ED HALE’S “SCENE IN SAN FRANCISCO” CONTINUES TO RISE UP BILLBOARD CHARTS WITH A BULLET

Photo of Ed Hale by Derek P. Miller Transcendence frontman Ed Hale’s latest single, “Scene in San Francisco” from his solo album Ballad On Third Avenue, continues its rise up the charts this week in the Adult Contemporary (AC) radio format, with over 1000 spins per week and several new stations adding the song to heavy rotation, including WDKB out of Dekalb, IL and KHMX in Santa Rosa, CA. The song has also been getting heavy airplay on Sirius XM channel The Blend, Clear Channel’s iHeart Radio, The TM Studios Weekly Hit Disc, and the National AC Premium Choice Channel.
The song is still holding strong at #26 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Top 40 Chart and #15 on the FMQB AC Chart among stiff competition — including Adele, Jason Mraz, Katy Perry and Coldplay — in one of the fiercest months in years in the format, one that many radio promoters are calling “a blood bath”. Hale’s “San Francisco” remains the #1 Most Active New AC Independent Song and Artist on the charts for the 12th consecutive week (as measured by BDS/R&R and Mediabase). Word is the official music video will be released on Monday April 9th, 2012.

“NEW ORLEANS DREAMS” RISES TO OCCUPY #23 ON THE AC TOP40!

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.

VIINYL.COM SELECTION OF THE DAY

Viinyl.com Selection of the Day
Stream Ed Hale’s hit “New Orleans Dreams.” Look at pictures. Share with your friends using Google+, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter and more. Connect with the artist one on one.

ED HALE’S “NEW ORLEANS DREAMS” SHOOTS UP 33 SPOTS TO #60 ON THE TOP 200

Ed Hale’s Latest Single “New Orleans Dreams”

Ed Hale’s new single “New Orleans Dreams,” the second from his latest solo album Ballad On Third Avenue album, can now officially be called “hit single” this week as it shot up 33 spots on the Adult Contemporary Top 200 Chart to land at #60 in only its second week, making it one of the biggest movers of the holiday weekend.
The poignant acoustic ballad with the potent message debuted on the Top 200 chart at #93 in its first week, which earned it the coveted #1 Most Added Song of the Week in the AC format, a rare feat for alt-rock crossover artists. But what nobody expected was that it would repeat the same move the following week. “Debuting in a new format as one of the Top 20 Most Added  Songs is rare, let alone the #1 spot,” commented radio promotions veteran Tom Mazzetta, “which is usually reserved for artists already familiar to listeners of the format. Doing it twice consecutively is unheard of.”
This week Hale’s “New Orleans Dreams” more than doubled the number of stations who added the song to heavy rotation, making it the #2 Most Added Song of the Week, coming in a close second to Daryl Hall’s new single “Talking” (which holds the #73 spot on the  Top 200). If the song continues at this pace, Hale might not only set a record for appearing in the Top 20 Most Added Chart three weeks in a row, but is almost assured to land somewhere in the Top 40 among AC regulars such as Adele, Train, and Bruno Mars. The song has already flown by AC favorites David Cook, Daughtry, Michael Buble and many others. Fans of Hale’s new “whisper pop” solo album who want to tune in and hear the alt-rock singer/songwriter live on the radio in their own hometown can find out which stations are playing the song by looking up the Adult Contemporary station(s) in their city by clicking here.
In the meantime, all this new-found glory at radio is helping the song rack up sales and downloads in record numbers for the singer on the iTunes Music Store and Amazon.com, proving that success and service to others are not mutually exclusive endeavors. Hale released the single originally to raise money to help disaster relief efforts to aid victims of several natural and man-made disasters that have befallen New Orleans and other Southern cities in the US by promising to donate a portion of all proceeds from sales of the song directly to the American Red Cross. So far the song is exceeding all expectations and just might land Ed Hale in a position he could never have dreamed of before the release of his Ballad On Third Avenue album: a bonafide Adult Contemporary Top Ten artist.
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ED HALE AND CREW RECORDING TWO NEW ALBUMS CONFIRMED

A lot can change during the recording of one album. Make that two. Transcendencesinger/guitarist Ed Hale, along with fellow bandmates Roger Houdaille, Bill Sommer, and Ricardo Mazzi,  has been in the recording studio in New York City for the last three months purportedly working on his next solo album, which was tentatively titled Born to Lose. The album was supposed to be a follow up to last year’s Ballad On Third Avenue, one of the most successful of the singer’s career; (its third single “New Orleans Dreams” is currently climbing up the Adult Contemporary charts in the  United States and receiving airplay in twenty-one other countries).
But that was before the band started attempting to choose and arrange the songs that would go on the new album. Hale presented Houdaille (bass) and Sommer (drums) with some forty-plus songs that he felt would be “good for the album.” “Ed kept telling us that we were recording an even softer more acoustic Ballad On Third Avenue, something more like Rubber Soul. But he kept bringing in these songs that were all entirely different from each other,” laughs Sommer. “We kept asking him ‘when are we going to start recording the soft acoustic album?’ Only a few fit that style.”
Instead what they ended up with was eighteen songs with two very distinct styles being represented. “I’d say about eighty percent of the songs sound like really good upbeat light pop songs, perfect for this new “Adult Contemporary” kick he’s on,” states Houdaille, who is also producing the album. “Then there are a handful which really do hit the mark and sound like the softer acoustic style he originally intended to record. We’ve been calling it ‘Sunday morning’ music. He’s been doing a lot of listening to groups like Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver and Iron and Wine  I guess. But the bulk of what got recorded was not that. It was more pop if anything. And that’s actually a good thing because that is where he’s doing best right now, in terms of radio airplay.” After two months and fleshing out more than  forty songs the band finally agreed what they had was two half-finished albums, rather than one finished album with extra songs to choose from.
So what to do? According to Hale the answer is simple. Original drummer Ricardo Mazzi “will fly up and we’ll cut another ten or so songs, five or so for each new album and end up finishing two completely different albums. One will be the original soft acoustic slowmo album that we started out trying to make.” One assumes Hale is referring to the Triple A style that Ballad On Third Avenue attempted to be. “And this other album, the one we’re closer to finishing now, will be a totally new direction for us. More like a lite acoustic pop album.”
So what about the Born to Lose album? “Well I still think we’ve got it in us. The songs are there…” Hale comments. “The songs are not there,” quips Sommer. “Ed wants the songs to be there, but his songwriting is his songwriting, and it is still skirting along that “Brit-pop” style more than anything remotely folky or Sunday morning sounding…”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Houdaille chimes in. “This new album, even though it isn’t what we set out to make, is really good. All the songs are cohesive for once. It just took us a while to get here. But they’re all tight, catchy, pop songs that fall under the four minute mark. That’s a big achievement already for Ed, cutting his songs down under four minutes. I think it has the chance to be his most commercial album.” “Exactly! And that’s what worries me,” Hale exclaims. “we’ve worked so hard to not fit into any mold that could possibly be called “commercial”… but now that I’m listening back to the songs…. I mean, you just can’t help but hear it. It does sound very modern.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find a way to sabotage that by the time the recording is finished,” Sommer jokes, referring to Hale’s tendency towards over doing the sonic experimentation. “Not if I can help it,” Houdaille comments. “Ed is closer now to breaking big than he’s ever been. I don’t think it will kill him to have one commercially successful album in his catalog,” he laughs. “You can still record your avant garde noise album after this if you want to,” Houdaille says to Hale, referring to the oft-rumored “M3II” album of experimental guitar noise that Hale has been talking about releasing for the last ten years. “Yeah yeah… right… just as long as we don’t get trapped into performing concerts of all like ‘welcome to the best of the light pop commercial music we all love to hate’ type stuff,” remarks Hale.
Any idea what this new new album might be titled yet? The band dropped a series of phrases out ranging from “The Stranger” (from the song of the same name) to “Memoirs of the Prince of New York” (again another song title). All in all, an artist could be facing much worse problems. The good news is that fans can look forward to at least four new albums of new material from Ed Hale and his Transcendence crew over the next six months when the two unreleased Transcendence albums, All Your Heroes Become Villains (November 15th release) and The Great Mistake (no release date set) are included. The bad news? What bad news?

ED HALE ADDS TWO NEW NEW YORK CITY SHOWS

Ed Hale and band just announced two new concert appearances, both in New York. The Transcendence singer/songwriter/guitarist just released his latest solo album, the critically acclaimed Ballad On Third Avenue – a melodic gem and lyrical milestone for Hale that sounds and feels like an homage to getting lost and losing in the streets of New York and still coming out winning. Tour dates so far have been few and far between; even though the album stayed in the college radio charts all summer and the first single, the anthemic “I Walk Alone”, has been tearing it up on commercial radio making Hale more and more a household name for the emo set. Dying Van Gogh Records assures that Hale will add more tour dates as the album gains more traction at radio. For now fans will have to settle for the few that crop up now and then. Two such happen to be in the Big Apple. Stay tuned for additional updates.
October 2nd, 2009 Friday Night – New York City, NY USA – Fall Fest – Christ Church – 6:30 PM. Corner of 60th st. and Park Avenue. Tickets $10 at the door. Two hours of bands. Ed Hale is one of the featured artists. Band will consist of Hale on vocals and acoustic guitar, Peter Capelle on piano, and a cellist. Will perform 4 songs from new album Ballad On Third Avenue.
November 7th, 2009 Saturday – New York City, NY USA – International Pop Overthrow Festival – 3:30 PM Sharp. Kenny’s Castaways 157 Bleecker St. New York 212 979-9762 $10 at door gets you in for all acts that day and night till midnight. FULL SIX-PIECE BAND CONCERT featuring acoustic guitar, piano, cello, bass, drums, mellotron, and vocals – performing songs from new album Ballad On Third Avenue.

ED HALE’S BALLAD ON THIRD AVENUE CONTINUES ITS CLIMB UP THE CHARTS

Ballad On Third Avenue, the latest solo album from singer-songwriter Ed Hale, continued its climb up the CMJ Top 200 Chart this week jumping thirty spots to land at #145 on the college radio airplay-driven chart. According to MediaGuide and MediaBase tracking, the songs receiving the most airplay are “I Walk Alone,” “Incompatible,” and the album’s title track, a power-pop “Born to Run” for the Millenium Generation nicknamed “Beautiful Losers.” The Simon and Garfunkelesqe “It Feels Too Good” is also receiving a good number of spins. Just under four-hundred college and community radio stations across the United States and Canada are reporting spinning tracks from the singer’s first solo album in several years – making it the most successful and highest charting album in Hale’s fifteen year career. Key cities picked up last week included Philadelphia’s WKDU, WBWC out of Cleveland, and Baltimore’s XTSR. Fans of Hale’s “dayjob” – fronting the Britpop/alt-rock super-group Transcendence – might be taken by surprise by the softer, more mellow sound of the new disc, a collection of eleven intimately recorded and exclusively acoustic songs (not one electric guitar to be heard on the album’s forty-plus minutes), but Hale’s vulnerable confessional lyricism and the songs’ sparse instrumentation have if anything only broadened his audience. Interestingly the most rotated song from the album at college radio, “I Walk Alone,” also happens to be the first single at commercial radio. After fifteen years of alt-rock radio love, the first single from Balladis instead being picked up for airplay by Adult Contemporary and Triple A stations across the US, making a potential crossover hit the next stop in the singer’s adventurous and noteworthy career, one that has been consistently marked by experimentation and forays into the unexpected.