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For the past 17 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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CD Title: AEROPLANE EP
Artist: Alfa Garcia
Released: 2005
Label: Independent
Imagine a pestle. Now put some ‘Visayan’ culture, Filipino blood, New York attitude, Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, teenage angst, poetry and the American Dream.
Now grind everything with a mortar made up of passion and classic rock and you will get music called Alfa-Music- also known as the music of Alfa Garcia.
Alfa Garcia is an NYU junior who hovers around the New York and New Jersey singer-songwriter scene with her classically bred musicality and musicianship. So good her music is, that she has gathered a steady fan base, which carry her through her shows like ants carrying a single grain of cooked white rice. And of course, she is Filipino – American.
Now, her EP entitled ‘Aeroplane’ has somehow managed to climb to the top of the heap of our CDs for review pile hence this review.
Aeroplane is a 6-track EP made up of studio recordings and live performances complied by Alfa herself and produced by Nuby deLeon.
As the CD player’s track counter reads one, we are ushered into the opening drum sequence of ‘Tonight’, which according to Alfa, is a little bit intimidating to play live but recorded to her full satisfaction.
The song was done in waltz time signature and, needless to say, fits the song’s melancholic-driving music vibe very well. The words were poetry in melody, the lines “Freedom on wings that has saved me everytime, and the recurring “Everything falls on me after all” bit sums up the liberating but helpless situation of the song’s theme.
The selection of ‘Tonight’ as the primary track in the EP was a wise choice because the song introduced her music well to the first time listener-a kind of synopsis for the whole CD listening experience. Here she played all the instruments that she knows how to-Piano, guitar and some violin work in the outro. An impressive first track indeed.
The next song,’ Aeroplane’ was a live performance at Imaginasian Radio where her songs have been in heavy rotation since their release. This somewhat gave me a glimpse of Alfa’s guitar know-how because other only accompaniment was a naked acoustic guitar, which she played pretty skillfully. The songs have that ‘Lilith Fair’-“Indigo Girls’ aura which kinda puts the listener into an upbeat and sing along stand.
“Sundown Came’ comes in with a Nora Jones like piano riff with an acoustic guitar and eventuallydevelops into an up-tempo, folk number with some depressing lyrics about a girl who has all but given up all hope and starts considering the use of a gun that she’s not even afraid to use.
“Please’ is probably the most textured song on the EP with an in island-latin beat complete with bongo drums, and some castanets held together by nice bossa chords and chilled guitar solos. This track gave a different dimension to Alfa’s EP as it breaks away from her usual piano-acoustic melancholic works. Really makes me wanna sit by the pool and sip some Banana Daiquiri.
‘Crescendo’ is yet another live track taken from her Imaginasian Radio performance. It is a standard singer-songwriter fare, about love’s rise and fall as metaphorized by the musical terms crescendo and tempo, which is very clever in my view,
The guitar playing here is straight forward, minus the technical decorations in her other live track, ‘Aeroplane’.
The last number is ‘UnFilipino’- An upbeat folk-pop song quite close to a ‘Barbie’s Cradle’ song complete with electric guitar played with driving force. If there’s one track in the CD that could break her out in the Philippine music scene, it could be this. The song is about her complains about being branded as ‘Unfilipino’ maybe by her family or friends, who knows. But she maintains that she has her own life glazed by her unique identity and defined by the choices she makes.
As the CD player stops, we are left with this sense of an unearthed treasure-A treasure that we might have seen before but altogether ignored.
Now Alfa won’t be the last anymore. She wouldn’t be the ‘Omega’ as they say for she has showed her gifts through her EP, which deserves to be lent an ear to.
Well, she might not be a Joni Mitchell yet, or a Cynthia Alexander, but the beautiful thing about it is that, she is only a teenager, whose continuing life experiences will further add reality and truth to her already believable compositions.
Ted Reyes is a journalist, composer, musician and record producer based in NY. For comments about this column or submissions for music or film review etc. you can email him at tedreyes@mac.com.
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The Rocky lovelife of Jacklyn Jose
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MANILA --- After Jacklyn Jose’s romance with Mark Gil, which produced her pretty teenage daughter Andrea Nicole, she fell in love with a band member, Kenneth Ilagan.
Their son, Garmond, is now three years old. We remember that when someone accused Kenneth of rape, Jacklyn stood by him and even defended him on TV.
We just heard Jacklyn has now just broken up with Kenneth, himself a looker, after living together for four years. She won’t reveal the reason for the split up.
How sad since only a few months earlier, they were said to be thinking of tying the knot formally since Kenneth’s mom likes Jacklyn so much.
Jacklyn just won another best supporting actress award for “Naglalayag” from FAP and is also in the cast of “Masahista,” an indie film currently being shown in film festivals abroad.
She also plays the mom of Claudine Barretto and Bea Alonzo in “Ikaw ang Lahat sa Akin.” (MNS)
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MANILA --- Keempee de Leon says he likes the actor in “Will & Grace” and Robin Williams in “The Birdcage,” who are his inspiration ko.”Locally, siempre it’s my dad (Joey de Leon), who is not afraid of wearing wigs and women’s clothes in playing gay roles.”
There are other local actors who play gay roles effectively, like Eric Quizon, Michael de Mesa, Roderick Paulate, Ricky Davao, Allan Paule, Gardo Versoza and Dominic Ochoa. How come their characters didn’t achieve the kind of popularity that his Harold in “Bahay Mo Ba ‘To” did?
“I don’t really know. I myself can’t explain it. Hindi naman ako malanding bakla roon who’s really funny. But I’m glad dahil binuhay niya ang career ko.”
For his title role in the “Multong Bakla” episode of “Happily Ever After,” he made his character very different from Harold.
“Yaya ako rito ng child actor na si Nash Aguas. I speak with a Visayan accent and I’m more swishy here. Dahil sa kalandian ko sa paghabol sa crush kong security guard, nasagasaan kami ni Nash ng truck so we died at naging mga multo. When I see Tyron Perez dating with Nadine Samonte, I thought he’s my missing papa kaya nagpakita ako sa kanila and I try to seduce him by doing belly dancing, Hawaiian dancing, at kung anu-ano pa.”
Now in his early 30’s, someone asks Keempee why he remains unmarried when he has gone steady with several actresses before, like Vina Morales, Bernadette Allyson, and Carmina Villaroel. Most of his past girlfriends are now married, except for Vina, who’s now 28. Maybe they’re really meant for each other? What if he’d try to reconcile with her?
“Para namang ganoon kadali ‘yon,” he laughs. “For me, there’s no need to rush. Enjoy pa naman ako being single.” (MNS)
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MANILA --- Showbiz observers were no longer surprised when Kristine Hermosa filed an annulment of her marriage to Diether Ocampo at a Makati court.
From the start, they already knew the relationship would not really last. It was reported they were married by a mayor in Nueva Ecija but they never got the courage to admit it in public. If you truly love someone, you’d be proud to proclaim it to the whole wide world and not hide it, right? Talk about starting on the wrong foot.
As such, when ABS-CBN gave them a mini-series, “Till Death Do Us Part,” it got very poor ratings as the public didn’t seem interested.
Rumors of their fights started floating but Diether, during interviews for “Nasaan Ka Man,” denied them, saying they’re still together.
But now, the cat is out of the bag and we cannot really feel sad for them as they themselves should be blamed for what clearly is a big mistake, the same kind that Kris Aquino is doing now.
Somehow, her own coverage of her meeting with James Yap’s family in Escalante City leaves a bad taste in the mouth. As someone commented: “Parang siya pa ang namanhikan doon sa pamilya ng lalaki.”
But no doubt it helped up the ratings of “The Buzz” which rated some points higher than “The S Files” last June 26. (MNS)
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MANILA --- While in Vietnam where she taped some scenes for the teleserye, “Vietnam Rose,” Angelica Panganiban excitedly called up her friends in the Philippines after
having her $100 changed into dong, the currency in Vietnam. The exchange rate was 160 dong to one US dollar, so Angelica got more than a million dong to her $100.
"Sa tuwa ko na nakahawak ako ng milyones, sabi ko sa mga kaibigan ko, o, kayo, how much money do you have in your bag? Ako, I have a million," she giddily said.
The fly in the ointment was when Angelica lost $399 in her hotel room. Though she didn’t show it, since she went on with her taping as if nothing happened, she told friends that she was greatly affected. "After all, almost P18,000 ‘din ‘yung nawala sa akin," she reasoned.
She denied the report that she has reconciled with Carlo Aquino. She doubts if this will ever happen, even if she’s glad that despite their break-up they have remained friends.
So, who is her boyfriend now?
"May mga umaali-aligid," she answered. "But I don’t think I would fall in love at this point in time when my career is doing very well. I want to make the most of the breaks that I am currently getting."
Angelica said she regrets that she had to turn down a role offered to her by Imus Film Productions for a movie they are preparing for the coming Metro Manila Film Festival. Her busy schedule would simply not allow her to do a movie though she would have loved to work with Bong Revilla, who is the leading actor.
"We were asked to tape more episodes for ‘Vietnam Rose,’ dahil ipi-premiere na yata ito," Angelica said.
"Vietnam Rose" is a reunion movie for Angelica and Maricel Soriano since they have done a movie together before for Star Cinema. Since she was just 10 then, she played Maricel’s daughter.
In "Vietnam Rose," Angelica and Maricel are playing the role of half sisters. "We have a confrontation scene here where we exchange dialogues in Vietnamese. Kasi, supposedly lumaki kami pareho sa Vietnam. We have a Vietnamese mom," Angelica revealed.
Angelica was just a child star when she did "Kadenang Putik" with Joel Lamangan, who co-directs "Vietnam Rose" with Don Cuaresma.
Angelica has two leading men in "Vietnam Rose," newcomers Jason Abalos and AJ Dee.
"I have more scenes with AJ in the first few episodes of the teleserye," she related. "Supposedly childhood sweetheart ko kasi si AJ. Pareho kaming Vietnamese dito.
"In the case of Jason, mapupunta siya sa Vietnam dahil isinama siya ng kanyang ama (played by Ricky Davao), who was the first boyfriend of my mom. Tito Ricky supposedly is a doctor at na-assign siya sa Vietnam during the war," she stated.
Angelica’s greatest wish is to be able to resume her studies. She used to take up business management at the Thames University but she quit because she wants to change her course.
"I really want to take up journalism. And I am told, kailangang maging regular student ako, para makakuha ng kursong ito. But with my busy schedule, how can I?" she said. (MNS)
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