    The studio recorded version of the song which was given away as a bonus download to people who bought the Atlantic Records version of Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum in person at a show… or by the HITS Twitter followers who would answer trivia questions.
11. “Songy Song”
    Sometimes referred to as “Hardly Working” since that’s the video it appeared in. This was written by Rob for some other project which, I guess, was never used.
12. “Keep Up the Good Work!” Theme
    You know this one.  It’s a play off of the Doogie Howser, MD theme, heard in the Tally Hall video series “Keep Up The Good Work!“
13. Sea Cucumber (Demo)
    Presumably  a Zubin demo cut from Good & Evil?
14. Tally Hall’s Internet Show Theme
    ‘Nuff said.
15. Spiced Rum Commercial (Demo)
    Ummm, what?!  Yes!  Tally Hall submitted a demo for a Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum theme.  I don’t know what happened after that, but this was their submission. Related fun fact:  Tally Hall was approached  to write  music  for  Demetri Martin’s short-lived TV show on Comedy Central called “Important Things with Demetri Martin” but turned it down.
16. You & Me (Zubin Lead Vocal Rehearsal)
    I make no bones about it.  I prefer Zubin singing this song.  It would have been the first Rob song not sung by Rob, which is perhaps what the producers didn’t like about the idea. If you’ve done enough browsing on YouTube, you’ve already heard him singing it.
17. Cannibal (Demo)
    Sounds arguably less dark.
18. Who You Are (Demo)
    Not much changed from this demo to the final version. Pretty solid demo.
19. Sacred Beast (Demo)
    Another pretty solid demo that’s relatively the same as the final product.
20. A Lady (Demo)
    See above.
21. The Trap (Demo)
    Boy, did this song ever evolve!  You probably knew it used to be called The Gap, but I had no idea how much changed before they started even playing it out live. Good thing, too. It blossomed into one of my personal favorite Tally Hall songs.
22. Turn the Lights Off (Alternate Bridge)
    ¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯
23. Out in the Twilight (Demo)
    You can hear the magic of this song so clearly.  The brushlight, huh?
24. Fate of the Stars (Demo)
    It’s like a pencil sketch of a masterpiece.
25. Light & Night (Demo)
    Tally Hall’s first collaboration with another singer, Nellie McKay, was Light & Night.  It’s an amazing song, but listening to this demo I’m shocked at just how much it bloomed when Nellie got involved.  The melodic and lyrical tweaks are sorely missed on this demo but of course, I’m very happy to have heard this.
26. “Love Track” (Rehearsal)
    Dude… I have no idea. Pretty groovy, though!
27. Go (Demo)
    This, along with the following two tracks are presumably more songs cut from the Good & Evil sessions. Very Cantor-esque.
28. Color Be Gone (Demo)
    Another Zubin song cut from G&E? I’m only saying it’s Zubin’s because he’s singing it.  This might be the most Beatle-y song I’ve heard from any of them!  And that’s saying something!  I hear a strong resemblance to “Here, There, and Everywhere” combined with the harmonies used and even the Jon Brion-esque Chamberlain organ.  In summary: I love it.
29. The Minstrel Boy
    Here we are. *sigh* So, OK.  First of all, this is not an original song.  This is very old and… um, well, here  are some things  Wikipedia has to say about it:
    1. “‘The Minstrel Boy’ is an Irish patriotic song written by Thomas Moore (1779″“1852) who set it to the melody of The Moreen, an old Irish air. It is widely believed that Moore composed the song in remembrance of a number of his friends,  whom he met while studying at Trinity College, Dublin and who had participated in (and were killed during) the Irish Rebellion of 1798.”
    2. “The melody is frequently played at funerals of members and/or officers of such organisations who have died or been killed in service, typically on bagpipes”
    3. “It was used as background music in the Ken Burns documentaries Lewis and Clark, The Civil War and Baseball.”

So, I guess you can take from that last song  what you will.  Thanks for reading. If I obtain any more information about these songs, I’ll be sure to update the post.  In the meantime, the Tally Hallmanac is open and needs your participating in helping it stay current!

Having not generated any Sound Gates in the month Tally Hall had rested from touring, Zubin’s bass was less than cooperative when it was prompted to make a shield.  But again, a bass is not a guitar and is therefore less relevant, so no more shall be said about it.   Zubin only wished that no more would be said about the plan to rescue Casey.   Joe had whipped out a tactical map and for the past hour and a half had been yammering on about what could possibly go wrong, in this dimension and in alternate ones.

Zubin glanced wearily at Rob who was trying to remain attentive, but the slight twitch in his eye gave away his impatience “” that and the fact that he’d been incessantly popping his fingers since the first half hour rolled by.   Ross stood next to Joe, his arms crossed and his eyes tired, as if staring at the tactical map for so long was making his pupils do pushups.

Every fifteen minutes or so, Coz’s voice would sound out from one of their phones (and one of the rooms in the fan base) testing their communication and checking to see if they’d gone to find Casey yet.   After awhile, Andrew took to walking out into the hall and shouting that they were still there, not just to silence Coz but also to get a break from Joe the Perfectionist.

“And here,” Joe said as Andrew walked back in with hunched shoulders, “would be a tight fit for anything but a Deaf Rider.”   He pointed to a niche in the hologram, a small corner of the warehouse Casey was last seen in.

“Shouldn’t we be going soon?” Ross said lightly.   “You know, before he’s eaten or something?”

“My dear Ross, you know that Deafcaps don’t eat people.   They only maim them, and steal their voices, and leave them emotionally scarred for life.”   All this Joe said with a bright smile.

“All the same,” said Rob, “I don’t think any of those things are on Casey’s bucket list, so can we”¦?”   He made a swirling, wrap-this-up-or-I-will-cut-you gesture with his hands.

Joe frowned, because now they would not have a course of action planned in case the Deafcaps had nerve gas leaking out of any warehouse corners.   He turned off the projector and straightened his tie in his most dignified way, letting the others know he was going to finish up with something very important to say.   With his tie smoothed out, his shoulders back, and his curly hair as tidy as it could be in the morning, he said in his most impressive manner, “I’m gonna use the bathroom.”   And he walked out.

As he went up the steps and into the hall, the others just stared blankly at him, still not through defragging their brains of Joe’s plans.   Ross, who was constantly defragging his head of all the things the others said, was the first to return to his senses, and he called after Joe, “Do we need to do anything?”

“You could get a voice thingy out of the junk room,” Joe called back.   Yes, Joe thought, a voice modifier would help if they ran into a cloud of nerve gas.   An added bonus of voice modifiers was their ability to filter not only voices, but also air.   Another bonus was that it could freshen your breath after a day at the onion farm.   The down side was that breathing through a voice modifier was like breathing through a harmonica, and the metallic taste in your throat usually left you gagging worse than any nerve gas would.   One might also gag just by sharing one voice modifier with several people.   Joe had quite forgotten about the existence of saliva when he said to get just one.

“I’ll get one for each of us,” Andrew volunteered.   Ignoring Zubin’s slight about being a helpful little elf, Andrew made his way to what Tally Hall and their fans referred to as the junk room.   It was the largest room in the base, filled with innumerable oddities that were classified as junk in the junk food sort of way “” magical, marvelous, and detrimental to your health.   Only two steps into the room and Andrew had immediately set off a box full of small mechanical monkeys that hissed and spat at his foot.   He bent down and carefully set them on top of a cubicle contraption filled with clocks, hoping he wouldn’t step on a box of combusting marbles next.

Many of the things Andrew passed in the junk room were kept in glass cubicles like the clock machine.   He liked to think of the glass containers as the type of jars in candy stores to hold things like jellybeans, but really they was more like the glass used to hold lab specimens (as several things in the junk room really were).

With no one around to call him an elf again, Andrew skipped merrily through the aisles the glass boxes made, trying to find what he was looking for.  Electric rocking chair”¦love tester”¦ellipsis maker”¦ Ah, the odds and ends shelves!   Crammed between a stack of floating music boxes and a vending machine for spray tans were the vertical rotating shelves where one could find small gadgets that, out of everything in the junk room, were the most useful and the least likely to electrocute you.

Andrew scrolled through the waterwheel of shiny objects before stopping at the small pile of silver lip-shaped mouthpieces.   While swiping a handful of them off the shelf, his elbow knocked one of the music boxes, making it spin like a top.   As it slowed, he could more clearly see the face painted on the top of the box: the face of Marvin Yagoda, a gray-haired man on whose broad shoulders he wore red, white, and blue striped suspenders.

Most of the things in the junk room were castoffs from Marvin’s own assortment of oddities, a collection which was by far more vast than that of the junk room’s.   With all the dangerous knickknacks that he sent over, Andrew suspected Marvin actually made novelty weapons for a living.   At this Marvin would always insist that he was just a collector of odd things, and that the Tallies should just enjoy his gifts and let him get back to polishing his ray guns”¦er”¦Potato Head figurines.

Resisting the urge to stop and dance to the tune coming out of the Yagoda music box, Andrew stuck the voice modifiers in his pockets and beat a hasty retreat from all the bleeps, whirs, and pops of all the junk room memorabilia.   “No, we haven’t left yet,” he shouted as he got into the hall, not bothering to wait “˜til he passed Coz’s door, and he returned to the monitor room where he joined the others in their merrymaking.

Soon after, Joe also returned and walked up behind the others, who were all focusing on a screen where they had a video up.   “All right, fellows, ready to be the big dang heroes?”

No one responded.

“Guys?   Guys!”   He tapped Andrew hard on the shoulder.

“Shhhh!” Andrew hissed, holding up a finger and not looking away from the cartoon mermaid onscreen.   “Not now, woman!   This is my song!”

Joe frowned once more, not because the others were now wasting time with princess sing-a-longs, but because he couldn’t decide on a course of action to take just in case the aliens did plan on eating Casey.

“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.

That was the response Andrew gave when prompted by a voice in the monitor room to prove it was really him.

There was a terse, “Yeah, okay,” in reply, and the metal doors parted, revealing the blinking lights and superb air-conditioning within.

The monitor room was circular in shape, kind of like the Oval Office except the guy running the monitor room was actually well-liked. This man’s name was Coz, and he looked like he was trying to kill his keyboard using Chinese finger jabs.

He was answering the abysmally numerable questions submitted by Tally Hall fans. These questions covered every computer screen in the room, questions like, “When will their next tour be” and “Is Zubin married”.

In answering the fans’ questions, Coz was slamming his fingers so hard on the keyboard encircling him that the hoverpads supporting it would buckle from the force. Every time he went from “A” to “L” too fast, all his keys did the wave like a bunch of football fans.

The Tallies all stepped down into the room, except Joe, who felt the need to jump over the three steps instead of walk down them. The loud clunk of his boots hitting the floor caught Coz’s attention, and he swiveled around in his chair to face them all.

Coz didn’t look much different since the last time they’d seen him: same height, same weight, same gender. His eyes still held a cold, calculating gaze, even when he glanced at the Diet Pepsi in his free hand, and he still had his office-boss beard “” the type of facial hair that says, “I’m in charge, so get me a biscotti.”

At the moment, though, a biscotti was as far from Coz’s mind as the idea of becoming a ballerina. The normal sharpness of his eyes was diluted with worry, so Italian biscuits and dancing in tights was obviously out of the question for now.

“Heya,” said Coz, getting up from his chair, and the Tallies returned the greeting with happy faces.

“Sorry I wouldn’t let you in here at first,” Coz went on. “Jillian found a voice modifier in the junk room, and I was afraid it was just her trying to get me to open the doors.”

“But you usually leave them open,” said Andrew. “Why wouldn’t you want them in here?”

Coz placed his fizzing drink on an open part of the keyboard, next to his models of the four kinds of Deafcaps. “Have you seen what those two have been doing in there? I’m surprised you let them handle your instruments.”

Joe shrugged slightly, his shoulder being weighed down with his guitar now strapped on. “You know they weren’t actually handling our equipment. We didn’t even send our stuff over “˜til we had our fingerprints encoded on the spacepac,” he lifted the tuna can in his hand, “so they couldn’t have touched our stuff even if they wanted to.”

“And I’m sure they wanted to,” Coz said with a smirk.

The Tallies all smiled politely at his joke (however true it was), and Joe checked his guitar for scratches one more time before taking out his phone. His guitar dematerialized as his finger jabbed one of the empty blocks shown on his spacesaver app.

“Of course, these were just downloads,” Rob said to fill the silence. “We wouldn’t have even considered Jennie’s offer if our instruments needed tuning or something and had to be physically held. I’d be afraid of the girls dropping something.”

He took the spacepac as Joe handed it to him, and he repeated Joe’s action of taking out his jPhone and scrolling across the screen to find his spacesaver. “Can you imagine having to lug all this stuff around?” Rob said once he found the right icon.

“I wouldn’t be in the Music Industry if we had to carry all our junk out every time we needed it,” said Andrew, who was losing a staring match with one of Coz’s Deafcap figurines.

“I was referring to having the girls moving our stuff around, but you make a good point. I don’t particularly like the idea of carrying our equipment myself.”

A moment after saying this, Rob sighed in annoyance, having forgotten that his metallic thumb wouldn’t work on the fingerprint-reading lock of the spacepac, a lock that, if it could talk, would have said, “What is this silver thing being shoved in my face? It is too bulbous in proportion to the rest of this man’s hand, and it doesn’t even have ridges for gripping things. Whoever attached this thing to something besides a toaster oven should be dragged into the streets and shot.”

But because this lock could not actually speak, it remained silent as Rob pressed his other thumb to its reader and held his jPhone up to it. His guitar and other equipment made the transfer as a Technicolor mist.

“Well,” said Ross, “that strategy might actually work. You know, carrying our stuff everywhere, having to set it all up before we can use it. My drums would be especially fun. Then the Deafcaps might laugh themselves to death.”

“So, what happened to you?” Coz asked, and he nodded at the bleach stain.

Ross felt the need to look down at his vest again, perhaps fascinated by the contrast of white on black. “Cleaning droid at the hotel,” he said. “We do  have multiples of our uniforms, but I was afraid of running into another droid before we got here.”

“So you just walked around all morning with bleach stains?” said Coz. The others snickered. “Surely you have an app on your phone to take care of that?”

Ross paused and let Coz’s question sink in. “Oh”¦So I do.” Rob patted Ross’ head as a man pats a dog that’s brought him a dead squirrel.

“Why’d you stop at a hotel anyway?” said Coz.

“Just the two teleports here were exhausting, and we’d already gone through six yesterday,” Rob explained. “We just needed to rest.”

“This is why I always travel by plane. Always comfortable.”

“But they’re way too slow, and they cost more. Besides, we would’ve been going through security all day just to get on the plane.”

“Okay, Coz, what’s going on?” said Zubin, who until now had been listening to the others with a passive expression.

Of course, all the members of Tally Hall had noticed the look in Coz’s eyes the moment they walked in, but all had thought better of trying to rush any answers out of him. Though  Zubin had come off as rudely impatient,  he was in fact genuinely concerned. They had been talking to Coz for a full minute and he still hadn’t said something remarkably snarky, and Zubin recognized this as a sign of the apocalypse.

“You look worried,” said Zubin, “and you asked us to come in person for this news. It must be a bombshell.”

Coz sighed and sauntered back to his swivel chair, snatching his drink off the keyboard as he walked. He threw himself down in the seat and leaned back as he took a long sip, wanting to delay telling them if only for a few more seconds. After emptying the can, he lightly placed it next to one of several delete buttons, and he drew in breath.

“It’s about Casey.”

“Kasem?!” Andrew gasped.

“Yes, Casey Kasem,” said Zubin. “He’s back on radio and probably wants to interview us. Casey Shea, you ding-dong!”

“Ah, yes, Casey Shea,” said Andrew, “our dear old friend who toured with us a couple years ago. A solo artist and guitar player. Likes cake.”

Everyone stared blankly at Andrew.

“Why are you talking in exposition?” Ross said with a raised eyebrow.

“Talking in what? Sorry, I blacked out for a second. What were you saying, Coz?”

Coz blinked stupidly. “Er”¦About Casey?”

“Yes, about Casey,” Rob said, his voice rather anxious. “What happened to him?”

“It’s not really about what happened to him, but what could be happening to him. I’m trying to think of a way to put it delicately”¦”

“You know us, Coz. You don’t have to sugarcoat anything,” said Ross.  “Be as blunt as you like.”

“Blunt? Oh, well, in that case, Casey’s probably had his voice sucked out by some Deafcaps.”

The Tallies’ mouths fell open like the doors of refrigerators that have been pushed over. After a moment Ross slowly said, “Yes, that certainly was blunt.”

“Wait, what do you mean he probably had his voice sucked?” exclaimed Andrew. “Since when are people unsure if they’ve had their voices ripped out? I hear it’s a pretty memorable experience, and not in the Disneyland sort of way.”

“Well, as you just bizarrely pointed out, Andrew, Casey works solo. He was by himself, so no one knows exactly how it happened.”

“How what happened?” said Rob.

“How he was taken by Deafcaps.”

There was a stunned silence full of equally stunned faces, but one of those faces gradually changed to express good humor. “Are we being punked?” said Joe. “We’re being taped right now, aren’t we?”

He looked at all the screens lining the walls of the room as if one of them would betray all the others and say, “Yeah, I have a camera right here.” But like the lock on the spacepac, the screens couldn’t talk, and even if they could, they would be lying if they said Coz had just pulled a cruel, sick prank.

“Why would I kid about something like this?” said Coz.

“Because you have a dark  side just like the rest of us?”

“But I’m not joking.”

That wiped the smile clean off Joe’s face. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Deafcaps have never kidnapped anyone. They may drag people off to take their voices, but they let them go afterwards. All but the Prowlers do, anyway.”

“This time they didn’t let their victim go. I know it’s strange.” Coz pulled a silvery, square-shaped communicator out of the pocket of his pants. “I got this from Al. It’s the message Casey sent to the Music Industry asking for help. He was probably taken right after he ended the transmission.”

Rob  took the communicator in his hand and turned it over a few times with his thumb. “And why didn’t Al let us see this? Didn’t he think we might’ve wanted to go after Casey?”

“Yes, that’s exactly why he didn’t tell you. He knew you would take it personally.”

“Casey is our friend, so I’d say that makes it personal,” said Zubin.

“Some band called the System had already taken the job when Al finally got this message. That band that went after Casey never come back. Al didn’t want you guys to go missing too. That’s why he told me about all this. He knew I’d find out eventually anyway, and he told me not to let y’all know.”

“But you told us anyway?” said Andrew.

“Well, yeah.”

“Remind me to stop telling you my secrets,” Joe said with his signature boyish grin.

Zubin walked with purposeful strides over to the keyboard, and Coz got up from his seat to give him room. With a few button taps, Zubin cleared all the wall screens of fan questions, revealing desktop wallpapers of Coz’s cats. Coz cleared his throat.

Rob and Joe crowded in with them at the keyboard while Ross found an app on his phone to get rid of the bleach stains. Andrew, meanwhile, had also gone over to the keyboard, but stood on the opposite side of the others and had taken one of Coz’s figurines in his hands.

With a few voice commands and a URL code, Zubin had brought up a 3-D map of the world on the largest of the monitor screens. “So where was Casey when this happened?”

“Here in Glenside. That’s the main reason I asked y’all to come here for the news. I knew you’d want to get right to it.”

“We can’t go immediately, though,” said Joe. “We’ll have to prepare.”

“You’re always about preparing, right down to the last detail,” Rob groaned, “and we have no idea what those aliens might be doing to Casey right now.”

“Joe’s right, Rob. We can’t rush into this,” said Ross, coming to join them with clean clothes. His comment was immediately followed by a very dirty look from Rob, not aimed at Ross, mind you, but at Joe, and Joe was more than happy to return the this-band-ain’t-big-enough-for-the-two-of-us glare.

Seeing the dissension he had inadvertently caused, Ross quickly elaborated, “We don’t have to go over every detail of this, but there are big things we need to do before we get Casey, like making sure our instruments work, for one.”

Coz cut his eyes at Rob and Joe to gauge their reactions. The former, not being one to frown for very long anyway, had ceased scowling and had followed Zubin’s gaze back towards the computer screen. Joe on the other hand still looked angry, but he probably wasn’t still annoyed with Rob. Joe just had a tendency to forget what his face was doing if he fell into deep thought.

Following Ross, Andrew spoke up. “First things first,” he said, and he stopped playing with the alien figurine. “We have to call in Bora.”

And who is Bora, you may ask? The same question was once posed to Tally Hall by one of their newer fans, and Rob had answered thus:

“Bora Karaca is a good friend of ours. He plays several instruments, knows martial arts, and is a very good cook. I’m going to marry Bora.”

Bora, it should be added, was a mercenary, one who for the past decade had been hired out exclusively to Tally Hall. If there were aliens to be fought or free food to be consumed, Bora was there, and with the fierce voice of any mercenary did he answer his phone: “You kinda caught me at a bad time. I’m watching my stories.”

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!