Someone asked me the other day how I got into music production, and the obvious answer is that I was a fan of music as a listener since I was a small child.

Aside from the TV themes of "Emergency!" and "The Banana Splits" - the first track that really hit me was Gary Wright's hit "Dream Weaver". I was in grade 1, and in March 1976 took my first big road trip to Florida with my family. We left at about two in the morning, and it was the first time I had been up late at night. The sky was clear and full of stars, especially outside the city.

Our Monte Carlo didn't have anything other than a radio in the dash - so the radio it was... I must have heard "Dream Weaver" a dozen times during that trip, as it was sitting close to number one in the charts at the time.

As luck would have it, the brightest comet in the last 150 years was sitting overhead in the dawn sky. I kept telling my dad to look at the "shooting star". Even my father was speechless when he finally craned his head out the driver's side window. It was scary and beautiful at the same time. The passage of the comet was swift, so much so it didn't really make the papers until it was all over.

I was hooked. The one-two punch of great electronic song, and a haunting, silent comet suspended over our car late at night had a huge effect on me. I got full on into astronomy with a small telescope, and I began to devouring books and magazines. I eventually became the youngest member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1980 at age 11. The music would come much later...