Warbat’s works echo across time

COVER STORY

“Mi silip kirap wantaim guitar. Olgeta samting yu mas silip kirap wantaim na yu mekim…”

By ANDREW MOUTU
THESE are proverbial lines of wisdom from guitar wizard and maestro, the late John Warbat, in an interview with Quiver Media Promoz in his hometown Kokopo in January 2023.
John was ushered into his family at the Vunapope Hospital on July 23, 1962. His village, Malakuna No.4 is in the Vunamami area of Kokopo District in East New Britain.
John was raised into a music culture of string bands and singing at an early age. At the time, many villages in East New Britain had their own string bands and his was no exception. The intriguing sounds of string music from guitars and ukuleles must have provoked his curiosity and engineered his cognitive and creative development at an early age.
His elder brother, Isimel Puipui, first bought him a ukulele which made him to learn, play and master the three chords of the instrument. The ukulele is technically constrained by the number of chords and the short stretch of the fret board. His brother then bought him his first acoustic guitar. It was with this guitar that his learning began. He listened and taught himself.
There may have been guitar chords made available to him but he learnt it raw. Learning and knowing the chords, scales and rhythms with their intricacies and turning his own intimacy with the guitar into a spell of intricacy and intrigue. Every month he would religiously buy a volume of the Hit Parader, the American music magazine devoted to pop, rock and heavy metal music. The magazine had a sound page containing a plastic record of hard rock and heavy metal music which captivated the interests and preoccupations of the young John Warbat.
He attended the Holy Spirit School at Ulagunan in his early teens. Soon his guitar skills became noticeable and the young John was invited to play with bands in Rabaul. The notable inspiration came from the eminent musician,Thomas Lulungan of the band called Pacific Vibrations then. The young John played the bass guitar and then he slowly switched onto rhythm and lead guitars.
By then his listening and hearing senses as a musician has been heightened, his hands versatile and his memory stimulated. It became natural for him to sleep and wake up with the guitar in his hands. What he slept and woke up with got welded into his heart and soul and in the grip of his hands and magic fingers. A virtuoso in the art of a guitar emerged.
By day and by night, he worked relentlessly on notes and chords, scales and rhythms and the dynamic unfolding waves of melody and harmony. He listened and emulated the sounds of other music he heard on the radio, cassette tapes or plastic records. Learning was limited to listening and emulation by memory. There was no internet to afford a chance of learning on the YouTube for instance.
It was by working relentlessly with his hands and endless tappings of soundful movements on the fret-board of his guitar that technical mastery and dexterity grew in proportion to his emerging reputation by the 1980s.
John’s cognitive sense of hearing – sharpened by a discernment of crystal clarity – gave him both a peculiar sense of destination to go to in the reverberating flow of his musical notes that are also circumscribed by a measure of his tonality. In listening and in learning he had stretched beyond the limits of notes, chords and scale progressions.
Consistent with his mundane chores and daily routines, his guitar exercises made him to develop accuracy, speed and fluidity. And as often as one can hear in moments of heightened ecstasy, his fingers run and touch, bend and tap the fret of his guitar without a blink in his eyes.
If we take his pulsating rhythms as a given then we find that his play on scales are complex and intricate and sometimes it becomes as elusive as is the elegance of a maestro. The complexity of his scales reveal his deeper understanding of musical structure and tonality.
Those growing up in the early 1980s will remember the kind of emphatic vibes that come out of listening to the tape-recorded music of bands like the Molachs, Painim Wok and subsequently with his rock music group, the Riot Squad of Rabaul of the early 1990s.
Evangelism through music

In the last 25 years or so, he has been on an evangelising mission with the P2UIF Christian gospel band championed by the composer, vocalist and pastor, Peter Bogembo and the equally gifted bassist, Richard Mogu.
I hold strong and fond memories of music that the late John gave to such numbers as North Coast Bay and Vunalaslas composed by George Mamua Telek in the recording with the Painim Wok Band that came out in 1983.
Late John supported other bands like the Rex Band of Finschaffen with famous and endearing songs like Kembo and Sengungefo that came out in 1990. He also supported solo artists from different parts of Papua New Guinea including Tom Lari from Chimbu, Pedro Culligan of Mt Hagen, Steve Kairi of the Gulf and Christian Mandawali of the Sepik. These records came out in the late 1980s and early 1990s from the Pacific Gold Studios.
In the last decade and a half, John gave his life to the Lord Jesus Christ in becoming a born-again Christian disciple. He ministered in music through the gospel group P2UIF which has produced and released a profoundly lifting series of gospel music since 2001.
There are some significant qualities that has emerged out is musical career. The first is his personal method of inculcating growth, mastery and excellence in the quality of his musical journey. Commitment and perseverance summarised in the adage of sleeping and waking up with the guitar still locked and entangled in his hand.
Secondly, he made an unusual break with an apparent colonialism—of an intellectual kind—with the winds of his notes as he set sails on the waves of music on his guitar in the last 50 years. The electric guitar came into his hands and it turned it into an instrument of local expertise with the elegance of a maestro.
We can produce here what guitarists produce elsewhere in the world of fame and renown. He actually made the art of a guitar surreal.
Thirdly, his skills and expertise in recording and in live performances are creative and inspiring. His musical ingenuity has inspired and mobilised three generations of young emerging artists across Papua New Guinea. Immediately after him are guitarists in the fame of Bernard Hanna of Bougainville and Austin Waira of Sepik/New Ireland.
There are now a growing number of young guitarists who are inspired by and envious of John Warbat and are seeking to emulate his creative tones and licks that often climax in a crescendo of syncopathic rhythms, pinch harmonics, legatos, and the polyphonic of guitar tapping, etc.
While I was at Aiyura National High School in Kainantu in 1990, Christian Mandawali’s second solo recording came out. I remember hearing three songs that the late John played for in that album – Tat Nambo, Namei and Bakawale.
In that album you will find an array of creative guitar style at work. In Tat Nambo you feel and hear a heavy and growling distortion with a certain rasp or an overdriven sound with harmonics that are pinched intermittently with a ranging melody line. This runs in contrast to the gentle sway of a legato where the melody lines emulate the flow of sea waves in the song Bakawale, which is a place on the west coast of Dagua in Wewak. The overtones in this song harmonise with the vibrations of the strings which create a pattern of waves that emulates the place of the song.
If you are from or been to that place, Bakawale in Dagua, then you will know the sonic effects of the guitar that the late John plucks into bringing out the evocative character of sounds that recall the place with a deep phenomenological sentiment.
In the third song, Niamei or mothers, with an acoustic feel, the guitar work evokes a fidelity that reverberates with a pleasing clarity and tonal quality that makes you think and feel about the endearing lives of mothers on their daily routines on the Sepik River.
While different genres of music might summon different tonal colours which an artist may use to paint the sound of his/her music, the guitar music of the late John Warbat has an ability to simultaneously evoke a visual imagery and wow a tactile feeling of sound which point towards an imaginary horizon of sorts and it also points backwards into the originating mechanics of sound and sentiments that he instrumentalises.
Aside from light and heavy moments, of his peculiar charm and wit on and off the stage, his illustrious musical career has created an enduring legacy captured and retained in a memorable compendium of sound tracks. This legacy emanated out of a remarkable ingenuity that is at once personal, cultural and socially interactive through the bands of musicians he has collaborated with over the last 50 years of his amazing musical journey.
In tracing the origins of John’s musical odyssey from the picturesque coastlines of Rabaul and Kokopo to the global stage of guitar mastery, his biography paints a vivid picture of a man whose destiny was intertwined with the strings of his instrument. His upbringing amidst the rich musical heritage of East New Britain laid the foundation for his boundless curiosity and creative fervour.
The pivotal role played by his elder brother in enabling him to the world of music speaks volumes about the power of mentorship and familial support in nurturing talent. John’s relentless pursuit of excellence, as evidenced by his unwavering commitment to mastering his craft, mirrors the disciplined ethos of a true artist.
What sets John apart is not merely his technical proficiency but his innate ability to infuse emotion and narrative into his melody lines. From the humble beginnings of learning chords from a magazine to his meteoric rise as a trailblazer in the Papua New Guinean music scene, every note strummed on his guitar reverberates with a profound sense of purpose and passion.
As he embarked on his musical journey, John’s voracious appetite for learning transcended the limitations of his surroundings. In an era, devoid of digital resources, his dedication to honing his skills through sheer determination with an ear for melodic tones is nothing short of awe-inspiring. His unwavering commitment to his artistry, coupled with his insatiable thirst for musical exploration, exemplifies the essence of resilience and self-discovery.
Beyond his individual achievements, John’s legacy lies in his transformative impact on generations of aspiring musicians. Through his collaborations and mentorship, he became a beacon of inspiration, igniting a fire of musical renaissance that continues to resonate across Papua New Guinea. His influence extends far beyond the confines of his compositions, shaping the sonic landscape of a nation and instilling a sense of cultural pride in our people.
In reflecting upon his enduring legacy, one cannot help but marvel at the depth of his artistic vision and the breadth of his musical repertoire. From the pulsating rhythms of rock to the soul-stirring harmonies of gospel, his versatility as a guitarist transcends genre boundaries, leaving an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of listeners.
As we celebrate the life and legacy of the John Warbat, let us not only remember him as a guitar virtuoso but also as a cultural icon whose music served as a bridge between past traditions and future aspirations. His story is not just a testament to the power of music but one that attests to the resilience of the human spirit in its pursuit of creative expression.