Best Band in the Land 4/29: Tally Hall

Ah, the mirth and merriment of Ann Arbor's Tally Hall. I saw these dudes on a whim here in Champaign about two months ago after hearing one of their songs on the radio, and I am absotively posolutely crazy about them. Young Mad-the-10-year-old really likes them as well. They are total dorks who play awesome Queen/They Might Be Giants/Beatles-ish music, with a bit of Beastie thrown in, all with crazy beautiful harmonies. And they have a lovely theatrical flair, with robotic voice-overs and in-crowd Mr. Big sing-alongs. This is the sort of music that I want to make, assuming I ever get my booty in gear and make some original music. I can't figure out why there aren't huge already, though they just got signed by Atlantic Records, and their great album Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum will be re-released this fall, word has it. I'm glad to have caught them at a relatively small venue (Illini Union on the campus of University of Illinois). I had a huge smile on my face for the entire concert, and it seemed that the rest of the audience did as well. Just plain fun, wonderful, happy-time music.

Here's the song I heard on the radio that made me an instant Tally Hall fan...and less than 24 hours later I saw them in concert! One of the best songs by the Best Band in the Land for 4/29/07:

Tally Hall - "Ruler of Everything" [MP3 (in new window)]

And another superfun song that works as a nice intro to all things Tally Hall-ish:

Tally Hall - "Welcome to Tally Hall" [MP3 (in new window)]

And, the infamous Banana Man video:

Official Band Site | Buy the Album
MySpace (listen to "Good Day", "The Bidding", and "Just Apathy", in that order)