Ed Hale

Ed Hale Photo by Flavia Molinari

Ed Hale and band just announced two new concert appearances, both in New York. The Transcendence singer/songwriter/guitarist just released his latest solo album, the critically acclaimed Ballad On Third Avenue – a melodic gem and lyrical milestone for Hale that sounds and feels like an homage to getting lost and losing in the streets of New York and still coming out winning. Tour dates so far have been few and far between; even though the album stayed in the college radio charts all summer and the first single, the anthemic “I Walk Alone”, has been tearing it up on commercial radio making Hale more and more a household name for the emo set. Dying Van Gogh Records assures that Hale will add more tour dates as the album gains more traction at radio. For now fans will have to settle for the few that crop up now and then. Two such happen to be in the Big Apple. Stay tuned for additional updates.

October 2nd, 2009 Friday Night – New York City, NY USA – Fall Fest – Christ Church – 6:30 PM. Corner of 60th st. and Park Avenue. Tickets $10 at the door. Two hours of bands. Ed Hale is one of the featured artists. Band will consist of Hale on vocals and acoustic guitar, Peter Capelle on piano, and a cellist. Will perform 4 songs from new album Ballad On Third Avenue.

November 7th, 2009 Saturday - New York City, NY USA – International Pop Overthrow Festival – 3:30 PM Sharp. Kenny’s Castaways 157 Bleecker St. New York 212 979-9762 $10 at door gets you in for all acts that day and night till midnight. FULL SIX-PIECE BAND CONCERT featuring acoustic guitar, piano, cello, bass, drums, mellotron, and vocals – performing songs from new album Ballad On Third Avenue.

CD REVIEW IN BOOTLEG MAGAZINE August 2009
Ed Hale has recorded a solo album away from his Brit Pop band Transcendence but hasn’t left the pop sentimentality too far behind, using the skill to help shape something acoustically raw and introspective. Ballad on Third Avenue is rich in memorable and pleasantly catchy songs that eschew common trappings of a larger sound in favor of recording more sparse and intimate material. It succeeds in practicing restraint and in also telling stories weaved through American landscapes. The album recalls the jingly soft sounds of late sixties bands that seemed to crystallize sugary melody versus stomping easily all over it. Read More »

By Lee Zimmerman in New Times Magazine: CD Review, Music
Monday, Sep. 14 2009 @ 1:45PM

Ed Hale pauses between his endearing musings on the streets of New York

Ed Hale
Ballad on Third Avenue
(Dying Van Gogh Records)

Ed Hale’s outfit Transcendence was the kind of band that allowed ambition and extravagance to find equal footing. Progressive by design, its sumptuous arrangements often overshadowed Hale’s skills as a songwriter, which featured some great melodies at the core. Hale seems to have remedied that band’s often-obtuse approach with a solo album that focuses more on emotional content and less on instrumental elaboration. The cast of supporting players is terrific (several played in Transcendence), and Hale demonstrates an enviable gift for brooding, introspective melodies that are as quietly compelling as those of Leonard Cohen or Nick Cave. And yes, they’re that good.

The fact that Hale still boasts a penchant for grander schemes ought come as no surprise. His own Dying Van Gogh label has given a home to some of South Florida’s most talented artists, including multi-instrumentalist Fernando Perdomo, who also co-produced this disc. Hale himself has shifted his base of operations to New York, where he now finds both the aural and visual muse for his music. And despite the vast expanse of these urban environs, songs such as “Scene in San Francisco,” “Hello My Dove,” “It Feels Too Good,” and “New Orleans Dreams” provide an intimate view of life, love and longing from a solitary point of view.

Other tracks, like “Thoughts of California and “Never Let Me Go Again,” seem to drift along in a dreamy haze. Only “I Walk Alone” conjures up the sweep and spectacle of Transcendence, but even so, Hale shuttles the song while lowering his gaze. Still, with all due respect to his former outfit, Ballad on Third Avenue is easily the best record of Hale’s still-evolving career. Intimate yet endearing, these songs of the street offer an eloquence all their own. Read More »

Singer/songwriter and longtime committed bachelor Ed Hale appears to be changing his tune. Dying Van Gogh Records confirms that Hale, 36, was formally engaged to be married on September 14th of this year to one Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai. Professionally, Mishel-Ghashghai is a chemical engineer, formerly of Microsoft, and now teaches The Avatar Course where the two are said to have met seven years ago. She is originally from the country of Iran but currently resides in the United States. Hale has long been known for passionate and emotive songs of forlorn love, longing and unrequited love and for a very public personal life, represented most notably through his online blog, the Transcendence Diaries. He is also well known for releasing songs titled with girls’ names from the seemingly endless string of public relationships he has stepped in and out of over the last fifteen years of his career. From “My Wendy” on the singer’s first album, to the minor Adult Contemporary hit “Veronica” from the Sleep With You CD, to “The Architect’s Daughter” on his latest release Ballad On Third Avenue, Hale has never been afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve; for better or worse. In the song “Girls” from the Transcendence album Sleep With You, he manages to shout out over thirty names of past flings in under three minutes and is said to be nearly finished with another new album nicknamed “The Girls Album” which features 25 new tracks, each said to be titled with a different girl’s name. Fans may recognize the name of Hale’s bride to be, Nahal, or think it subtly familiar. And they’d be right. That’s because Hale and company sing it repeatedly on the last song of the Sleep With You album, a song called “Little Tree.” The name “Nahal” literally means “little tree” in Farsi, the native language of Iran. They may also recognize her from YouTube. She is the same girl featured in the BedPeace 2008 video Hale released on YouTube at the start of the New Year. In typical fashion the couple made their quiet proposal — which took place in a row boat on a lake in Central Park in New York — very public by posting photos of it on Hale’s Facebook page. Hale has been dating Mishel-Ghashghai for two years. Hale has never been married. No wedding date is said to be set yet.

Use the chart below to look up the radio station in your town to hear the exclusive radio-edit version of the latest single “I Walk Alone” from Transcendence singer/songwriter Ed Hale’s newest album, Ballad On Third Avenue. “I Walk Alone” had been the unanimous choice as the first single from the new disc since the album’s initial recording sessions, back in late Fall of 2008. Producer and fellow Transcendence guitarist Fernando Perdomo heard it the moment that Hale played him the song accompanied by nothing but an acoustic guitar on the first day of recording. Hale also played Perdomo forty-plus more songs that day in order for them to begin the process of deciding which songs would make it to the new album. Perdomo stated that he knew instantly that “I Walk Alone” would be the “hit song” from the album and demanded that it be the first song they record “just to make sure it made the record. You know how Ed is. He’ll play you a song once, and then won’t want to play it again and instead want to move onto something totally new. But I knew we had to get that one recorded first.”

Enter a slew of opinions from fellow musicians, fans, management, and radio promoters and normally you end up with ten songs that are bound to be “that hit song.” But in a rare occurence, time and time again, “I Walk Alone,” the second track on the album, proved to come out on top as the most obvious choice. Thanks to the good folks at FMQB, the Syndicate, the Howard Rosen Agency, and Jeff Appleton’s Marathon Music Radio Promotions, “I Walk Alone” is now currently spinning on approximately one-hundred and twenty commercial radio stations across the United States, all of which fall under the Triple A format, also known as “Adult Album Alternative.” This is a genre that is new to the singer, completely untouched and uncharted by the band — who have comfortably rotated numerous songs in the College Radio or Alt Rock radio formats for years since their formation in 2000. But there is no getting around that Ballad is a departure both lyrically and sonically, leaning much closer to a ’singer-songwriter’ sound reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian, David Gray or even Simon and Garfunkel, rather than the Brit Pop or Modern Rock style Hale and his bandmates usually produce.  Read More »