Soulworks Records artists to debut “Lagi sa Kama” during release party at Fontana’s in NYC

Bergenfield–– The Filipino-American rock band The Kuwagos are scheduled to debut their second album, “Lagi sa Kama,” on Saturday, February 20 during a release party at Fontana’s Bar in New York City starting at 7 p.m.
 
In anticipation of the album’s release, the band, along with its record label Soulworks Records, will be giving away a very special EP download of re-mastered classic songs from their first album, self titled The Kuwagos, for free through their website www.thekuwagos.com on Friday, February 19 only.

“Everyone at Soulworks Records is very excited about this release by The Kuwagos,” said Ted Reyes, Soulworks’ President/CEO. “We are confident all their fans will be as pleased with this album as we are.”
 
The Kuwagos have also released the music video of its first single, also titled “Lagi sa Kama,” off the new album on its website and on YouTube (search Lagi sa Kama). The video was directed by Sheryl Garcia-Reyes.

It's a little overwhelming. To have a single hope and prayer answered for real. Last year, a then 18-year old Filipino, Franz Pantaleon, suffered from a rare form of cancer called Extra-Skeletal Ewing’s Sarcoma, a cancer of the bone and soft tissue.

It's an aggressive disease that is known to have a high recurrence rate. To date, it still remains an extremely rare cancer that affects adolescents and young adults between ages 10 and 30 years. Yet, although extremely rare, the disease is known to respond relatively well to a combination of surgical resection, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

And nowadays, Franz is cancer free. Thank God.

-In a recent e-mail from Franz's mom:

"We have just received confirmation from Franz's oncologist regarding his PET scan, which shows that all the cells in his body, from head to toe, are NORMAL- no cancer cells.

Needless to say, we are overcome with tears and feelings of joy, relief, and thanksgiving and we wanted to share this wonderful news as soon as possible. There are so many whom we would like to thank at length once we have collected our thoughts, for now, this brief but triumphant message would have to suffice.

We thank God for answered prayers of Franz’s complete, total, perfect, and permanent healing."

Thanks to Sheryl for sharing this.

And thanks to everyone who came out that night back in May '09. Thanks for sharing in our hope.

~Poptimes Family

New York - Los Angeles-based Fil-Am musician John Balicanta released a new instrumental EP on iTunes on February 1. Balicanta, formerly frontman of indie rock band Lola Ray, composed the entire score for playwrite Jonathan Goldberg's new play "Luck of the Ibis", for which the EP is named.

While Lola Ray is on an indefinite hiatus, Balicanta is taking this time to stretch his wings a bit with various projects, such as composing the all-instrumental score for "Luck of the Ibis", which is so rich in its depth and soaring in its magnitude. Balicanta really shows a flair for musical composition beyond the rock genre. Among his other projects are some new solo material and doing instrumentation for a few friends' bands.

Balicanta has also started his own music page to showcase his latest work. Please visit his <a href="http://www.myspace.com/johnbalicanta">myspace page</a> to preview a track, "Underwater Dance", from the new EP, as well as some recent songs.