Details

Latitude

-4.192555

Longitude

152.176

Start Date

1993-03-14

End Date

1993-03-14

Tape#1: Background and Musical Journey of David Kepas Side A&B: David Kepas was born in 1965 in Rabaul and is a younger brother of Ben Kepas who was a popular musician with various bands in Rabaul. David's music development started at 10 years old with their family band, Devil Strangers along with cousins in Lessy family including Donald, Michael and Robert. He started by singing songs and music played were mainly country, western and Rock & Roll music. He further developed to playing the bass guitar. David then moved around to play in various bands where his elder brothers and cousins were involved and others where he joined with other musicians and friends. The Rabaul based bands include Pila Zack Mates, Apple Sun, Rasterman Vibrations, Molachs, Painim Wok and Arawa, Bouganville based North Solo Drifters and Kimbe, WNB based Wanderers. The various musicians he was involved with besides his family members include, Frank Lou, Glen Lou, John Wong, Joe Logo, Amos Rabbie, Henry Maniot, George Mamua (Telek), John Warbat. Two of the popular songs with record sales at in bands he played as bass guitarist were "Gypsie Rose" composed by John Wong at Apple Sun and "Vunalaslas" composed by Telek with Molachs. Most problems experienced in his musical journey with the bands were mismanagement of funds received from performances and recordings as payments to the musicians. This resulted in breakup of bands, sale of instruments and no income to musicians therefore movements from band to band however seem to be an ongoing problem. David then taught himself to play reggae songs and introduced to Painim Wok band this style of music which became popular. The reggae music was being exposed to the music scene and various bands like Junior Unbelievers wanted David to teach them the bass playing but he declined to requests. Through encouragements from his brother Peter Kepas and cousin, Robert Lessy, David later converted to become a born again christian and entered into christian youth ministry with guitar and vocalist using his musical skills and talents. (Steven Gagau, July 2019)

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