Ed Hale will perform 4 IPO Festival dates.

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

“Singer-songwriter Ed Hale, best known over the last few years as the lead singer for the Modern Rock/Brit Pop outfit Transcendence – who have scored numerous hit singles on radio, and in films, and television shows over the years – snuck into the recording studio late last year and produced the most personal and intimate album of his career. (With fellow Transcendence guitarist and Dreaming In Stereo frontman Fernando Perdomo playing engineer and co-producer). Rather than further exploring the seventy’s glam rock or indie rock or world music or Brit Pop that the band is famous for, Hale instead turned inward and turned the volume way, way down; creating a surprisingly quiet and simple yet moving and at times haunting acoustic pop album.”

“Gone are the pounding drums, squealing guitars, thumping bass and that Transcendence ‘wall of noise and sound.” Instead the album’s 11 tracks are a sparse and luxuriant tangle of acoustic guitars, pianos, organs, xylophones, lush cello lines, and mellotron flourishes that set a subtle, gorgeous sonic backdrop perfectly fit to back up a lyrically poignant and confessional masterpiece of infinite beauty and tenderness. The majestic acoustic-pop and vulnerable intimacy of Ed Hale’s new album Ballad On Third Avenue will feel right at home to the same crowd that loves the music of Wes Anderson films, Rubber Soul era Beatles, James Blunt, Kings of Convenience, Bright Eyes, David Gray, Simon and Garfunkel, or even Donovan or Nick Drake. From start to finish the deceptively simple collection of songs sucks you in and leaves you moved, smiling, and dreamy-eyed.”

:: To listen to all the songs or buy the CD click here to go to Amazon.com

:: To listen to all the songs or download the album click here to go to the iTunes Music Store.

TRACK LISTING

1. SCENE IN SAN FRANCISCO
2. I WALK ALONE
3. HELLO MY DOVE
4. INCOMPATIBLE
5. BALLAD ON THIRD AVENUE (BEAUTIFUL LOSERS)
6. IT FEELS TOO GOOD
7. EVERYWHERE SHE IS THERE
8. NEW ORLEANS DREAMS
9. ARCHITECT’S DAUGHTER
10. THOUGHTS OF CALIFORNIA
11. NEVER LET ME GO AGAIN

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