Early influences

摘要

The child is father to the man, according to the old adage. My involvement with recorded music and the equipment needed to play it goes back to pre-verbal days. I remember brightly-coloured red and yellow kiddie discs, and a little player whose operation I mastered when I was so small I could walk under the kitchen table without ducking. Or so it seems to me in recollection. I grew up the oldest of four kids in a boisterous Anglo-Irish family. In our house no disagreement was ever settled rationally, but was instead propelled by shouting all the way to its final punctuation: always a slamming door, to this day a sound that fills me with dread. We had much love and affection for each other but also much rancour. Music was the healing balm, the antidote that restored balance.