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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NEW! Thanks to those renegade mavericks at PureVolume.com fans can preview songs from the new Transcendence album “The Great Mistake” exclusively on purevolumeâ„¢

TRANSCENDENCE finally resurfaces from the recording studio with TWO NEW ALBUMS!!!

The band had been holed up without a break for the last five months in the recording studio finishing their newest CD, “All Your Heroes Become Villains”, an intense labor of love that took nearly two years to complete.

Not only did they finish that one, but they tracked and finished another tasty full-length as well, which is being called “The Great Mistake.” When producer Fred Freeman (Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory) who was recording the group and mixing the “All Your Heroes” CD in Studio B would leave for the night, the group would grab an assistant engineer and head into Studio A where they tracked 13 more songs into the early morning hours.

While the “All Your Heroes” CD is on the deep dark heavy moody and conceptual side, “The Great Mistake” CD is more of a sweet and catchy sweaty garage-rock and power-pop morsel that harkens back to the sound of their last CD Nothing is Cohesive. The band has never sounded more lively rocking and tasty. For a moment it seems they put their eclectic expermental agenda aside, picked up their instruments, and just rocked the house, recording most of the songs live as a five-piece band.

In fact, what you hear exclusively on purevolume.com are “all faders up, live in the studio” versions of the songs that have not been mixed yet. Zach Ziskin of Hilary McRae fame is currently mixing the songs for a spring ’08 release date.

SO WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE NEW ALBUM?

While “All Your Heroes…” may be a deep dark beautifully emotional head-trip, “The Great Mistake” CD would be the soundtrack to a ‘put the top down and drive fast’ road trip.

It is a collection of 12 songs the band recorded live in the studio with a stripped down drums, bass, two guitars, electric piano and vocals format. No DJ, no producer, no orchestration, and no additional outside musicians to the band’s basic five-piece line-up.

Simply put, “The Great Mistake” is a rocking good time with some of the catchiest songs the band has ever recorded — all falling under the three-minute mark — in sharp contrast to the “All Your Heroes…” CD, the longest song clocking in over seven minutes.

Tracklist for “THE GREAT MISTAKE”

01.Manchildwoman
02.Monday
03.Baby Bop
04.Nobody’s Listening To You
05.Mongo Kitty
06.Carol’s Catastrophe
07.I remember you
08.Jet Lag
09.The Divine Miss M
10.Who Ya Gonna Fuk
11.Hot Down
12.Quand Tu Mmm (Lust In Central Park)

Veronica 

Singer Ed Hale is said to have written this mournful love ballad track about his girlfriend at the time — the painter Veronica Saenz — while the band was recording the Sleep With You album in late 2002. The album cover featured much of her artwork on the inner sleeve and so did the ensuing single release cover. The song was released as the third single to radio after the band had acheived success with two other chart-toppers from the same album, Superhero Girl, and Minnie Driver. Veronica opened the door to a whole new legion of fans who were not yet familiar with the band’s softer side.
Music and lyrics by Ed Hale
Arranged by Transcendence
Produced by Fred Freeman and Ed Hale
From the Transcendence CD Sleep With You, 2002

Bored

First released on the Ed Hale solo album Acoustic in New York in the mid-nineties, glam-rockers Transcendence re-recorded the song Bored for their third album in ’04, adding a much anticipated full band sound that the song was begging for. This oft-quoted zeppelinesque guitar anthem is the first song Hale wrote in an open-tuning, something that eventually became a trademark. It features a grooving electronica dance beat behind an onslaught of richly over-layered guitars ala Queen or Wings with swirling Radiohead electronic sounds. Singer Ed Hale bemoans angst and apathy in his characteristic sexy growl while the band rages behind him to create the centerpiece of the band’s third release, Nothing is Cohesive.

Music and Lyrics by Ed Hale
Arrangement and Production by Transcendence
From the Transcendence CD Nothing is Cohesive, 2004

I wanna know ya

Tasty guitar riff indie rock with a catchy vocal hook ala White Stripes, Vines, or Hives, Transcendence’s I wanna know ya is a song that stays in your head for days and rocks your ass off.

I wanna know ya is often credited as the song that begat the album that never should have been, Transcendence’s out of the blue third release, Nothing is Cohesive. While the band was in rehearsals for their 2003 Europe Tour, guitarist Fernando Perdomo was warming up and happened upon the song’s main riff. The rest of the band joined in and Hale started shouting random lyrics into the microphone about a girl he met the night before at one of their local gigs. The band liked the new song so much that they immeditately recorded it for no real reason other than the fact that they liked it. This jumpstarted four weeks of non-stop recording in Perdomo’s garage that resulted in more than an album’s worth of new songs. No producer, no studio — the band engineered the album themselves — and they created what became the group’s best reviewed and most lauded release to date. Fans often comment on the song’s mysteriously garbled lyrics. Interestingly Hale never wrote actual lyrics to the song I wanna know ya. He quickly recorded a rough guide track for the rest of the band to use while recording their parts that first day and they thought so much of it that they decided they should use it as is and not take the risk of ‘ruining the song’s magic’ by attempting to record a real lead vocal track. So they kept the rough vocal track in, hence the absence of lyrics for the song on the CD’s liner notes. There simply were no lyrics to reprint. When asked what he sings on stage when performing the song Hale states that he just makes them up as he goes along each night.

Music, arrangement, and production by Transcendence
Lyrics by Ed Hale
From the Transcendence album Nothing is Cohesive 2004

Caetano

One of the most beautiful songs on their Nothing is Cohesive CD, Transcendence seamlessly blends Brazilian samba beats with haunting rock melody on their song bitpop classic Caetano, dedicated to the legendary Brazilian singer, Caetano Veloso, who singer Ed Hale credits as an influence.

Ed Hale wrote the song Caetano (pronounced Kaye-ton-oe) as an homage to the famous Brazilan singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso a few weeks before he was scheduled to meet him at a concert Veloso was giving in Miami for his “A Foriegn Sound” tour. Hale presented the older statesman Veloso with a recording of the song and the two posed for pictures backstage and talked about Veloso’s new album and Hale’s experiences touring Brazil during the Rise and Shine period. Putting the song on the new Transcendence album was a no brainer for the band, but they strongly objected to Hale’s lyrics “the only man I’d make love to” that appeared in the chorus of the song. The band eventually compromised and Hale changed it in the first chorus to “the only man I look up to.” After the initial rhythm tracks were down, the band left for the evening. Guitarist Fernando Perdomo who was very moved by the song stayed at the studio and continued to add tracks till well into the afternoon of the following day. He added six guitars, harmonizing many of them, piano, and even a quartet of overdubbed cellos. Hale claims that he got a speeding ticket because of Perdomo’s work, stating that when he heard a rough mix of the song he was so mesmerized by what Perdomo had created that he started driving very fast along the coastline and was not aware of how fast he was going. “Let’s put it this way. I was laughing and crying at the same time. I knew that he [Perdomo] had created something brilliant and stunning and we were all very lucky to be in the band with him,” stated Hale. Caetano with its impossibly dificult to pronounce title quickly became a favorite on the album for fans and for many the new album’s highlight. Though it was the song Somebody killed the DJ that dominated radio from the CD, Caetano was mentioned as a standout track in nearly every review of the band’s third CD. Caetano combines all of the best elements that Transcendence is capable of at their best, innovative and unexpected rhythms underneath haunting and mysterious chord structure with breathtakingly beautiful melody, insightful lyrical imagery, delicate piano and orchestral lines, and the best britrock guitar production and arragement this side of the Atlantic. It is also worth noting that for the song’s cyclic sing-a-long end-vamp Hale chose to create a tonepoem in three languages, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, rather than in Veloso’s native language Portuguese, stating that to do so would have been too predictable and obvious.

Lyrics and Music by Ed Hale
Production and Arrangement by Transcendence
From the Transcendence CD Nothing is Cohesive

I’m not the only one

A mind-crushing heart-wrenching hard-rocking explosion of drums bass guitars and screaming about “dying on your bedroom floor” among other equally chilling ideas, I’m not the only one is one of the heaviest tracks Transcendence ever recorded. It also happened to be one of radio’s favorites and helped push the band’s second album Sleep With You up the charts.

I’m not the only one is a song that Ed Hale originally wrote in the early nineties when still a member of the jangly-pop college rock outfit Broken Spectacles. As the band splintered apart, each member gathered inspiration aplenty from writing about their constant quibbling and troubles. Though the Specs would never record the song, Hale resuscitated it for the Transcendence album Sleep With You. Producer Fred Freeman was more than pleased because he was concerned that Hale was focusing too much on songs themed toward sex or drugs and was looking for Hale to bring his characteristic world-view to the table lyrically and not just limit his ideas to what was turning into an orgiastic glorification of Hale’s recent foray into rock ‘n roll decadence. Freeman was successful and pulled several other deeper numbers out of the songwriter including Guilty and Keep moving on. The song I’m not the only one is a heartbreaking laundry list of the worst of the human condition with the only hope being that others too are just as miserable. Despite it’s bitter lyrics the song happens to be one of the most memorable songs Transcendence has ever recorded and did much to put them on the alt-rock radio map.