THE HOTEL CAFÉ ANNOUNCES THEIR FIRST CD RELEASE
WITH JIM BIANCO’S SING ON MARCH 4, 2008
Hollywood, CA—The Hotel Café in Hollywood, CA announces the release of singer-songwriter Jim Bianco’s third album Sing on March 4, 2008. Sing will be the very first label imprint release for the Hotel Café (distributed by Ryko Disc), a venue that has become known worldwide as a haven for burgeoning singer-songwriters making a name for themselves. The Hotel Café moniker has become synonymous with such talents as Rachel Yamagata, Cary Brothers, Gary Jules along with many other stellar performers.
Jim Bianco has long been associated with the Hotel Café, touring with the Café tour since its inception in 2005 throughout the U.S. and into Europe. Making his way from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 2000, Bianco sought to find a community of songwriters and artists to collaborate with. After stumbling into the Hollywood venue accidentally on one “Songwriter Sunday” Jim would play a few songs and be asked to open for Gary Jules the following week. Bianco would become a permanent fixture amongst the Café scene and stage, often to be found playing piano and singing in the smoking room on his night off. Jim calls the Hotel his “other home” and adds that “a majority of the new record was composed at the piano in the smoking room or based on an incident that took place somewhere in the Café, usually sometime after midnight.”
Previously Bianco self-released two albums, including 2005’s critically acclaimed Handsome Devil. The LA Weekly remarked “Bianco’s songs are products of a clear fascination with old-school jazz, blues and swing, coupled with an unabashedly commercial embrace of popular melody…Bianco has catapulted himself onto a level of eclectic songcraft on par with Elvis Costello and Tom Waits." The Philadelphia Daily News furthered “Smart-aleck Jim Bianco will have you laughing and humming along with his flip, hip skewered takes on the male libido. He works in the quirky netherworld combining folk, pop, rock and jazz that Tom Waits and Randy Newman also populate with clever distinction.”
