Ed Hale, lead singer of the rock band turned music collective Ed Hale and the Transcendence, showed his support for the Occupy movement this week when he appeared at the Occupy Seattle protest holding a sign saying “No Sleep till Justice” and “Put Greed to Bed”. But as usual with the often outspoken and always creative artist/activist, Hale showed up looking as though he had just gotten out of bed, literally! Wearing nothing but a pair of slippers, pajama bottoms and a bathrobe, Hale marched the streets of downtown Seattle with thousands of others, his strange choice of an outfit driving home the message of the sign he lifted high above his head as he marched. Hale’s myriad approaches to protest and political activism through the years — including dressing up as a US Army General to protest the war in Iraq, or his Peace Missions to Iran as a Civilian Diplomat — have always been bold and creative, and sometimes downright controversial at times. Combined with the rapid pace at which he records and releases music, two of Ed Hale’s multiple personas have come together now in a cohesive manner more than ever before in the public spotlight; offering something for everyone. Read more about Ed Hale’s “Occupy weekend” in his long running blog The Transcendence Diaries: http://www.transcendencediaries.com/2011/10/occupymyweekend.html

Read full press release: http://glgpub.com/blog/launch/transcendence-lead-singer-ed-hale-appears-at-occupy-seattle-in-his-bathrobe

This past week “New Orleans Dreams” rose 5 more spots to land at #23 on the Adult Contemporary Top 40 Chart, setting a new record for Ed Hale and his band Transcendence. Ed Hale’s poetic and subtly disguised political message song is now the highest charting hit single on commercial radio of his career, just sliding past the Transcendence song “Superhero Girl” which peaked at #24 on the Alternative Rock Specialty Show Chart in 2003.

Concurrent to the rise of “New Orleans Dreams” — a song with rather uncharacteristically potent lyrics compared to the normally light-weight subject matter of AC commercial radio, Hale spent the weekend at Occupy Seattle marching with thousands of others through the downtown Westlake Park area.

For those looking to go deeper or for more alignment with the politically charged atmosphere of the times, iTunes offers both the 3’35″ “radio edit” version of the song that most listeners are familiar with, and the extended 6’50″ full-length version from the album. Download one or both versions of the song today.

And for fans of the more indie-rock/pop sounds of Transcendence, the band Hale and company have been in for the last nine years, don’t forget to pre-order their long awaited new studio album All Your Heroes Become Villains, which hits stores nationwide on November 15th!!!

To connect with Ed Hale or the super-group Ed Hale and the Transcendence, head to Twitter and Facebook today.

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.”]

Read More »

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 »

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 »

“The problem was how to celebrate New Years Eve respectfully with all of the recent violence, turmoil, and humanitarian crises happening around the world, especially the brutal battle going on in Gaza and Palestine. To do the usual party to party scene all night just didn’t seem appropriate at the time considering… the idea just grew from there… from that original thought… Then it just came down to if we had the energy and the commitment to really do something. That’s what it always comes down to isn’t it? The idea was how much can we do if we focus 110% on peace in the world for four solid days and nights? That was the question.”

White House Does Not Meet with Iran President Ahmadinejad during UN General Assembly Meeting – But a Small Group of American Citizens Does – Part I of III

By Ed Hale

As United States 2008 presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama bickered over how they would “handle the Iran threat” in their first debate on Friday night, citing erroneous facts and competing with one another on who would hold out the longest from engaging in diplomatic talks with Iran, a small group of one-hundred and fifty American citizens representing fifty of the country’s most prominent peace and human rights groups were busy talking to the world’s media about the two-hour private meeting they held with the Iranian President two days prior.

The meeting – which was not revealed to the media until the next day to assure the safety and security for those in attendance – took place on Wednesday September 24 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City during the 63rd annual United Nations General Assembly Meeting. The goal of the meeting was “to introduce President Ahmadinejad to the peace community in the United States and to illustrate how this sector of civil society works to oppose war and the use of non-violence to resolve differences,” said the meeting’s facilitator, Mark Johnson, Executive Director of the global Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world’s oldest peace organization.

In an exhilarating live experiment in civilian diplomacy in action, the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel was transformed into a veritable who’s who of some of the most outspoken and prominent members of America’s peace, anti-war, and human rights organizations, including Medea Benjamin of A Global Exchange, Jodie Evans of Code Pink and Women for Peace, Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, yours truly representing PeaceWithIran.com, and Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice. There were also representatives from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Mennonites, the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, American Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among many others. American citizens flew in from almost all fifty states to hold the private meeting with President Ahmadinejad in an effort to begin the process of what many consider long overdue open dialogues with Iran regarding how our two nations can work together to secure more peaceful relations with one another.

The issues raised during the two-hour plus talk, many considered vital for the future security of both the United States and Iranian citizenry, revolved around how the countries can begin putting aside their mutual distrust of one another in order to move forward in peaceful negotiations; both the US and the Iranian government’s recent crackdown on human rights, freedom of assembly, and dissidents; the current US occupation of Iraq; Iran’s controversially viewed policy toward Israel; their treatment of women and other minorities; the difficulty on both sides of obtaining visas to visit either country. Of course the big issue of the moment, will Iran accept a compromise on its nuclear fuel enrichment program, was also addressed.

Read More »

Coinciding with this week’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City, singer-songwriter Ed Hale of the rock group TRANSCENDENCE, will be part of a coalition of prominent members of the United States peace and human rights movement who will be meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Over 100 peace and human rights activists representing over three dozen American peace and human rights groups will fly in to attend the private meeting with the Iranian president in an undisclosed location. There has been an embargo on releasing the date, time, or location of the meeting to the press in order to avoid any interruption of the proceedings.

Hale visited Iran in March of this year along with 12 others as a Civilian Diplomat to discuss US/Iranian relations with members of the Iranian government including former President Khatami. Hale has been interviewing with the media about the trip over the last six months, as well as giving formal presentations to discuss it with the public. He has also written about it on his blog, The Transcendence Diaries. Photos from the trip can be viewed by visiting Hale’s Flickr page here. This meeting in the US is being held in order to introduce Ahmadinejad to the peace community in the United States and to illustrate how this sector of civil society works to oppose war and the use of violence to resolve differences. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee will also be in attendance.

In response to those who have vocally protested his involvement in meeting with Ahmadinejad, Hale had this to say: “Iran and the United States have not spoken diplomatically in over 25 years. When the governments of these nations do speak to each other it is usually behind closed doors through special envoys in some remote neutral country or they speak AT each other publicly through the media making accusations and threats and bullying each other. Israel is also involved in this childish power struggle. All three countries need to grow up and start representing the people of their nations in a more mature and responsible manner that respects human life. Until the governments of our countries are willing to stop the chest beating and start a real dialogue about the most pressing issues that the people are facing — most importantly peace between our countries — then we the people need to step up and do the talking for them. This is what Civilian Diplomacy is about. It is imperative that someone say something constructive that moves us forward; at the same time we need to start listening to each other more. For me personally I don’t care who I have to meet with if it means that it might potentially save human lives. Our meeting with President Ahmadinejad does not imply that we agree with his Holocaust denial statements anymore than our meeting with Dick Cheney would imply that we support the invasion of Iraq. What is most important is that we get the message out to as many people around the world as possible that peace is possible and that if we have to then we the people will make that happen if the governments of the world are not willing to. We certainly cannot continue in the direction we are headed in now. We need to open the lines of communication in order to assure that we save more lives. That’s what this meeting is about.”

Ed Hale – who has been hard at work on his new book Revolution in Me while awaiting the release of the band’s new CDs – will begin a regular weekly guest blog for a few months on the official Sundance Film Channel website in the coming weeks focusing on his peace delegation visit to the country of Iran and how it relates to all things GREEN: the environment, peace, war, oil, nuclear energy, and most importantly humanity. The blogs will be similar to his regular posts on his long-running Transcendence Diaries blog but will be shorter in length of course. The blog posts will feature photos, and links to videos and photo slideshows from his trip, as well as guest interviews with authors, scientists, and experts in various fields. Stay tuned for the first installment.

In the meantime, Transcendence does indeed have three new CDs releasing this year including the band’s official two new albums, The Great Mistake (EMI) and All Your Heroes Become Villains (DVG), and a new rarities and unreleased tracks album called The City of Lost Children. Stay tuned for release dates.

To best stay informed of the latest, head to Facebook and add as a friend or subscribe to this site or the band’s site either through email or RSS Feed.