Ed Hale

Day six. A quickie. Several of our team members fell ill over the last 36 hours. I too had a brief bout with the old ‘rumble in the jungle’ yesterday morning as previously reported; not sure if it was the unbearable heat, the grueling work, the lack of sleep, or something I ate or drank. Same goes for the other troops who went down over the last two days. You just can never be sure. But we’re back on the work site and we’ve finally hit that flow-space that most work trips find eventually within themselves. It can take anywhere between two days to five if its going to happen, and when it does you can really see and feel it. It’s palpable. One minute you are on a team of twenty-something unique individuals of all different ages, races, backgrounds, and social circles, who may or may not know each other, each with their own work habits, ideas and beliefs; each with their own opinions, fears, hopes, and aspirations – God knows all trying their best to get along and get the job done, but still separated by that invisible line that exists between each of one of us and “the other.” On almost every work or peace or mission or activist trip I’ve ever been on I have noticed that at some point the group as a whole will reach a new place in consciousness where the individuals unify, become one unit and work as a whole that almost always is greater than the sum of its parts in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. Not sure when the exact moment in time that occurred for us on this trip, but it has. We spoke about it today after we got back to the hotel in our group meeting. We hit that stride where everyone is now working together in harmony and it feels great. Heat, illness, and back-breaking work aside, several commented that the work site has now turned into “a happy place.” Read More »

So much to report yet so tired. It is just past 10 PM on Tuesday night, the fifth day of our ten day work trip in a small village called Flora Del Campos – a government housing project community thirty minutes outside of the much wealthier coastal town of Cartagena in Colombia. This might be a good place to interject one of the many ironies that we have thus far encountered on the trip. [Everything I will write about tonight I will try to keep brief and to the point as best as I can – though even when it is demanded of me, this time out of the dire need to get to bed earlier than midnight and get some much needed sleep, I still almost always find that task difficult. Perhaps best if I just jot down thoughts and observations rather than attempting to break any of it down; so if it all seems a bit disjointed, pardon me just this time at least; for indeed we are more than tired. Way beyond “tired.”]

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A quick update. It is Sunday night July 26th 2009, the end of day 3 of a ten day work trip in Cartagena, Colombia. We are all exhausted. How we will ever make it to day ten I have no idea. Specifically we are here to do one thing: build a church and community center in a poor neighborhood forty minutes outside of the beautiful coastal town of Cartagena called Flora Del Campos. The area is a project town so to speak comprised of a few thousand people who have been displaced from their real hometowns, neighborhoods, schools, and of course from their own houses. So now they live here. All of them from different areas of this fascinating country called Colombia. None of them natives of the area, or neighbors, or childhood friends or relatives of each other; just thousands of displaced people from all over the country and of all ages who became homeless because of the never ending wars over the last forty years between the “paramilitary” of the rich and powerful monopolizing feudal land owners and the equally questionable communist “guerrillas” who have tried for decades to defeat them.

This is our simple mission. But we are quickly learning that there is much more to it than just “building a church for the poor.” Tired. I have been on the road now for five weeks, primarily in the US. This trip was planned months ago; but it came suddenly. Shocking really. Not enough time to plan or pack or consider what or where or when or how. Flew into New York after more than four weeks gone and woke up at 4am the following day to catch a flight to Bogota and then Cartagena. It is no way to live, but it is better than a day job. Maybe. With each new flight I wonder more and more. I am tired of flying. tired of airplanes. Tired of airports and taxis and early mornings and late nights. More than tired. Exhausted and then somewhere beyond that I would suppose… With the new album out and all the work involved in promoting it I lost track of time and never really stopped to ponder this particular trip. I knew it was on my schedule. But I never stopped to really think about where we were going. It just sort of happened. Next stop. Colombia. Read More »

“With a new solo album in the stores and spinning on radio from coast to coast, Transcendence singer-guitarist Ed Hale will jet from Vancouver, British Columbia to his current hometown of New York City for a day, then on to Cartagena, Colombia in South America, then Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then of all places Lahore, Pakistan for three days before returning home for what one assumes will be some much needed sleep.”

Recording and promoting a new album in the music world of today is a cookie-cutter process that has become as predictable as it is difficult in an ever increasingly competitive music marketplace. With the advent of home-studio recording and internet distribution over the last ten years, talent is no longer a prerequisite for “releasing an album” to the public – whether it be a band of well-to-do 13 year old suburban pre-teens who dream of becoming the next Plain White T’s, or a group of pot-bellied off-duty cops who once dreamed of being the next big thing back when Led Zeppelin were topping the charts, anyone can record a collection of songs, call it an “album” and unleash it to the unsuspecting masses. This has made the music business one fiercely competitive industry to make a living in. The steps artists are supposed to take along the way are routine: record, release, promote, and tour. There was a time way back when this process worked. The only glitch is that now there are tens of thousands of would-be next big things of all ages doing the same thing every day of the week three-hundred and sixty-five days a year.

The statistics don’t lie: over ten-thousand bands applied to perform at last year’s biggest independent music festival, South by Southwest in Austin Texas. On any given week over five thousand new CDs are released into a flooded marketplace – all expecting radio airplay and big sales. The artists, no matter how big or small, are expected to follow the same routine regardless of how difficult or futile the actions or results are. Bands tour up and down and back and forth across the country in rented vans living on peanut and butter jelly sandwiches playing for two to ten drunken stragglers in nameless, faceless bars or clubs or any venue who will have them – knowing full well that they aren’t going to make a a dime from doing it. They don’t do it for the money though. They do it because according to legend, and some crusty higher-ups, that’s just the way that you do it. Most bands expect and accept that unless they break big with a song on the radio or in a big Hollywood Blockbuster or the new iPod commercial – all highly unlikely, though still possible – that touring after they release a new album will set them even further in the hole of debt they already incurred recording their initial album. But they do it anyway. Touring, no matter how lacking in fun, profit, or glamor is supposed to at least serve to lend credibility to an emerging artist’s reputation. Or so it is said.

Recording artist Ed Hale, best known as the singer-songwriter-guitarist for the rock band Transcendence, knows the process well. Having just released his eighth studio album, the majestic acoustic pop jewel entitled Ballad On Third Avenue (the album debuted at #14 on the CMJ Most Added Chart last week), he is accustomed to being asked to jump through the usual hoops of the contemporary circus that is today’s music business. “Record, release, radio and tour man… that’s the game. But we’re playing it a bit different this time out,” the singer said over a cup of espresso after a two hour interview on Canada’s Vancouver Persian Radio Show Saturday night. The self-proclaimed “Ambassador” has been giving a lot of interviews since the June 16th release of his new solo album. And his schedule over the next six months is more jam-packed than a rental van full of scruffy-haired indie rockers on their way to Cleveland. But the topics of conversation in said interviews are remarkably different and unexpected for a singer promoting a new album – as is his tour schedule. (The Vancouver interview was based on Hale’s involvment with a side project of his, the PeaceWithIran.com website, and was by all accounts an activist lover’s dream – with Hale ebulliently excited about his latest infatuation – Iran – and emphatically declaring that “people from all over the planet need to come together to support this mega-revolutionary people’s movement of our Iranian brothers and sisters at this historic moment” – hardly the usual banter of top 20 college radio pop-stars).  Over the next three weeks in fact Hale will jet from British Columbia to his hometown of New York City for a day, then on to Cartagena, Colombia in South America, then Sao Paulo, Brazil, and eventually of all places to Lahore, Pakistan for three days before returning home for what one assumes will be some much needed sleep. Read More »

In its next issue Revolt Magazine will be publishing a special series of Summer Lists by today’s hottest music artists. Next week’s list features a contribution by Transcendence singer/songwriter Ed Hale as he offers up his Top Ten Things to do in Summer list – with items such as “kiss a mermaid” it is surely not to be missed! Look for the feature starting Monday July 20th, 2009 on news stands or the internet here.

Until the passing of Michael Jackson it seemed the entire world was fixated on the recent people’s uprising in Iran and the attendant government’s controversial attempts to quell the protests. A hot topic in Western news for more than fifty years, Iran most recently came to public attention again when millions of people in Tehran and other large cities of all ages and religious backgrounds came out into the streets in droves to protest or support the second term election of Iranian president Ahmadinejad. On Saturday July 18th, 2009, singer/songwriter/political activist Ed Hale will be giving a special two-hour radio interview on one of the Western World’s most popular Iranian news programs, Vancouver Persian Radio – CKYE 93.1. The show is hosted by Iranian born Ebby Mohseni and will be broadcast live from 9:00PM to 11:00 PM PST. It can also be heard live on the internet here. In 2008 Hale, also called “The Ambassador” precisely for these kind of social and global cultural activities, co-founded the non-profit organization PeaceWithIran.com after traveling to Iran as a Civilian Diplomat on a special peace delegation where he and ten others met with the Iranian president and many other influential government and religious leaders. Read More »

A rare and unreleased radio-edit version of the song “Ballad On Third Avenue (Beautiful Losers)”  from Ed Hale’s new solo album Ballad On Third Avenue will appear on the College Music Journal’s New Music Sampler CD due to be released to subscribers only on Monday July 20th, 2009. The song has been one of the primary focus tracks for the over three-hundred college radio stations across the United States and Canada currently spinning the new album, along with tracks “Architect’s Daughter,” and “New Orleans Dreams.” The lyrics of the song were cowritten with sixteen year old up and comer Tyler Bejoian, who also cowrote four other songs on the new disc. CMJ has long been the go-to source for the newest most cutting edge music for those who want to know what the public will be listening to six months to a year from now and have been going strong since 1978. Details below.

CMJ New Music Monthly #156 // New Music Report #1112
Cover date: Mon, July 20

Starting this July and continuing monthly thereafter, the monthly print edition of CMJ New Music Report will increase its circulation to include CMJ New Music Monthly subscribers and rebrand itself as CMJ New Music, including enhanced editorial content as well as its current suite of extensive radio and chart data. The issue will be co-numbered CMJ New Music Report #1112 and CMJ New Music Monthly #156. CMJ New Music, with a redesigned format and expanded readership totaling nearly 10,000, will be mailed to subscribers of both magazines, including college and non-commercial radio reporters, music industry subscribers, and early-adopter active music tastemakers.  Accompanying each monthly issue will be a digital music compilation made available to all subscribers via CMJ.com.  CMJ New Music Report will continue to published online via 48 PDF issues annually, inclusive of these special monthly print editions.

Turning the volume down low and showing a softer side has paid off for Transcendence singer and chief songwriter Ed Hale on his newest solo offering. The life or death drama and pathos and over the top emotionalism and passion that listeners are accustomed to hearing from the vocalist are still intact on the new solo set; in fact they’re even more highlighted due to the toned down and hushed atmosphere created by Hale, who co-produced the album along with fellow Transcendence guitarist (and Dreaming In Stereo frontman) Fernando Perdomo. Not only will Ballad On Third Avenue be the singer’s first album to receive airplay on commercial radio nationwide out of the gate, but the new acoustic whisper-pop collection of 11 songs debuted at #14 on college radio’s CMJ Top 200 Most Added Chart this week, the highest debut in the singer’s 20 year career. Out of 200 albums currently spinning on college radio this week it is a remarkable achievement considering Hale has not toured in several years and is a relative unknown compared to the behemoth his better known band Transcendence has become over the last ten years. Read More »

The new Ed Hale solo album Ballad On Third Avenue is now spinning at over 350 college radio stations across the United States and Canada and is expected to hit the CMJ Top 20 Most Added Album List next week. See the list here for the station in your town and listen in. As always call-ins from fans are very cool. For the new CD, Hale will be conducting on-air interviews with stations across the country and many stations are also holding contests for fans to win free autographed copies of the new CD or t-shirts and other memorabilia. More info can be had by tuning in to your local college, community, or university radio station for details. In today’s singles-oriented atmosphere, college radio still holds the distinct advantage over commercial radio in that they are serviced with entire albums by artists – rather than just “the newest hit single” – and never afraid to dig deep they are usually more than eager to play the more rare, less-heard, or experimental tracks from new albums. All hail college radio for staying true to this vision and offering music fans this invaluable service. The college radio campaign for Ballad On Third Avenue is being handled by The Syndicate.

The first single from the new album, “I Walk Alone,” hits commercial radio stations across the US next week. A new update with a commercial station list for every town will be posted in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

Artist: Ed Hale
Album: Ballad on Third Avenue
http://www.edhale.com
Style: Indie/Powerpop/Acoustic
Rating: 3.5/5
By  L. Anne Carrington
How does one describe the newly released work of Ed Hale’s Ballad on Third Avenue? Perhaps one way would be a soft intimacy of acoustic and pop sounds that will make the listener feel comfortable right from the beginning of the album’s very first track. Ballad on Third Avenue may also take one back to the days of Bright Eyes, Simon and Garfunkel, and maybe a little Beatles thrown in for good measure. The lead singer of the popular Brit Pop/modern rock band Transcendence who have scored numerous hit singles and have had songs featured in films and television shows over the years, Hale made a side trip into the recording studio and made his own album. The end result was Ballad on Third Avenue, a brilliant blend of acoustic guitars, pianos, organs, xylophones, cello lines, and mellotron that may not have worked for many artists, but it certainly has paid off for Ed Hale in more ways than one. Hale is not always the easiest performer to keep up with; his style is always changing in his roles of writer, populist blogger, controversial YouTube star, outspoken political activist, or civilian diplomat. In his first solo effort, however, he can add another accomplishment to his list: creating a magnificent album that instantly draws in even the most finicky music aficionado and holds them there until the very end.

http://indiemusicstop.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/ed-hale-ballad-on-third-avenue/