Rob Cantor has been having a very good year
October 21, 2014 9:31 PM   Subscribe

You may know Rob Cantor for his work with Tally Hall (previously), or for his hit meme-song Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf (also previously), for which a new, amazing video was released today, or for the time he faked a bunch of celebrity impressions (previously again!). But wait - there's more!

Rob Cantor got his start as the vocalist and guitarist for mid-2000s fabloo rock band Tally Hall, but his first major tracks independent of the group were two weird, wonderful songs about celebrities behaving badly on a grand scale - one where Shia LaBeouf is a murderous cannibal, and one where crazed, foul-mouthed sand wizard Christian Bale is a terrible party guest. Some time later, he co-penned a musical about the man who's job it is to tell the President that an asteroid is headed towards Earth (previously - script is here - the password is Calvert, music is here). But as Tally Hall stopped releasing new music, and former members Joe Hawley and Andrew Horowitz launched solo projects with Hawaii Part II (previously) and Edu (previously also), respectively, it seemed that Rob Cantor would be left by the wayside, with nothing to remember him by other than a pair of novelty tracks and an outline for a killer musical.

That changed on March 19th, 2014, when Rob released the audio for a new track, called Ghost, with the promise that more would be coming on an album called Not A Trampoline. Ghost was haunting, beautiful, and above all catchy - a totally different beast than Cantor's earlier Celebrities Behaving Badly tracks, but one backed by the same foot-tapping sensibility. Soon after he released more videos - first the wonderfully playful Old Bike, and then the touching All I Need Is You.

Shortly thereafter, Not A Trampoline came out, and brought with it an embarrassment of riches. The goofy, expansive Flamingo. The Tally hall b-side redux I'm Gonna Win. Elevated 80s tribute Garden of Eden. In interviews, Cantor described the album as "[comedic, serious, or whimsical]. All three, I hope." And the music video onslaught continued, with the viral-ready celebrity impressions video for Perfect (making of here), and the... well, pretty frigging strange video for The Rendezvous (NSFW).

Today (or yesterday, depending on your time zone), Rob Cantor went full circle with the release of a new video for Actual Cannibal Shia LaBoeuf. Cantor, with the help of some friends new and old, breathes new life in to what is now an old internet chestnut, exploring the intersection of his fascination with celebrity and his Tally Hal-ish love for broad, sweeping artistic epics... and creating a pretty damn great video in the process.
posted by Itaxpica (12 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
I love you for writing this.

Not A Trampoline has grown on me something fierce. The first time I heard it I dismissed it as a collection of not-quite-doing-it pop singles, except for "Old Bike" which is one of the best songs I'd heard all year. Then I gave it a second listen and haven't taken it off my daily playlist since.
posted by rorgy at 9:35 PM on October 21, 2014


How does one fake an impression?
posted by tunewell at 9:40 PM on October 21, 2014


How does one fake an impression?

The original video claims that (and looks like) Cantor is doing all 21 himself; the Making Of video revealed that they were done by about a half dozen different people and that the video is cleverly lip-synched to make it look like Cantor is doing them all himself.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:45 PM on October 21, 2014


Wow. The Shia LaBeouf video is literally the best thing in the universe.
posted by Sequence at 9:46 PM on October 21, 2014 [9 favorites]


Loved the Shia LeBeouf video!

My favorite video (and song) of Tally Hall's is the delightfully, ridiculously wacky "Banana Man!"
posted by Quasimike at 10:02 PM on October 21, 2014


I have, on at least one occasion, described a bad person as "living in the woods! hunting for sport!"
posted by The Whelk at 10:20 PM on October 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


That was more impressive than Neil Patrick Harris opening the 2012 tony awards... well... nearly
posted by greenhornet at 2:25 AM on October 22, 2014


"Normal Tuesday night for Shia LaBeouf" was a very funny lyric. I don't know why, but it was.

Laugh? I nearly dropped my bacon sandwich.

Extremely impressive video. The first in a long time that's had me hit repeat. The staging was just great. The weakest element was probably Shia's Orson Welles... but you can't expect him to be handy with a knife and be able to do a decent Citizen Kane, so I won't make him down for that.
posted by samworm at 3:00 AM on October 22, 2014


I'm trying to let this go but I just can't: how can he be "killing for sport" if he eats all the bodies?
posted by contraption at 11:49 PM on October 22, 2014


He doesn't have to eat the bodies, he has more than enough means to buy food, he kills and eats them cause it's fun.
posted by The Whelk at 6:15 AM on October 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


He's a successful actor with a good income, it's true, but we don't know the details of his finances. Forested acreage anywhere within commuting distance of LA is very expensive, and there is little non-human game available.
posted by contraption at 2:43 PM on October 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh, this was well worth the money to buy, the album. I'm loving Flamingo more and more. The whole thing sounds lush and crisp and fantastic through my (fairly decent but definitely not audiophile level) living room surround sound.

Prediction (that will become fact in, say, an hour or so): I am going to dance so hard to this while vacuuming my house.
posted by pseudonymph at 3:56 PM on October 23, 2014


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