My first musical hero was "The King" and after hearing him I was never the same again. As Elvis said I had to join the "music racket". The first Elvis LP I remember getting was in 1977 for my 7th birthday where my parents got me the Elvis' 40 Golden Hits double LP set.

I first worked at my father's bottle store in Boksburg for many years and remember using the money earned to buy records from Cat Ballou record bar which was around the corner. Some of the albums I bought there was the first two Dog Detachement albums (who became my favourite SA band), Frank Zappa's Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch, and the Gary Moore Parisienne Walkways EP with Phil Lynott. I also remember using my hard earned cash to buy my first cassette of Pink Floyd at an OK music sale for R5 (The Final Cut).

My next job was during December holidays at the record bar of the Hyperama in Edenvale during 1986 where I worked a week just to buy the Bruce Springsteen 5LP set Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live 1975-1985.

After studying I worked at Top CD Eastgate for two years. I then worked at Look & Listen Hillbrow and Hyde Park. By working at three different venues showed me how vastly different each territory is and where at Eastgate we sold many Van Morrisons, it was nothing compared to how many O'Jays we sold at Hillbrow. In 1994 I joined Gallo Record Company as a junior rep. When Sony Music entered the country in 1995 I took up the position of Strategic Marketing Manager and it is here where I was involved in all genres of music such as pop, jazz and classical. During this time I was also fortunate to work with artists such as Rodriguez (recording his Live Fact CD in 1998) The Manhattans (recording their Live In South Africa CD) and involved in a number of successful compilations such as 40 Hit Singles, Soul Ballads, Gentle Breeze and The Hits.

In 1999 I became Imports Manager at Sony Music concentrating on importing international artists and niche market product.

In 2000 I launched a small independent record label called ENT Entertainment which focuses on the import and distribution of niche labels and has a few local artists. Local artists released on ENT Entertainment include KOBUS!, Jim Neversink, Agro, Deity's Muse and VOD.

International artists released by ENT Entertainment are the new Toto album 'Falling Inbetween' and Cuban jazz pianist Omar Sosa's 'Ballads' album. International artists released on import by ENT Entertainment are Journey, Thunder, Alison Krauss + Union Station, Steve Vai, Luka Bloom, Herbie Mann, Kingdom Come and many more.

Some of the distributed labels represented by ENT Entertainment are Rounder Records, Frontier Records, Favored Nations and Cherry Red Records.

In 2003 I got involved in small DVD/CD store with a partner Adrian Forlee called High Fidelity in Killarney Mall. This year we recently expanded the store to double its size and have also opened a second smaller branch in Bedford Centre. We try to concentrate on carrying art and foreign movies and niche market music. But as there are literally thousands of movies and maybe millions of recordings we can't carry everything. What we don't have stock of we do try our best to source and bring in from various territories such as The States and Australia. We are open 7 days a week and I am normally found making a noise at one of the branches.

You can get hold of the stores at:

High Fidelity Killarney Mall
Phone: 011 486-4639
E-mail: highfidelity@telkomsa.net

High Fidelity Bedford Centre
Phone: 011 615-8863
E-mail: highfidelity.beford@vodamail.co.za

My show on 1485 Radio Today is called Cozmik Debris (with thanks to the great Frank Zappa) and is a show focusing on all and any genres of music with regular features such as:
Cover Plus: a double play where an original track is played, followed by a cover version
Album of the month
Song of the month
Music from the movies
Then & Now: a look at the original releases and later releases by artists
Snap Crackle & Pop – when I bring in vinyl
Travel The World – music from around the world