The news came out of the blue. Philip ‘Rokarja’ Pace – DJ, record collector and icon of Malta’s 1980s rock scene – was dead.

Pace was a much-beloved figure, a symbol of a bygone era in which a series of upstart, working-class punk and underground bands descended on the vacant Tigné barracks and turned them into a mecca for Malta’s 1980s counterculture.

But the Facebook post announcing Pace’s death raised more questions than it answered.

Pace had died “sometime in 2024”, it said, and nothing was known of the circumstances surrounding his death.

The mystery was solved days later when academic (and former musician) Toni Sant took to Facebook to announce that Pace had died almost a full year earlier, on January 28, 2024, lying unclaimed in the Mater Dei mortuary room for almost nine months before being buried in an unmarked grave.

Rokarja A.S.T.

Sant and Pace had been acquaintances for decades, first crossing paths in the 1980s in  Tigné’s former army barracks, where several of Sant’s bands rehearsed. By then, Pace was already a fixture on the club circuit, working at a record store by day and operating a mobile disco by night.

But it’s at Tigné that Pace made his name, adopting the ‘Rokarja’ monicker that would follow him throughout the rest of his life.

Pace (left) with Erich il-punk, founder and frontman of punk band Abstrass. Photo: Facebook

Tigné barracks had laid empty ever since British troops departed just a few years earlier, eventually becoming home to a handful of Malta’s burgeoning punk and new wave bands who took to squatting in the newly vacant barracks.

In an attempt to formalise the arrangement, then-culture minister Alex Sceberras Trigona set up the Assoċjazzjoni Sportiva Tignè (which, in a happy coincidence, shared its initials with the minister himself: AST), effectively paving way for the site to be used to host a series of sports and dance activities.

Meanwhile, the barracks’ ammunition stores were turned into ramshackle rehearsal rooms, with a rotating cast of bands shuffling into the space, instruments in tow, under Pace’s watchful eye.

Groups of 10 would pay Lm2 (almost €5) each year to use the space, radio host and former Tigné resident Michael Bugeja recalls, often soundproofing their room and setting up the space with their own equipment. “It was a very DIY approach,” he says.

And Pace, the de facto manager and promoter of the site, transformed the nearby St Luke’s chapel into a concert venue, dubbed Ċentru Ħin Ħieles, which would go on to host a who’s who of Maltese rock bands throughout the rest of the decade.

Pace, in the background, watches on at a concert by 1980s band Hangover at the Tigné chapel. Photo: Facebook

This labour of love came to be known as Rokarja A.S.T., on paper a rehearsal and concert space for some of the defining bands of the generation (from the Rifffs to Abstrass, to the late Mark Mallia), but in spirit a collective of musicians sharing a similar ethos and approach to their craft.

“Philip Pace was the brains behind that music community,” Bugeja says. “He brought the concept to life. Without Philip there would be no Rokarja”.

“The bands at Tigné were like his children,” says Nello Rizzo Naudi, a long-time friend and associate of Pace’s. “He would care for them, make sure they had everything they needed, and even discipline them.”

An advert for an upcoming concert published in the Times of Malta in February 1983.

‘The strangest setting I ever saw’

Rokarja took Malta’s underground music scene by storm, with concerts attracting people from all walks of life.

One happy punter, writing in the Times of Malta in January 1983, dubbed one concert in the chapel as “the strangest setting I ever saw”, going on to describe the “hushed silence” from the packed crowd as Pace took to the stage to speak of Rokarja’s future plans.

A rave review of a Rokarja concert from 1983.

Another, writing later in the same year, described a Rokarja concert as “one of the best ever rock concerts that I have witnessed in so many years,” singling out Pace for praise and saying that “Rokarja A.S.T. is responsible for fusing rock music into our own beloved culture”.

Although it never fully exploded into public consciousness, the 1980s Tigné music scene spurred by Rokarja has had a lasting influence, now frequently spoken of in hushed tones, the subject of TV retrospectives and academic papers.

As the years passed and the site, now a high-end shopping complex, began its inexorable creep towards gentrification, bands gradually left Tigné, settling elsewhere across the island.

By the end of the decade, the Tigné scene had fizzled out, and Rokarja A.S.T. was no more.

But, for Pace, the Rokarja nickname stuck, becoming his calling card throughout the rest of his life, much of which was spent curating his extensive record collection and organising exhibitions of unique rock and pop memorabilia, with the occasional short-lived Rokarja reunion.

Pace was a lifelong Beatles obsessive. Photo: Facebook

And the memory of Rokarja A.S.T. is kept alive through an active Facebook page, where thousands of people congregate to share pictures of gigs gone by.

Pace was ‘in good spirits’ the night before his death

This Facebook page is also where the news of Pace’s death was first announced, spurring Sant and others to try trace the details of his passing.

Sant explains how Pace had come to mind late last year, when a friend had asked for advice on potential guests for a radio show discussing The Beatles. “Pace was a Beatles obsessive, so he was the obvious choice,” Sant says.

But attempts to contact Pace went nowhere, with his phone seemingly disconnected and out of service.

Sant reached out to Bugeja, who recalled how he had last bumped into Pace at a fundraising concert in the Żebbuġ village square in late January.

“He was in good spirits,” Bugeja says. “We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so we spent some time chatting and enjoying the concert together before we parted ways”.

Little would he know that it would be the last time he would see Pace, who would suffer a fatal heart attack the very next day.

After news of Pace’s death surfaced last week, Sant once again reached out to friends. One of them got hold of Pace’s ID number and date of birth, later calling authorities for news of what happened.

A phone call to Addolorata cemetery sealed the deal.

Pace died at home at the age of 69. With nobody coming forward to claim his body for months on end, a Government Gazette notice in early October announced that the Department of Health would be organising Pace’s burial, as is customarily the case when a body remains unclaimed.

He was eventually buried days later in a state-owned lot at Addolorata Cemetery.

When contacted, Pace’s family said that Pace “did not die alone, and we failed to be informed of his demise”. Times of Malta was unable to establish the circumstances leading to Pace’s death going unreported.

Pace (right) in his later years, with John Zammit (left) and Jon Lukas Woodenman. Photo: Facebook

Pace would frequently ‘go off the radar’

The news shook Malta’s music community, many asking themselves how they could have not noticed Pace’s absence.

“How sad it is that we lost the social fabric and sense of community that would allow this to happen,” Sant says.

But others have a slightly different take.

Rizzo Naudi says that it wasn’t unusual for Pace to disappear from view from time to time.

“Music was his life. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and would sometimes lock himself away, absorbed in his latest project.”

Bugeja, who first befriended Pace when he was a child, paints a similar picture.

“Philip was always a private person. He was perfectly happy in his own skin, immersed in his music collection,” he says.

“He knew how to be at the heart of a crowd, but he also knew when he wanted to keep to himself. Whenever he wanted to be alone, he would go off the radar.”

Philip Pace was born on June 9, 1954. He died on January 28, 2024 at the age of 69. A mass in Pace’s memory will be held at the Salesian oratory in Sliema on Sunday, February 9 at 8.30am.