History - Page 2

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Acel sings for Orphan Lily at the 1997
NU107 Rock Awards

With her new found spare time during those 3 months of recovery, Acel picked up her pen and spent much of her time venturing into song writing. She wrote songs entitled “Hands”, “Reasons”, and “Again” among others. “Again” later on turned out in Moonstar88's debut album. None of these songs however went into the recording of the Orphan Lily album that was soon to be released the following year.

In 1998 , Orphan Lily released their self-titled debut album with carrier singles “Paikot-ikot” and “No Reason”. They toured around the country flying to destinations like Palawan, Cebu, Iloilo, Davao, and Baguio. Orphan Lily was even invited to play in noon time television shows on Channels 2 and 7. They quickly won the Best New Artist awards of radio stations NU107 as well as of RX 93.1.

Unfortunately Orphan Lily disbanded at the end of 1998.

Acel went back to focus on her day job as a Sales and Marketing officer in the ACA Group of Companies. After a short 6 month tenure, she worked in the head office of Cinderella, a fashion and apparel chain, as an Assistant Buyer for the Children's Department.

After barely a year, in 1999, William Pineda, a drummer of a band called “Green Farm” who also happened to be from Acel's neighborhood called up Paolo Bernaldo and Acel talking about the prospects of forming a new band. Together with Mervin Tiongson on guitar the four of them jammed in William's makeshift band studio in his garage. The jam session turned out successful coming out with a newly arranged version of the song “Again” that Acel had written.

However Mervin decided to focus on his day job prompting the trio to look for a guitarist. They found Herbert Hernandez playing in Mayric's, a popular bar in down town Manila. Herbert was playing for a band called “Angel in Disguise” whose front-man, Ney Dimaculangan is today the vocalist of the Filipino rock band “6CycleMind”. Impressed with Herbert's skills they invited him to jam in William's garage down the street from where Acel lived.

Herbert agreed and during their first jam session they immediately clicked having accomplished three song arrangements. William asked Teng Marcelo, the vocalist of his band “Green Farm” to join their newly formed band with Acel to play rhythm guitar and help out with vocals.

Scheduled to play at Mayric's, the band had to come up with a name to represent themselves. They listed down more than a hundred random meaningless names and matched them in pairs. Names like “Cookie Castles”, “Porcupine Pie”, and “Little Wing” popped up. The band finally settled at “Moon Star” with which they combined the two words and added a suffix of “88” to form “Moonstar88”.

With Sazi Cosino as their first manager, the band immediately started gigging around the city. Shortly after, Darwin Hernandez, the older brother of Herbert, took over as band manager.

On top of their random bar gigs around the city, once a week Moonstar88 had the opportunity to play 3 sets a night at Cafe Emmanuel saving up for studio time to record their demo. After several weeks of gigging they raised up enough money to record a demo at “Sound Creation”, a studio run in Quezon City run by a pleasant fellow named Shinji.

By early 2000, Moonstar88 had their demo passed to various recording companies and immediately Octoarts and Alpha Records called up with interest. Moonstar88 chose to sign up with Alpha Records.

By 2001, “Popcorn”, the debut album of Moonstar88 was released producing chart topping singles “Torete”, “Sa Langit”, and “Fall On Me”. Out of the 12 songs in the “Popcorn” album, Acel sang in all and even wrote seven: “Fall on Me”, “Again”, “Panaginip”, “Untamed”, “Fear”, “Doors”, and “Thanks”.

A few months after the release of “Popcorn”, Teng Marcelo resigned from the band to focus on his growing career in dentistry. Acel was prompted to pick up the guitar and accompany Herbert as rhythm guitarist as they toured the country promoting their album.

In 2002 they won several awards including RX 93.1's Best New Artist award, Best OPM Band of the Year award and Song of the Year award for their song “Sa Langit”. They were also nominated in the Best Alternative Band category in the prestigious 2002 Awit Awards.

After two music videos (“Torete” and “I'm Sorry”) and even having their carrier single “Torete” become the official theme song of the movie “Luv Txt” featuring the popular young actress Judy Ann Santos, the band joined “Backbeat Management” run and owned by Philippine music industry leader Richard Tan. Richard Tan is also the man behind all time Filipino favorite bands “Parokya Ni Edgar”, “Kamikazee”, “The Youth” and “Cheese”.

By the end of 2002, Moonstar88 released their second album entitled “Press to Play”. The album came packaged as an experimentation of interactive CD technology that included music videos, behind the scenes photography and even an interactive game along with the regular 12 audio tracks all packed in one compact disc.

The second album produced hit songs “Sulat”, “Lonely Tree” and an alternative revival of the 1970s single “Pag Ibig Kong Ito”. Among the 12 tracks written and arranged by the band, Acel wrote “Timeless Peace”, “Take Away” and “More Than That”.

Their success brought about countless photo shoots and interviews for popular fashion, music and entertainment magazines such as “Preview”, “Pulp”, “MTV Ink”, “Popsicle”, and “Youngstar” among others. Newspapers like the “Philippine Daily Inquirer”, the “Philippine Star” and “Manila Bulletin” would regularly feature Moonstar88 as well.

Acel would even appear on television noon time shows like “Eat Bulaga”, “S.O.P”, “A.S.A.P” and sitcoms like “Home Along Da Riles” and “Kool Ka Lang”. There was one time Acel was invited on a celebrity edition of a popular game show called the “Video K Challenge” where she came in 2^nd place, almost winning the grand prize.

Moonstar88 would play for crowds in the thousands at events organized by MTV, MYX (also a music television channel), various radio stations, campuses, and malls around the country. Acel recalls that among the most memorable gigs she had during her time with Moonstar88 included playing in the MTV Aids Summit that featured Mandy Moore, the WOW Philippines show of the National Center for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the show in the Folk Arts Theater alongside “Rivermaya”, “Sugar Free” and “Barbie's Cradle”, the “MYX Mo” event of the MYX music channel, and a DWLS FM event in the Araneta Colosseum with various other artists.

In between all the touring, Acel wrote an array of new songs in the quiet times she had while juggling her time between the gigging and her studies, as by this time she'd also gone back to school to pursue her Master's.

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