The story of Tally Hall is an interesting one. A band out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, they gained a pretty sizable following in the midwest in the mid-late 2000s with their music as well as their comedy and the fact that they all wore colored ties. After releasing an album in 2005, they signed to Atlantic in 2008 and re-released their debut album. They then separated from Atlantic a few years later and released their second album six years after their debut, in 2011.
When Tally Hall was gaining momentum in 2006, they were a really internet and video focused band. Their video for "Banana Man" was popular in the early days of YouTube, and they frequently made pretty funny, Kids in The Hall-esque videos. They only released a handful of actual music videos though, so today we're watching one for one of their most popular songs, "Good Day", directed by band member Joe Hawley.
Before Tally Hall put this video online, they used to actually tour with it. It would open up their shows, or at least it did for the show that I saw in 2006. (After the video played they opened the show with "Free Bird" and seemed kind of surprised when the audience requested their own songs for their encore. It was an odd show.) That marks my only time seeing a full music video at a show.
"Good Day" is a big song with a lot of moving parts, and the video is equally as ambitious. Most of it combines looking at Tally Hall playing in different locations with seeing that footage on different TVs. It plays with the beat, and it's pretty apparent pretty quick that this music video took a lot of time to put together. Once we get to the second verse and every beat reveals a new complete parody of something on TV, you realize just how ridiculous it must have been to put this music video together.
Band member Joe Hawley (the red tie) directed this video, and it's pretty easy to see why this was pretty necessary. The amount of shots and locations in this video means that it needs to be produced over an extened period of time, so a conventional director band relationship probably won't have been able to produce something like this. It also ties in nicely with what the band was partially known for at the time - funny videos and parodies.
Even at a relatively quick 3:43, Hawley recognizes that the concept will get old so he mixes it up with variations as well as just some straight shots, including one of Tally Hall attending the funeral of a TV. The build up at the end is my favorite part of the video, with random home movies and images coming at us rapid fire.
I'm not sure what Tally Hall are up to these days, but it seems like although they are still technically together they are no longer active. It's a shame since they're a talented group, and they seem to have had some issues along the road. I highly recommend checking out their YouTube channel, which has some very funny shorts.
