Dave says with his lease at the Strand coming up for renewal he had been putting some serious thought into whether he was ready for retirement and if not (he wasn't), where would he do business? "I thought, 'What would I do in retirement'? I'm doing what I like best anyway."
Workshopping the question over a beer with the owners of MusicWorks, long-time friends, resulted in an offer to share the roomy MusicWorks premises.
He says the new arrangement looks good and feels good and "my regulars can still find me".
Dave was destined to be a farmer and was sent to Wesley College to study agriculture.
His parents probably didn't realise that the time he spent avidly listening to music on the radio, following the hit parades and bands, and playing the piano were the real pointers to his future career.
He lasted a year on the farm after finishing school before heading to Whangarei and a job at Charles Begg & Co, a branch of a nationwide chain providing musical instruments, sheet music and recorded music.
Then at just 21 he started his own store, calling it Musicor Record & Tape Co Ltd - a title he only reluctantly relinquished a couple of years ago (becoming Musicor Compact Discs and DVDs).
He could never have predicted the current resurrection of long-playing records and that fact that his former trading name would be topical again in the 21st century - and an area he would be developing in the business.
Some music companies are increasingly doing new pressings of vinyl records, he says. "There's a new generation intrigued by the sound. It's much warmer than the more brittle digital sound of CDs. Kids are going out and buying cheap turntables, something I never thought I would see again."
His 45 years in music retail has been a wild ride in terms of technological change, he says.
"I'm still around because there were still people who liked to discuss music and to have access to a supplier who could locate specialist items."
Moving in with MusicWorks brings him full circle, working within a business providing instruments and sheet music, and he likes that, as well as the cameraderie and the buzz generated by the interaction of their respective customers.
Along the way Dave has had a parallel career as a working musician. He played for years in a band called The Reformation. Dave was on keyboards and later bass guitar. Now he and some of his former bandmates get together once a year for the sell-out Sixties Reunion Band at the Parua Bay Tavern. Oh, and he's also started a radio station called The Cruz (88FM) which has a growing following. The station runs 24/7 and covers an area north to Towai and west as far as Mangakahia, and down to Waipu. He plays a wide variety of music aimed at the 25-and-up age group, from blues to classic rock and lesser-known or harder-to-find music from the 70s and 80s.
There is a small amount of advertising and no commentary. That's the way Dave has always liked it, letting the music do the talking.
