Difference between revisions of "Joe Hawley"

''"Sophomore year in college, film school acquaintance Andrew Laurich and I were out videotaping a wedding. In the car on the way back, he played me a CD of his housemate’s high school band, called “Listed Black.” I thought it was OK, but didn’t think much of it.''

''I had been to a few parties at their house, but the only person I really knew there for a while was Laurich. During Fall Semester 2002, Rob formally introduced himself to me (”I live with Andrew Laurich”) at a Musicology lecture. We began to get lunch after class semi-regularly, swapping e-mails and so forth. He sent me a few recordings of himself, Andrew Horowitz, and Zubin performing a small concert in the basement of the Frieze building, which used to be an academic facility on campus. I e-mailed him a couple of experimental tracks I had made over the summer for fun with my high school friend Andrew Kurtz: Covers of “Lady Madonna” by the Beatles and “Space Oddity” by David Bowie.''

''I was very surprised when Rob invited me to practice with his band one day; I had no intention of joining or committing to the project whatsoever. The idea of being in an actual band had never occurred to me. Steve Gallagher was invited around the same time (maybe a practice later or so), and Rob later told me that he thought I’d be an adequate lead guitarist based on some of the stuff I did in “Space Oddity.” I played a couple gigs with them (first as “Gallagher,” then as “540,” the address of their house) as a backup musician, but I didn’t really feel like part of the band until I suggested that we name it Tally Hall and Rob actually listened. He subsequently proposed it to the group (Tally Hall was one of many names I suggested via e-mail), and it was unanimous after some explaining to Andrew Horowitz, the only out-of-stater. I was basically Rob’s very inexperienced hired gun until we covered “Blinded by the Light” at the Blind Pig. Then Andrew wrote “Good Day,” I wrote “Ruler of Everything,” etc."''