September Gurl - Clients - The Hotel Café Tour

THE HOTEL CAFÉ TOUR http://www.thehotelcafetour.com/ [BIOGRAPHY] [PHOTOS] [PRESS] [TOUR DATES] [AUDIO]

BIOGRAPHY ONE BUS, ONE BAND AND A BUNCH OF GIRLFRIENDS ON THE ROAD, THE HOTEL CAFÉ TOUR ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST ALL FEMALE LINE-UP FALL TOUR STARTS ON OCTOBER 9, TICKET PRE-SALE STARTS AUGUST 19 Over the past four years, The Hotel Café Tour has established itself as the premier tour for both up-and-coming and established singer-songwriters. This fall, the Tour will feature an all female line-up for the first time. Nineteen female songwriters, ranging from established musicians Ingrid Michaelson (October 16-27) and Rachael Yamagata to hot rising stars, Meiko, Thao Nguyen, Priscilla Ahn, Brooke Fraser and many more, will pile into a bus and head out on a 34 city tour. One bus, one band, and a bunch of girlfriends on the road. Named for the increasingly influential coffee shop-turned-venue in LA, The Hotel Café Tour was created to share the community vibe and the stellar songwriters that grew The Hotel Café scene into "the place that breaks artists". Community and camaraderie are the focus, there are no headliners, the band is shared and spontaneous collaborations between artists are encouraged. With a revolving cast of songwriters jumping on and off the bus, each evening is unique, creating a feeling of "these people in this place will never happen again." Over the past four years, the Tour has hit every major market in the United States and Europe and many of the participating songwriters have grown from emerging artists into household names. The Spring 2008 tour sold out, with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers, Ingrid Michaelson and Joshua Radin playing to over 30,000 people. With the success of past The Hotel Café Tours, each Tour becomes more anticipated and the slots more coveted. The Fall Tour will showcase some of the best female songwriters performing today: Rachael Yamagata, Ingrid Michaelson, Meiko, Priscilla Ahn, Kate Havnevik, Thao Nguyen, Brooke Fraser, Samantha Crain, Alice Russell, Jaymay, Erin McCarley, Katie Herzig, Jenny Owen Youngs, Lenka, Emily Wells, Anya Marina, Holly Conlan, and Catherine Feeny. Diverse in their presentation and point of view, they have their passion for lyrics, vocals and the importance of the communal spirit in common. Many have recently released albums but have taken time out of a more traditional individual tour for the opportunity to be a part of this special collaboration. In line with the Tour's commitment to community, The Hotel Café Tour will be donating money and raising consciousness for UNFPA and Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women Campaign. Motorola, Myspace, Starbucks and Taylor Guitars have signed on as partners for the Fall Tour.

PHOTOS Click on a thumbnail to download that hi-res JPEG (suitable for publication):

TOUR DATES Thursday, October 9 Santa Barbara, CA – SoHo Restaurant Friday, October 10 LA, CA – Hotel Cafe Saturday, October 11 Anaheim, CA – House of Blues Monday, October 13 Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tuesday, October 14 Phoenix, AZ – Martini Ranch Thursday, October 16 Dallas, TX – House of Blues Friday, October 17 Austin, TX - Parish Saturday, October 18 Houston, TX – Meridian Red Room Monday, October 20 Birmingham, AL – Work Play Tuesday, October 21 Nashville, TN – Exit/In Wednesday, October 22 Atlanta, GA - Variety Thursday, October 23 Gainesville, FL – Common Grounds Saturday, October 25 Orlando, FL - Social Monday, October 27 Chapel Hill, NC – Cat's Cradle Tuesday, October 28 Washington DC – 9:30 Wednesday, October 29 Philadelphia, PA – World Café Live Thursday, October 30 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom Friday, October 31 Boston, MA - Paradise Saturday, November 1 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg Monday, November 3 Cincinnati, OH – Bogarts Front Room Wednesday, November 5 Chicago, IL – Park West Thursday, November 6 Mpls, MN – Varsity Theater Friday, November 7 Madison, WI – High Noon Saturday, November 8 St Louis, MO – Blueberry Hill Sunday, November 9 Lawrence, KS – Liberty Hall Tuesday, November 11 Denver, CO - Bluebird Wednesday, November 12 Salt Lake City, UT - Avalon Thursday, November 13 Boise, ID – Knitting Factory Concert House Friday, November 14 Portland, OR – Doug Fir Saturday, November 15 Seattle, WA – Chop Suey Monday, November 17 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall Tuesday, November 18 LA, CA - Fonda

PRESS The Christian Science Monitor The Hotel Café Tour By Stephen Humphries L.A.'s Hotel Café is favored haunt for singer-songwriters Intimate Hollywood club is becoming a breaking ground for new artists. Los Angeles - The first time people encounter The Hotel Café, a Hollywood venue that's gaining renown for breaking new singer-songwriters, there's usually confusion over the name. "People say to me, 'Is it a hotel or a cafe?' " chuckles Lenka, a Hotel Café performer who recently made her television debut on Conan O'Brien's show. "It's neither! It doesn't really matter about the name – once it's out there and becomes a brand, it just gets known." Read full story here: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1010/p16s01-almp.html VenusZine.com The Hotel Café Tour By Naila Francis "One bus, one band and a bunch of friends on the road." It's the tag line to what has become one of the most successful singer-songwriter tours of the last few years. And this time around, the Hotel Café Tour is giving it up to the women. Launched by that now venerable Hollywood venue with a reputation for breaking new talent, the tour has been throwing together headliners and local emerging singer-songwriters for the last four years, showcasing their music as much as the convivial atmosphere that the café is known for on jaunts across the United States and the United Kingdom. This year's tour, kicking off October 9 in Santa Barbara, California, features 18 of the most promising new female voices (including a few familiar favorites) to hit their stage in recent times. "There are so many tours where it's a bunch of guys and this was an opportunity to show an area where females are dominating the current market," says tour co-founder Josh Neuman. "We wanted to bring diverse artists together from many different cultural and musical backgrounds. It's always exciting to see how people will get along out there and what collaborations come from it." In this series running throughout the duration of the tour, which concludes November 18 in Los Angeles (check thehotelcafetour.com for dates, tickets, and more on the featured artists at each venue), Venuszine.com puts the spotlight on the women who've caught our ear and the reasons we think you should tune in to them, too. Lenka: article link Meiko: article link Jaymay: article link Samantha Crain: article link Billboard Hotel Cafe tour presents all-female bill By Michael D. Ayers NEW YORK (Billboard) - For the past several years, the Hotel Cafe tour has operated under a simple concept: Take the laid-back, singer-songwriter vibe of its namesake Los Angeles performance space/coffee house to intimate venues around the country. Instead of opening acts and headliners, the shows find the artists collaborating with one another throughout the night. And that approach is resonating at the box office. This spring, the Hotel Cafe tour had its most successful outing to date: 11 shows reported to Billboard Boxscore (10 of which were sellouts) grossed $198,000, a massive earning spike compared with runs in 2005 ($44,902 from six shows) and 2006 ($53,079 from 10 shows). The tour's organizers are preparing for their biggest endeavor yet, with a twist: All the acts on a fall run that begins Oct. 9 in Santa Barbara, California, are female. Such established artists (and Hotel Cafe veterans) as Rachael Yamagata, Ingrid Michaelson and Meiko are on the bill alongside such newcomers as Priscilla Ahn, Jaymay and Kate Havnevik. "In the world of singer-songwriters, we're just so impressed with the level of songwriting that is being dominated by women," co-founder Josh Neuman said of the decision to stick with one gender this time around. "This is our opportunity to bring so many of them from different genres and put together a package." The 32-date tour will boast 18 artists, with each night featuring five or six performers, depending on the location. The all-female lineups inevitably will evoke memories of the Sarah McLachlan-founded Lilith Fair music festival, which toured for a third and final time in 1999, even if the 2008 Hotel Cafe tour will be of a far more modest scale than that fest. Neuman stresses that one of the founding principles of the Hotel Cafe concept has always been the "sense of community" that developed at the original space, and the goal has always been to reflect that in the stage show. "It gives the artist an opportunity to have a different experience," he said. "If you're in a band or a solo artist, you may tour for 18 months with the same people, playing the same songs the same way. I think in terms of the success of the tour, one of the greatest things is presenting the songwriters in a unique light." The performers are excited to shake things up as well. "This will be interesting," Yamagata said. "They're all cool chicks and they're all talented. You want to meet sassy? Ride the bus." Yamagata cited the free-form structure of the shows as a source of creative inspiration, as well as being beneficial for up-and-coming artists who might not yet have the draw to play midsize clubs on their own. "It gives several different flavors of people under one aesthetic," she said. "It's very much a throwback, old-school, everyone's-on-the-same-team kind of show. You get this 'Last Waltz'-type of mentality where everyone is jumping on the stage with each other." Yamagata and Meiko have albums out this fall, and both have opted to tour under the Hotel Cafe banner instead of going out on their own. Ultimately, the goal is to keep cross-pollinating fan bases for artists like Michaelson, who's enjoyed substantial success with TV and commercial licensing deals, with some of the lesser-known acts. "It's like a snowball effect," Meiko said. "My fans come for me and stay for me, but leave as a fan of everybody."

AUDIO Click on the link below to launch the Hotel Cafe Jukebox: Hotel Cafe Jukebox