Item details
Item ID
MW6-041
Title Interview with John Wong, PGS Port Moresby
Description 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)
Origination date 1993-04-28
Origination date free form Wednesday 28th April, 1993
Archive link https://catalog.paradisec.org.au/repository/MW6/041
URL
Collector
Michael Webb
Countries To view related information on a country, click its name
Language as given
Subject language(s) To view related information on a language, click its name
Content language(s) To view related information on a language, click its name
Dialect
Region / village Port Moresby, Rabaul, Kavieng, National Capital, East New Britain, New Ireland Provinces
Originating university University of Sydney
Operator Jodie Kell
Data Categories historical text
primary text
Data Types Sound
Discourse type interactive_discourse
Roles Steven Gagau : data_inputter
Michael Webb : interviewer
John Wong : speaker
DOI 10.26278/Z1CE-9V29
Cite as Michael Webb (collector), Steven Gagau (data_inputter), Michael Webb (interviewer), John Wong (speaker), 1993. Interview with John Wong, PGS Port Moresby. MPEG/VND.WAV. MW6-041 at catalog.paradisec.org.au. https://dx.doi.org/10.26278/Z1CE-9V29
Content Files (4)
Filename Type File size Duration File access
MW6-041-A.mp3 audio/mpeg 29.1 MB 00:31:51.609
MW6-041-A.wav audio/vnd.wav 1.03 GB 00:31:51.589
MW6-041-B.mp3 audio/mpeg 21.6 MB 00:23:36.799
MW6-041-B.wav audio/vnd.wav 779 MB 00:23:36.789
4 files -- 1.84 GB -- --

Show 10 Show 50 Show all 4

Collection Information
Collection ID MW6
Collection title Music in Rabaul, Gazelle Peninsula, ENBP and New Guinea Islands Region (ca. 1950s - 1990s)
Description Recordings of a wide range of music in Rabaul 1950s-1990s covering areas of the Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain Province and the New Guinea Islands Region. This collection was the PhD research work by Dr Michael Webb focused on music of Melanesia in the Pacific. This collection was located as a result of PARADISEC's 'Lost and Found' project and digitisation was funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language.

Note: This video recording on Item MW6-012 labelled Queens Birthday Singsing, Rabaul in 1993 was unable to be digitised due to poor quality of tape so deleted from collection.
(Steven Gagau)
Countries To view related information on a country, click its name
Languages To view related information on a language, click its name
Access Information
Edit access Jodie Kell
Steven Gagau
Michael Webb
View/Download access
Data access conditions Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Data access narrative
Metadata
RO-Crate Metadata
Comments

Must be logged in to comment


No comments found