Great loss

THE grave yet again got richer in musical talents and the heavens rejoice in adding a talented and creative musician to their band.
The passing of Sir Kiki Geno is truly a great loss to the music industry in Papua New Guinea.
I am from New Guinea and grew up seeing my parents enjoying music by Paramana Strangers. I remember a cassette cover of light skinned people, with long hairs and their bodies “buried” with only their heads sticking out on a beautiful beach.
I will take hours admiring the picture yet cannot understand why somebody would want to bury them like this when they were making beautiful music.
Thinking about it now, the music of Paramana Strangers of Aroma in Papua, may have played a part in strengthening our unity as a Nation in the 70s and early 80s.
I cannot help but compare today’s music to those of the yesteryears, the days of the “palang” guitars, how sounds were made, arranged and the type of lyrics written to accompany these sounds.
Those were noises made that we can truly called ‘music to the ears’ rather than the upbeat tempo copy-cat style of today.
At the back of Paramana Strangers, some imitation bands sprang up. Notably the Masu Band of Makopin in East Sepik and the Boios Band, also of East Sepik struts their stuff in the mid-80s.
The music industry grown in talents and originality in those times to about mid-90s.
PNG saw the famous Highlands band of the Siwi brothers, The Waghi Hellcats, Kalibobo Bamboo Band of Madang, The Yellow Tops and various string band of East New Britain helped create pathways to the “pawa” bands.
Memehusa Band of Central, Ararua Band of Wewak, Helgas, Gwadus, Molacs Revival, April Sun, Apple Sun and Guria Band of Lae all put out cassettes.
Perhaps the taste for lyrics in local dialect were preferred more.
As a result PNGs first rock band in Bluff in Souls and April Sun where the late John Wong was honing his vocal skills did not establish a fan base and faded away.
Those bands were all playing cover versions of Western oriented songs. The Sirosis was one such band.
This gave way to famous names like Cathy Lee, John Wong, George Telek, Tom Lari of Chimbu, Sikal Kelep and Mandawali. Later on Loujaya Duna (Loujaya Kouza) was probably the best known vocal in the early 90s.
The last famous voices of the PNG music industry can be attributed to Pati ‘Pots’ Doi and the late John Wong, Moses ‘Moshanty’ Tau and.
I cannot think of a band in the 90s that has more originality and taste than the gospel bands Higher Vission and P2UIF.
Every song in their album was a fresh music to our ears. Every songs has original sounds, original riffs, vocals, tone and pattern. It was not a case of “hear one, hear them all” of today’s music.
But then we have the Madang musical talents of the 90s and Wali Hits tops them all. Actually, Wali Hits was imitating the sounds made famous by another Madang band of the 80s called Kales Gadagads. Wali Hits imitates the vocal talents of Sandy Gabriel and capture almost half of the imagination of the PNG music world.
And that’s were originality, started by the now late Sir Kiki Geno in music most probably stops.
But not until the last frontier band in PNG music creates musical hysteria across the nation that originality died and copy-cat couch musician’s kicks in.
Azzimba Band of Port Moresby was like the Beetles of Europe in PNG in 96, 97 and 98.
The screaming schoolgirls and teenagers at everywhere Azzimba played will never be seen again in PNG.
Truly, Azzimba Band was the last frontier in originality in PNG music.
With the passing of the late Sir Kiki Geno, yet closes another chapter of originality.
Paramana Strangers were the reason NBC had listeners in the 70s and 80s.
Paramana Strangers was the reason why Chin H Min had a business of cutting records and selling them.
I salute you and yes, it’s emau.

VB Andrias
Lae