Industry Veteran/President | Tapematic UK
“An ugly child, so his mother would tie snags of meat around his neck to make the dog play with him…”
No girlfriends then, meant he had more time to focus on other areas of interest with one such being the whole 70’s HiFi scene. Dave would spend countless hours visiting London HiFi retailers, mesmerised by the walls of blue illuminated dials and flashing red “STEREO” indicators.
Although academically educated, he chose to take a career path in Audio Engineering and started work in 1979 as a junior engineer in a large independent record factory in London; making vinyl and 8-track cartridges before moving “upstairs” to be involved in cassette production. The works canteen was right next to the area they would “bake” the labels. A sausage roll combined with that revolting smell has damaged his senses for life. Knowing the vinyl business in detail from those early days he has continued to be involved in all avenues of media manufacturing for the last 38 years right up until today.
As a director of Tapematic and being directly responsible for the growth in cassette that essentially removed vinyl records from the shelves, is a somewhat bittersweet history, and as he says “None of us saw the tactile nature of the vinyl format at that time”.
He now buys those unaffordable yet mesmerising bits of vintage HiFi from his youth. with a constant hobby of repairing and upgrading the same. He has continued to buy vinyl records for over 4 decades.
He has always owned (and used) a turntable..
He now has a girlfriend..
He is still ugly…