Good & Evil

Good & Evil
Studio Album
Released	June 21, 2011
Recorded	October 26th 2009 - November 26th 2009, at The Sunset Sound Factory in Los Angeles, CA
Length	48:50
Label	Quack! Media (2011), Needlejuice Records (2022)
Producer	Tony Hoffer

Good & Evil is Tally Hall's second studio album. It was released on June 21, 2011 by independent label Quack! Media on CD, vinyl, and digital download.

Their record label Needlejuice Records is reissuing the album, with pre-orders opening on August 26th 2022, with an accompanying 7" vinyl single of Turn The Lights Off / Light And Night.

History

Pre-Release

After the re-release of Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in 2006, Tally Hall would start to perform many new songs, partly due to the fatigue of playing the same couple songs from their first album for years. These included Misery Fell, Turn The Lights Off, and Sacred Beast. These songs seemed more mature than much of their previous work and were fan favorites, some being standards in their setlist.

In February of 2009, they would schedule multiple performances at the Union Hall building in Brooklyn, New York. At these concerts, the band would try out new songs they had written the year previous and reworkings of older songs, including You & Me, Mind Control, and &. All of these gigs would prevent recording and filming, though people would find a way to record them.

On Twitter, Tally Hall would announce they would be recording a new album sometime in the summer of 2009, however this would be rescheduled to the fall of 2009. On October 19th 2009, Tally Hall began pre-production on Good & Evil. This would include rehearsing and figuring out which songs would fit on the album. The working title of the record was to be "A Coincidence of Contradictions". It is not known when this name was scrapped.

The first day of recording would begin at The Sunset Sound Factory on October 26th with Grammy-nominated producer Tony Hoffer and engineer Todd Burke. Unlike many other artists, Tally Hall were given full creative control by Atlantic Records over Good & Evil, which helped with the general experience of making it.

It was revealed that they were recording 16 songs on Ross Federman's Twitter account, however when asked at a concert later on, it was said that they had 14 songs, so it is assumed those either became Fate Of The Stars or were 2 other songs that were scrapped. These could've been Murders or I'm Gonna Win, as they were in contention for Good & Evil.

On November 26th, Tally Hall completed tracking at 1:38am, leaving them one day to prepare for their tour with Rooney and Crash Kings. The tour lasted from November 27th to December 20th 2009, This tour also featured the refined instrumentation for the album tracks, including Rob Cantor performing lead vocals on his song You & Me.

In January of 2010, Rob made a note to hiddeninthesand.com about the album, reading "we're currently finishing up the mixes and very excited about the new album. can't wait for everyone to hear it..." hiddeninthesand.com predicted the release date to be no earlier than June 2010, but more likely to be summer 2010.

On January 28th, 2010 Tally Hall posted a blog on MySpace indicating they completed production on the album and had turned the album into Atlantic Records for review. In an interview with AnnArbor.com two months later, Rob revealed the name of the album, "Good & Evil". Despite this, no release date was publicly revealed and was assumed to still be released in the summer of 2010. One song from the album, You & Me, was debuted by Ann Arbor’s 107.1 on March 9th, indicating the album could've been releasing within 2010.

Meetings between the band and Atlantic Records during April 2010 were supposed to conclude with a release date, but with no announcement left speculation that the album was moved to a 2011 release date. On July 4th 2010, an interview with AnnArbor.com would reveal that the release date was moved to sometime in 2011, but that Atlantic Records remained optimistic about the album.

Back to Quack!

After a nearly 4 year long partnership, Tally Hall would mutually part with Atlantic Records sometime in early 2011. In the split, they were allowed to keep Good & Evil and so, they once again signed with Quack!Media to release it on June 21, 2011, with a tour supporting it in July and August of 2011.

On May 2nd 2011, the first single from Good & Evil, "You & Me" was officially released on Consequenceofsound.net and YouTube. The next day, the limited edition deluxe version of Good & Evil was made available for pre-order on the Quack! Media web store. With this edition were a trophy, a photo from the Welcome To Tally Hall music video, a ticket from Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, some forehead tattoos, and a placard from their 9/17/2008 performance at Club Largo in Los Angeles.

On May 4th 2011, Amazon.com listed Good & Evil's full track listing and samples of each song. This would be most people's first taste of most of the studio work they had done over 2009. The song samples were taken down a day later on May 5th, but were saved by members of the community, who spread them amongst each other.

On June 7th 2011, pre-orders for the CD went live on Quackmedia.com. The first 250 orders got an autographed booklet by each member of Tally Hall.

In the days leading up to the album's release on June 21st, the members of Tally Hall would host two Ustream events, answering questions and premiering songs from the album. The first of these happened on June 14th, hosted by Andrew, Ross and Rob from Andrew's New York apartment. They premiered Never Meant To Know, Misery Fell and Out In The Twilight. The next day, Joe and Zubin hosted from Quack! headquarters in Ann Arbor and premiered Cannibal, Sacred Beast and You.

Post-Release

The day finally came on June 21st 2011, when the album was released worldwide. This came with many positive reviews for its depth and maturity in comparison to their previous album. The album could be streamed for free at tallyhall.com/goodandevil for 48 hours after its release.

On July 20th, Tally Hall hosted a open rehearsal on StageIt.com to raise money for the upcoming tour. On this livestream they answered a couple questions, and performed 6 of the songs on Good & Evil. On July 21st 2011, Tally Hall started on the only tour supporting the album, with SPEAK, Casey Shea, and April Smith as opening acts.

The last show of the tour would be at Mr. Small's Theater in Millvale, PA on August 20th 2011. This would be the last time Tally Hall would ever perform live. After this performance, Tally Hall would retire for the fall to pursue other projects, including music and education.

Needlejuice Reissue

In early 2021, it would be announced that Tally Hall signed with Needlejuice Records to re-release Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum and Good & Evil. These would release alongside a glow in the dark 7" vinyl single of Turn The Lights Off / Light And Night. Variants will include a picture disc and a black & white variants, in addition to other unknown variants.

Good & Evil opened for pre-orders on Needlejuice's website and Bandcamp page on August 26th 2022.

Themes

The main theme of Good & Evil is the concept of duality, an opposition/contrast between two concepts. This is evident in the album title and cover artwork, which use the duality of goodness and evilness, and black and white respectively. & is another example of this theme, with many of its lyrics showing duality (i.e. "Weak & strong & wet & dry & right & wrong & live & die").

This is intentional, as Tally Hall has stated the concept of duality is prevalent throughout the album. In a 2011 uStream livestream, Joe stated there was a story to Good & Evil, specifically the story of "mathematics, or a paradox". Joe also makes reference to a scene in the movie Labyrinth, featuring two guards, one always lies and one always tells the truth.

Good & Evil Tour

The Good & Evil Tour was the only tour Tally Hall did to support Good & Evil, starting from July 21st 2011 to August 20th 2011. The first part of each show would be a pre-recorded introduction by Bora Karaca with only a small interjection of the location name. The band would then come on stage and break out into a rocking rendition of Maple Leaf Rag. Another unique part of the tour was their cover of "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, with Zubin Sedghi and Joe Hawley sharing lead vocal duties.

A special part of this tour was a contest where winners could play the theremin during The Trap, one winner for each venue they played. There was also a contest where one lucky winner could win a theme song written and performed by Tally Hall. Nathan Naimark was this lucky winner.

The setlist for each concert was more streamlined than other tours, many starting and ending nearly the same. The outlier however was usually the encore. The Whole World And You, Just A Friend, and a special rendition of The Beatles' All Together Now were used interchangeably during the 30 days of the tour. Notably, fans Ben and Anne Howard got engaged at the final date of the concert, Mr. Small's Theatre and a rendition of Happy Together would be dedicated to them.

Track listing

#	Title	Writers	Lead Singers	Duration
1.	"Never Meant To Know"	Cantor	Cantor	3:40
2.	"&"	Hawley	Hawley	3:14
3.	"You & Me"	Cantor	Cantor	2:52
4.	"Cannibal"	Sedghi	Sedghi	3:28
5.	"Who You Are"	Cantor	Cantor	3:40
6.	"Sacred Beast"	Hawley	Hawley, Sedghi, Cantor	2:22
7.	"Hymn For A Scarecrow"	Hawley	Hawley	4:50
8.	"A Lady"	Hawley	Hawley	1:05
9.	"The Trap"	Sedghi	Sedghi	4:31
10.	"Turn The Lights Off"	Hawley	Hawley, Sedghi, Cantor	2:56
11.	"Misery Fell"	Horowitz	Sedghi	3:34
12.	"Out In The Twilight"	Cantor	Cantor	2:51
13.	"You"	Horowitz	Horowitz	2:57
14.	"Fate Of The Stars"	Horowitz	Sedghi, Hawley, Cantor, Horowitz	6:50

Liner Notes

2011

Produced by TONY HOFFER

Recorded by TODD BURKE at Sound Factory, Los Angleles, CA
Assisted by CAMERON LISTER & CLINTON WELANDER
Studio Tech: WREN RIDER
Dog: ABBEY

Mixed by TONY HOFFER
Mastered by DAVE COOLEY at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles, CA

Management: GARRY KIEF & CYNDI LYNOTT, Stiletto Entertainment
A&R: LEIGH LUST
U.S. Booking: ERIK SELZ, Red Ryder Entertainment
International Booking: PAUL BOSWELL, The Free Trade Agency
Legal: MICHAEL GOLDSMITH, Grubman Indursky & Shire
Business Management: JEN CZIN & ILENE BASHINSKY, RZO
Art Direction & Design: JOE HAWLEY
Various Things: AL McWILLIAMS & ZACH CURD
Not to mention BORA KARACA

Thanks for continued support from our FAMILIES, FRIENDS, FANS & ASSOCIATES.