Orange and LemonsThe Story and Songs of Orange and LemonsOrange and Lemons was a band of Filipino pop rock of indie and alternative. It was first initiated on year 1999 and unfortunately on year 2007 was their official split-up. The band’s name was Oranges and Lemons recommended by one member not knowing that the name was taken from the British nursery rhyme and the title of British band, XTC. Since then, they changed it to Orange and Lemons, removing the (s) of the Orange. Its influences were “The Beatles”, “The Smiths”, “The Cure” and the “Eraserheads”. In the mid 90’s, Clementine and Mcoy Fundales met in high school. Through participating school programs, they realized that they share common passion for music. They jammed songs of “The Beatles” and developed their talent in songwriting. With their friends in Bulacan, they formed groups and used several names as The Voiz, Sweet Silence, Irony, The Cranes, Mushroom and ended in Orange and Lemons, which was suggested by their previous drummer. They chose the name because it sounds playful and catchy to them. On 1999, in the local bar of Bulacan, Brothers Ace and JM del Mundo of “Colossal Youth” met Mcoy and Clementine and admired their song writing skills and instantly became their fan. Roldan “Bong” Baluyot of “No Seat Affair” handled Orange and Lemons on their two-track demo recording. The demo tape contains songs She’s Leaving Home and Isang Gabi on year 1999. She’s Leaving Home eventually being played on radio station, NU 107.5 FM. It was a hard time for them to look for a label to release the band’s materials. In 2000, they paused for awhile to find day jobs and shift to do something else.
Ace showed up on 2003 and forced Clementine to reorganize the band and record their original composed songs. He was so determined and firm to his idea that he even transferred from guitars to drums just for the band’s onset. Ace’s effort is quite convincing for Clementine that he contacted Mcoy and their former bassist. Unfortunately, the former bassist failed to appear during their dummy run but along with Ace came JM and thus decided to keep the del Mundo brothers permanent in the band. So, the new lineup of Orange and Lemons emerged. They again contacted Bong Baluyot to handle the band and him a crude demo recording of new songs. Bong liked it and together with Boom Jose of the 80’s band “Violent Playground”, they recorded 10 songs in three days because of financial limitation. After the recording, Bong looked for a label to take the group in. Orange and Lemons badly need gigs. They got their first gig in “Where Else?”, a club in Makati City. The band’s sense of humor and their unique and original hit songs earned them recognition especially from young professionals. During one of the gigs, the band met Toti Dalmacion of “Groove Nation”, a local music store famous for its hard-to-find and rare records from abroad. He is a known music guru in Philippine music scenery and was curious about Orange and Lemons since he is a fan of XTC for a long time. Toti liked their songs and came up with an idea of releasing an album of independent label called ”Terno Recording”. Soon, the band started recording and arranging 10 original hit songs in their debut album Love in the Land of Rubber Shoes and Dirty Ice Cream. The debut album was released on December of 2003. The album’s single A Splendid Love Song gained radio airplays on NU107.5 FM and reached its number 1 position on their weekly countdown. JAM88.3 FM, another local station started playing the single and too went up on its charts. Bong met Robert Javier during one of the regular gigs of Orange and Lemons informing that Bella Tan of ”Universal Records Philippines” was interested in signing in Orange and Lemons. Soon, Orange and Lemons signed with Universal Records on October of 2004. The band’s second album was released ion June 2005 entitled Strike Whilst The Iron Is Hot under ”Universal Records” which was their first album under the mentioned label. The band improved a lot with their singles Hanggang Kailan, Heaven Knows and Lihim. In addition to their fame, Orange and Lemons was chosen to compose a soundtrack of ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Big Brother, the Philippine reality show. The track was entitled Pinoy Ako. Other projects of the band include the theme song of the movie Blue Moon and song of shampoo advertisement, Abot Kamay. As a follow-up of Abot Kamay, Orange and Lemons finished another track from UNILEVER for another shampoo advertisement entitled Let Me. The Repackaged Edition of the album Strike Whilst The Iron Is Hot was released after few months of the album’s release. Its purpose is to include new songs made by the band and it reached to multi-platinum status. The band also contributed to the tribute album of Apo Hiking Society, Kami nApo Muna in 2006. They made their own rendition of APO song, Yakap Sa Dilim. The song was massively played on different radio stations nationwide. On December 2006, they did their take on another APO song, Tuloy na Tuloy Pa Rin Ang Pasko which was used as the Christmas Jingle of ABS-CBN. On June 8, 2007, the band released yet another album entitled Moonlane Gardens under ”Universal Records”. The album was believed the thirds and the last album. But lately, still Universal Records released another album entitled ”Kenyo: Radiosurfing”. Orange and Lemons turned into a major artist under a major label unbelievably from their humble beginning in a span of short time. Now their songs were played through massive radio airplays and other music channels in the country gaining fame over the population of different ages and backgrounds. Unfortunately, because of differences between band members and their managers, the once united Orange and Lemons officially disband on October 9, 2007 according to Inquirer.net. Albums
Awards
Songs of Orange and Lemons
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