Rough Trade to open UK's biggest record shop in East London
 

Opening this summer.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/m...cle2393338.ece

Still not a patch on Amoeba but I'm thinking: "FUCK YES."

Anyone checked out the Fopp on Tottenham Court Road? I was kind of disappointed...

Fopp on Charing Cross Rd (if that's the one you meant) is OK, if only because it's almost internet prices.

there's a new and much bigger one on tottenham court road. it's pretty good though, i don't know what you would expect that would disaapoint you.



we'll have to wait and see about this new rough trade, i've not got too high hopes for it.

oooh, i want a job!

demonrail666 - I wish Rough Trade luck in their new venture, but I have a horrible feeling that they've over-extended themselves, and that it'll all end in tears...

Actually, my friend, they are people who genuinelly try to improve the life of us music folks. I'd take the negativity of the London populace and throw it into a rubbish bin. Why do people get so negative in England when something good is happening? It's getting ridiculous, if you ask me. And i'm not English either.

sarramkrop - My point is that it's a huge undertaking on Rough Trade's part, and recently in London a lot of good independent record stores have gone to the wall. The internet and downloading have a lot to answer for, it seems... I don't want RT to fail, but they're in a pretty tough climate at the moment. Here's hoping their gamble pays off.

Risks, lovely. Risks is what makes life interesting.

totaly, they're going to have to do something more than open a very big shop if they want to succeed, and by this i mean the rough trade shop in covent garden is over priced, doesn't have a particularly good selection of records. i went into rough trade the other day and asked for smegma and they told me smegma records are too hard to get hold of for them, although they've been getting reissued on a UK label. you'd think that would be the exact kind of stuff a place like rough trade would stock, but they told me to try sound 323. also, the i went to the one off portobollo road to pick up the second lightning bolt record when it came out and when i asked for it the guy sneered and said he'd never heard of it. he hadn't heard of fucking lightning bolt! apparently the rough trade shops are in massive amounts of debt too.

so anyway, the reason i'm being negative about this is that i don't think they'll pull it off, i don't think they will get any records in that will be unobtainable anywhere else, which is the whole reason rough trade was succesful in the first place, and that is what they need if they want to beat internet mailorder companies (that and competitive prices), whether it be the likes of volcanic tongue, second layer, amazon or ebay. rough trade has been trading on it's name for years, and this new shop is a business venture not a benevolent gesture for the benefit of mankind

Agreed.

I buy maybe 75% of my albums online now and get them delivered purely because the only place to stock them, if anywhere, is HMV, which is hideously over-priced.

Independents need decent prices but, more importantly, they need a vast collection of primarily "alternative" music, because the sort of demographic that would shop at an independent are exactly the sort of people who would be interested in buying such music in the first place. The staff need to be knowledgeable too. Of course you can forgive them for not knowing some early '80s or mid-'60s band who you've researched religiously or whatever, but they need to be capable of advising and recommending because that's half their job.

I'd be willing to pay a little extra to get a record straight away if some guy was behind the desk enthusing about the band I was into.