Ed Hale

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.

Hi New York friends!

I’m sending you all an email to a few of my New York friends because many of you were sponsors of my peace delegation trip to Iran last month and/or were awesome email/phone supporters. So I wanted to let you know the details of the official presentation I will be giving about it here in NYC.

The last two months have indeed been insane with almost more work post-trip than the trip itself. A lot of interviews and articles and yes even the obligatory appearance on Muslim TV — (which was quite “candid cameraish’ I must say).

My official presentation about the trip in New York City will be this coming Sunday. I pasted the details below for you in case you have the time to come - and are interested in this subject. It was quite the experience and we learned a lot. More than anything, we were brought there specifically by the Iranian government to bring back a message to the American people…

So that is why we do these interviews and presentations. It isn’t necessarily a “perfect message.” But it is a real message – as opposed to what we hear on the news here in the States… which is just ‘the White House said…” So, that will be the aim of the presentation. To show some pictures, tell some stories, and answer as many questions as possible about the subject.

The presentation will be filmed (so dress sharpJ). By the way, since I have you all on the line at once: Our show Transcendent Television got picked up by Warner Home Video for distribution!!! No, we’re not on traditional TV… YET, but this was a real surprise blast of forward momentum out of nowhere that was very welcomed.

If you want to see the first DVD they are going to officially release you can see it here because there are segments still on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AE689FEEAE0C2E66 It is the “Going to Ghana” series I made last year.

Many of your beautiful faces I have not seen in a long time… I know we’ve all been over the top busy. Such is life in New York. It has been a crazy year or more for many of us. But I would love to see you! If not Sunday, then hopefully soon.

(For you rockers in the bunch, it does begin at 12:45. I know that’s early, so if you don’t show, don’t sweat it. I TOTALLY understand. J)

If you do decide you can attend, let me know, and I will make sure that lunch is reserved for you. if you’re not sure, feel free just to show up. Hey, this is New York. Who knows what we’re even going to do tonight let alone Sunday!!!

Hope all is well with all of you and would love to see you there.

Ed Hale

Below is the description of the Presentation:

Ed Hale will give a talk about his recent Peace Delegation trip to Iran entitled “The Value of a Single Human Being”

Sunday June 1st starting at 12:45 PM

Mark your calendars for Sunday June 1st 2008! Ed Hale who just recently returned from a 15 day peace delegation to the country of Iran with 13 other Americans will give a presentation about his experience. The trip was sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Iranian government. The 14 delegates held formal meetings with leading government officials and religious leaders including former president Mohammad Khatami and three reigning Ayatollahs to discuss how to improve US/Iran relations and foster more peace and harmony between our countries. Ed will share his experience with us, as well as present a slideshow of photos from the trip and also answer questions about this increasingly important issue. He also brought back some delicious samples of traditional Iranian food, tea, and candy to share with the group.

As always the session will offer a valuable opportunity for group sharing and interaction. Lunch and drinks will be provided for all.

Monday, February 25th, 2008
by Keith Hannaleck

Transcendence lead singer Ed Hale has been chosen to be one of 14 delegates going on a Peace Delegation to the country of Iran with The Fellowship of Reconciliation.

New York, NY, Feb 25, 2008 – 14 delegates chosen from across the United States will be going on a Peace Delegation to the country of Iran with The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world’s oldest peace organization headquartered in over 40 countries worldwide and started in 1914 in Switzerland to prevent war in Europe. College radio darling Ed Hale, lead singer for the rock group Transcendence has been chosen to be one of the 14 delegates.

Along with 10 others the group also consists of writer Larry Beinhart, best known for his infamous book turned movie Wag the Dog and Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin, Carah Lynn Ong, Policy Analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington DC, and journalist Robert Dreyfus, contributing editor and writer for The Nation, Rolling Stone, and The New Republic. The group will tour Iran for two-weeks, primarily focusing on the major cities of Tehran, Esfehan, Shiraz, and Qom and holding formal meetings with the country’s leading government and religious leaders in an unprecedented move since the Islamic revolution almost 30 years ago to discuss US/Iranian relations. The group of 14 Americans will also visit schools, universities, newspapers, radio, and TV stations to foster more peace, harmony, and solidarity between the American and Iranian people.

They will meet with three reigning Ayatollahs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the United States, the Minister of Culture, and with the former two-term Iranian President Mohamad Khatami. The Fellowship of Reconciliation is a non-religious, not-for-profit organization that has been sponsoring trips such as these for over eighty years all over the world. Their primary mission is to foster peace and understanding between peoples of different cultures during times of high conflict in order to attempt to prevent war.

Ed Hale is the lead singer in the rock band Transcendence (Universal) and is also known for his outspoken human rights and peace activism and volunteer work around the world. He just returned from two weeks of home building in Africa with Habitat for Humanity (see YouTube) and made two separate trips to the Gulf Coast last year to help rebuild homes for Hurricane Katrina victims in Biloxi, Mississippi. He and his bandmates have two new albums coming out this year, The Great Mistake, and All Your Heroes Become Villains.

An interesting sign of the times, the funds to help pay Hale’s expenses were raised entirely online using social networking sites such as MySpace, the band’s fanbase, and something known as the ChipIn widget. Fans and friends were encouraged to post comments and donate anything they wanted to. The “widget” tracked the progress in real-time so all could log-on at anytime to see how much money had been collected and watch as the goal was reached and read comments from fans from around the world.

Hale has been keeping a blog about the trip online and will continue to post reports while he is in Iran. Upon his return he will be speaking at various events around the country about the experience and will be available for television and press interviews about the experience.

To learn more about the Fellowship of Reconciliation organization and how you can become involved click here.

For more information http://edhale.chipin.com/ ed-hale-goes-to-Iran-with-peace-delegation 

Ed Hale Transcends Iranian Conflict
2008-02-08 11:30:32.993,
Story by: Joshua Pressman for CMJ

Ed Hale, lead singer of New York-based rock and roll outfit Transcendence, will partake in a peace delegation to Iran. Hale will be part of a 13-person envoy that was hand-chosen by the Fellowship Of Reconciliation (FOR) to serve as ambassadors of peace. FOR—a Switzerland-based organization that has sponsored preventive measures against war since World War I—has arranged visitations to schools, universities, newspapers, and TV stations with hopes of bridging the cultural gap between American and Iranian people. The funds for Hale’s mission are currently being gathered by way of a ChipIn widget, which enables fans and friends to contribute financially to the peaceful vision.

To join in or read comments from fans and friends who are contributing to the mission or to read Hale’s personal blogs about the endeavor click here. 

www.edhale.com
www.forusa.org

Buy It At Insound

Article Here

By Bill Sommer

The blog is by its nature an extremely ego-driven endeavor. The things written in a blog are to be seen by others. And hopefully, whether the blogger admits it or not, the blog will be adored by its readers; or more exactly, the blogger will be adored by its readers. So as I proceed with this blog (let it be known that will be the last time the fucking word ‘blog’ — somehow made pretentious for this writer ((by this writer)) will be used). This writer admits that this writing is being done for both private and public reasons.

Though probably unremarkable to those accustomed to it, if such folks exist, writing on a laptop on the sidewalk in the East Village on a chilly spring night after seeing mediocre jazz and watching the brand new fresh out of the editing suite “trailer” for a friend’s reality TV series about himself is novel to me.
Allow me to explain. Today I had the opportunity to hang out with Ed Hale, lead singer and songwriter for a rock band I play in called Transcendence – though we are more a collective of many revolving around our shared love of certain musical styles and our excitement about what we create when we jam together. I am the drummer in aforementioned group. We have been together for six years. Though ever since his move to the Big Apple and my move to Atlanta, we don’t get to see each other as often as we used to. Pretty much only in the studio when we are tracking a new album that may or may never be “officially released” or when we tour, which as of late as been infrequent at best. Ed Hale is in his early 30’s. He recently returned from Biloxi, Mississippi, where he and a church group were helping to rebuild homes devastated by something known now as Hurricane Katrina – as if it were a living breathing entity. To the victims it certainly was I am sure.

Ed was a team leader because of “a basic knowledge of carpentry” acquired in his youth. This is strange. One doesn’t think of Ed Hale as a “team leader” on a christian mission trip to rebuild home. Nor does one consider him a person who “acquired basic carpentry skills in his youth.” In his ”unofficial” online blog The Transcendence Diaries, at last count over fifteen-hundred pages - of which he makes no apologies - he dedicates countless entries vehemently asserting “humanity’s need to free itself from an unhealthy addiction to the belief in Gods and Goddesses,” and yet he attends this church that he is a loyal member of religiously, forgive or admire the pun. In this, as in so many other examples, Ed Hale is a walking contradiction; except for the fact that it is entirely in line with his nature, so much so that one gets accustomed to it rather quickly. And therefore his contradictory nature can actually quite quickly seem normal – which is a frightening thought.

Read More »

Thanks to an external hard drive found by longtime Transcendence graphics guru Eduardo Silva, a batch of previously thought lost forever video files have surfaced, some nearly twenty years old, featuring a very young Ed Hale, aka Eddie Darling. This post includes a local Miami newscast on Channel 6 circa 1988. Featuring Ed Hale and his fellow bandmates in Broken Spectacles when they were still in college and other South Florida alumni such as Matthew Sabatella and Jim Camacho.