The first steps of my music journey

I’ve been obsessively collecting albums since I was 14 years old. I began collecting cassette tapes first because my Dad, chucked off our turntable in the river during a big disagreement with a technician who was supposed to repair it. I still remember my first cassette player — garishly red Sanyo number with one teensy speaker on the side. It produced a sound so tinny you’d swear low frequency emissions were never a part of the natural universe. And you can’t even crank the volume up because the sound would begin to distort. Despite this though, it was my most treasured possession. I would obsessively play the few cassette tapes that I’ve amassed over the first few months of buying cassette tapes. I can still remember most of them:

The Police – Synchronicity

Depeche Mode – Black Celebration

Translator – Translator

Pet Shop Boys – Please

Comsat Angels – Seven Day Weekend

Wild Swans – Bringing Home The Ashes

At that early stage I already had an affinity for British music.  I just felt that the music coming out there was more adventurous, more subversive. And it was further strengthened when I finally rediscovered The Beatles in my own terms (and not within the paradigm of my parents and their friends).