Details

Latitude

-4.21807

Longitude

152.18

Start Date

1993-02-22

End Date

1993-02-22

Tape#1: Musical Journey and Experiences of Gideon Nakikus and Matalau Nakikus Side A&B: Gideon Nakikus was born in 1945 and son of Methodist-United Church missionary Nakikus ToVue from Matupit village. The musical influences of his father in choirs led him to become a musician in traditional and choral music. He composed songs and conducted choirs in primary schools and villages in the communities her was involved as a school teacher. Now retired, he continues with choirs in his home village at Matupit. He have been involved in various choral festivals and competitions such as Tolai Warwagira, George Brown Day, John Wesley Day, Schools Arts Festivals and had won prizes for his various choirs groups. Gideon is self taught and uses traditional forms of melody, rhythms, pitches and combines the techniques reading music from choir music and tune sheets in his song compositions. Gideon uses examples of traditional songs like Wutung, libung, warbat, malira into songs and uses in composed songs in four part harmonies similar to Kunana hymns songs using Methodist and Sengki song formats. In the early 1990s', Australian band, Not Drowning, Waving visited Rabaul to record their album Tabaran with George Telek with other musicians and Gideon was a contributor with his song "Lapun Man". The Band requested Gideon to tell the stories of 1937 volcano eruption of Tavurvur/Matupit and how the Rabaul residents and expatriate communities reacted with their experiences in song. Pacific Gold Studio's Greg Seeto referred the Band to meet with Gideon at Matupit knowing of his music talent and knowledge of stories about the volcano eruption to have a song composed for recording of the Not Drowning, Waving album produced in Melbourne Australia. Matalau Nakikus is a musician, a teacher and lawyer and was the first Tolai member of the Barike band amongst other mixed race New Ireland members in John Wong, Glen Low, Fabian Tadoi and Don Lessy. Power bands in the Gazelle Peninsula started in the early 1970s but did not recorded their music which was evolving and Tolai people in villages began transformation and transition from stringbands to power bands. Barike Band had recording contract with Pacific Gold Studios (PGS) which was competing with Chin H Meen (CHM) studios. John Wong was a band leader and genres and songs were covers and composed as rock, pop and western styles of music. When John Wong left Barike to be a Soloist and recorded with CHM, the Barike music began to change to a more variety including Tolai songs from traditional song and dance and stringband music songs. The departure of John Wong led to a replacement of another Tolai in Kanai Pineri of Shut Down band from Tavui. Kanai supported Matalau with Tolai songs at Barike and after being on part time basis became full time member due to Barike's popularity and brand of music enjoyed across the country. There was a new style of rock music emerging incorporating Tolai traditional songs from the beats, rhythm and melody of songs of warbat, malira,libung, wutung, abot and others. The first PGS Barike band recording in 1982 included Tolai hit song Bing bing lur, a traditional warbat song amonst others such as Iau ga linglingur, Varmari, Kaugu gunan, Tomavatur, Abot as well as Tok Pisin versons and other Tok Ples songs or local languages from other parts of the country. Towards the mid 1980s', a style of rock and reggae music was emerging changing the music scene in Rabaul and other parts of of the country known as Island Reggae to Tolai Rock and has become a music brand of style of music in PNG. At the same time other Tolai and Duke of Yorks bands in the 1990s' followed the Tolai Rock style of music due to the melody, rhythm and beats of Tolai stringband and traditional songs. The bands were Molachs, Painim Wok, Shut Down, Narox and others. Barike remains and continues to be one of PNG popular bands and many more Tolai power bands emerging in the 1990s with Tolai Rock style music. (Steven Gagau, January 2020)

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