Details

Latitude

-5.943655

Longitude

150.033

Start Date

1993-04-28

End Date

1993-04-28

Tape#1: Musical Journey and Experiences of John Wong Side A & B: John Wong was born in 1957 in Kavieng, New Ireland Province and moved to Rabaul, East New Britain Province when he was 6 years. He attended Rabaul High School till early 1970s'. His muscial exposure was from his father who was a guitar player and was involved socially with other friends playing in local Rabaul clubs. John's background to his musical journey started in High School with the school band with his friends who he grew up with. They later formed bands and later become a popular PNG musician sticking together with his friends, moving on to other bands with new musicians and ended up with his job as sound engineer for studio recording with Chin H Meen (CHM). As sound engineer, be worked on studio equipment from 4 tracks, 8 tracks to 16 tracks. Being a mixed race of Chinese and PNG New Ireland parentage, most band members where always from the same community from Malay, Ambonese people living in Rabaul in the town bands until later he joined up with local Tolai and New Ireland musicians. The Rabaul musicians he was involved with over the years of his career in various bands include Frank Lou, Glen Low, Desmond Woo, Joe Chee, Donald Lessy, Fabian Tadoi, David Kepas, Matalau Nakikus, George Telek, Kanai Pineri, Pati Doi. John started with the drums, then the lead guitar and lead vocals where he was involved with popular album studio releases like Soundstream, CHM and Pacific Gold Studios (PGS) as well as radio air time mainly with National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). The bands would perform live in clubs, halls and events were in Rabaul town as well as tours to other provincial centres of PNG and the capital, Port Moresby. The popular bands include; Apple Suns, Rasterman Vibrations, Pila Zackmates, DOY Trotters, Barike, Molachs, Painim Wok, Tarikana. Most songs were "copycats" or covers from existing international artists n country/western, pop, reggae, blues genres of music and compositions were picking up then where John and other musicians begin writing songs. Local Kuanua (Tolai) songs began to be sung and recorded mainly from traditional songs namely; "bing bing lur" and "iau ra biavi" which became popular hits in the PNG charts with Barike Band. Another Barike hit song was the song "Waikiki Tamure" Other popular songs were "Dust over Rabaul", "Under the Board Walk" and "Anita" with George Telek. John also likes other PNG popular bands who came earlier and in the same era in Gwadu, Copycats, Sanguma, Tambaran mainly based out of Por Moresby. John also likes international popular hits, songs and artists of his era in Police, Sting, Lionel Richie to name a few. John enjoys his music and encourages other PNG musicians and artists to stand together, work together to bring PNG up to international standards of music. (Steven Gagau, May 2019)

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