Send us your photos to webmaster@dyingvangogh.com

Newcomer to the Adult Contemporary radio format Ed Hale, who also happens to have a second new album up for release in 2011 as the singer of the eccentric indie-rock group Transcendence (now renamed “Ed Hale and The Transcendence), looks to be headed for the Top 10 next week. This marks one of the few occasions a non-major label “indie” artist has been able to achieve such a feat. This week’s chart available here.

Breaking into the Top 40 is accomplishment enough. The Top 20 even more so. Once one crosses the Top 10 barrier the competition becomes fierce. But in the newly transformed music business, the old record company models are shifting faster than the labels seem able to keep up with. The best example of this was the recent shock when the break up and sell off of long time stalwart EMI was announced. All of this shifting about makes it appear that the playing field has been leveled, allowing more room for independent artists to reach the same fanbase that major label artists are able to. But Hale, who has been signed to both major and smaller independent labels over his fifteen year career, claims that the terrain is still wrought with challenges for independent musicians attempting to make a living at the art of music making.

A new post, courtesy of the Dying Van Gogh Records YouTube, of Ed Hale live in Seattle, Washington last year as part of the International Pop Overthrow Festival. Enjoy this very acoustic live performance of “It Feels Too Good” from the Ballad On Third Avenue album.

New music video for the song “Hello My Dove” off the Ballad On Third Avenue album.

New York, NY, July 06, 2011 — Ed Hale is known for being a musician and singer/songwriter, however there is more to his music than meets the ears. On his last solo studio recording Ballad on Third Avenue, a rousing collection of alternative pop-rock acoustic tracks, he sings about love and all the emotions that are forthcoming.

Yet there is much more on the album that needs your attention, particularly the track “New Orleans Dreams”. The track is a rather poignant take on the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the ineptness of our government to help the suffering people of the area when it was needed most. This is a story that continues today several years later as people are still reeling from the disaster of the hurricane and many other natural disasters that would follow in that area including the disastrous BP oil spill.

CONTINUE READING

A rare treat for fans of singer-songwriter-recording artist Ed Hale who live on the West Coast, the artist’s record label (Dying Van Gogh) has confirmed that Hale will be performing in four West Coast cities in the month of August in support of his Ballad On Third Avenue album. Ballad has been the biggest selling album of the artist’s career and the highest charting thus far, reaching #14 on the CMJ Most Added Chart. It showed Hale taking yet another leap in his constant genre-jumping musical explorations – this time to a minimalist, stripped down all acoustic sound primarily composed of acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments (even the Russian “balalaika” makes several appearances), piano, bass, and lush cello and string arrangements.

The news was first announced by the International Pop Overthrow Festival, that Ed Hale and band will be performing at all 4 dates of their West Coast Tour circuit this summer. The long-running IPO – one of this summer’s few tours not cancelling dates — is a veritable feast for music lovers and fans of catchy power-pop which often showcases the best artists of contemporary music each year.  Hale’s first West Coast show will be in Los Angeles, at The Joint on Sunset Strip, on Saturday August 7th, with subsequent stops in Portland, OR, Seattle, WA and Vancouver BC. Dates, times, and venues can be accessed from Hale’s website, www.edhale.com or the Official IPO Festival website, www.internationalpopoverthrow.com. Hale will also be conducting media interviews while on tour in these cities.

Hale will be performing 45 minute sets with a four piece group comprised of some of Brooklyn’s thriving music scene’s best players, the same guitar, bass, piano, and cello setup that he’s used in all of his live concerts to support his latest album. “Haunting,” “Irresistibly catchy,” and “instantly recognizable melodies that stick in your head for days” are some of the phrases used by the press to describe the singer’s latest critically acclaimed work. Which is exactly what Hale and company bring to the stage in their live performances — accompanied by lush, ambient, often open-wide improvisational acoustic music with Hale’s Bowiesque baritone soaring in and out of the hypnotizing music the band creates behind him – similar to Tim or Jeff Buckley or Muse’s Matthew Bellamy, a style the singer started calling “whisper pop” upon the album’s release.

In a whirlwind year that showed Ed Hale doing everything from skirting the globe meeting with Iranian dignitaries (including a stop at the UN to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), or tribal Village Chiefs in West Africa to continuing to run his New York based uber-cool Dying Van Gogh Records label, a year certainly climaxed by the singer’s multi-cultural lavish public wedding in Manhattan to Persian beauty Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai, it is good to see Ed Hale back doing what he does best. Fans of the singer hope that these West Coast shows are just the tip of the iceberg and may hint at a full-blown US Tour, but at the very least they show that making music still reigns supreme in the life of the Mercurial Renaissance Man.

Saturday August 7th Los Angeles, CA – The Joint 9:30PM
Friday August 13th Portland, OR – East End 10PM
Friday August 20th Seattle, WA – El Corazon 10PM
Friday August 27th Vancouver, BC – Railway Club 8:30PM

ARTIST WEBSITES: www.edhale.com, www.myspace.com/edhale, www.facebook.com/edhalemusic

ASCOT MEDIA’S CONTACT INFORMATION
Rodney Foster – Ascot Media Group, Inc.
rfoster@ascotmediagroup.com
281-324-2180

Read entire review here. Or…. below:

Ed Hale stirred up a great deal of controversy in 2005 with the Transcendence album Sleep with You that explored relationships, sex, women, romance, drugs, and life on the road. Anyone who knows him best appreciates his deep passion for music, writing, and his unyielding frankness when it comes to matters close to his heart; however, unknown to some, he is also the author of an award-winning screenplay and a pop-culture/ sociology non-fiction book, about to hit the market, as well as being a guest columnist on the Sundance Film Channel Website covering how “green” peace on earth really is.

Music is in the blood for this man who released his first album at the tender age of 17 and whose great-uncle was none other than the famous musical conductor and arranger, Antonio Morelli, well known for his many years at the infamous Copa Room in Vegas during the ‘Rat Pack’ years. After having received a guitar from his mother at a young age to ‘vent his creativity and keep him out of trouble’ – the rest, as they say, is history!

The songs on Hale’s latest impressive new album Ballad on Third Avenue are said to be the most personal and intimate collection of songs he has ever recorded. An eleven song acoustic singer/songwriter venture, it is said to be reminiscent of Bright Eyes, Kings of Convenience, Rubber Soul era Beatles, Belle and Sebastian, and Simon and Garfunkel. Not surprising that his latest album debuted on the CMJ Most Added Chart at #14 and then climbed to #140 on the CMJ Top 200, along with the release of the first single, I walk Alone, which became a staple on Triple A radio stations all over the United States and Canada.

Ed Hale‘s latest solo album, the acoustic leaning ‘whisper pop’ CD entitled Ballad On Third Avenue was voted “One of Best Albums of 2009” by New Times Magazine. The end of year edition came out of the tri-county wide South Florida area where Hale first got his start in the seminal underground band Broken Spectacles along with Americana Music pioneer Matthew Sabatella when the two were in college.

Music critic Lee Zimmerman wrote,

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.

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.