With Fopp gone, Rough Trade is the last bastion of the record shop

Rough Trade is replacing its Covent Garden shop with a megastore in east London. But is this a good thing, or merely a last hurrah?

sonic youth.jpg
Sonic Youth are among the seminal acts that have played at Rough Trade in Covent Garden since it opened in 1987

There was only one topic discussed by students last week: the closure of Fopp - the UK's largest independent record store chain.

When it was announced, you could hear the crying on every campus - and rightly so, as where else could you buy the new Queens of the Stone Age record and still have change? But newspapers also did their fair share. It marked the end of the record shop, they said - everyone will have to buy their music either online or at the supermarket.

But if you thought Fopp's demise was a bad sign, later this month Rough Trade in Neal's Yard, Covent Garden, will also shut up shop. And it'll be taking two decades worth of history with it.

The teeny space - it fits about a dozen people, uncomfortably - down a stairwell at the back of a skateboard shop, is the lesser heralded of the two Rough Trades. Largely because no one can find it. But since opening in 1987, it's seen everyone from Sonic Youth to Lily Allen play gigs there while shoved in a corner. They've all signed the ceiling too, turning the shop into a veritable museum of indie.

If you want to see Jeff Buckley's handwriting, his scrawl's there ("Love is rebellion - Rough Trade I miss you already," he writes "too early in the day, March '94"). So is that of Fall frontman Mark E Smith (signed "Mark E Sonic", for God knows what reason). And then there are Guardian favourites like LCD Soundsystem and the Gossip ("Kleenex 4 ever", Beth Ditto's written, referring to the pioneering female punk band).

There are also loads of pictures of cocks, proving that if you give any male a marker pen - be it a thirteen-year-old or a thirtysomething rock star - there's one thing they're going to draw.

Most of the bands who have played there, though, are of a much smaller stature, reflecting the rather (ahem!) distinct tastes of the shop's staff. Appropriately enough the final gig last Thursday was played by The Young Republic, an eight-piece country-pop band from Boston, Massachusetts, featuring pedal steel guitar, upright bass and violin. Although there were only six of them on that occasion for space reasons.

Rough Trade is replacing the shop with a 5,000-square foot megastore off Brick Lane in east London. The site is little more than an empty warehouse at the moment, but by the time it opens on 20 July, it'll feature a proper stage with a proper sound system and a "snug area with free wireless connection" (please don't mean a coffee shop).

Rough Trade is portraying the move as a brave one, showing the potential independent record shops still have. But in light of Fopp's demise it seems more like a last hurrah - the company chasing the "cool kids" to east London rather than believing the records it sells are enough to entice the cool kids to them. With such a large area to fill, there's also the likelihood it'll have to adopt a soulless "pile it high, sell it cheap" approach to record selling - something which goes against the ethos of the shop and which clearly didn't work for Fopp.

Here's hoping I'm wrong and the new store thrives, bringing bands like Mika Miko (current Neal's Yard favourites) to wider attention. But what do you think? Can independent record stores still flourish, or should they finally give in to the Amazons and Tescos? Does Rough Trade's history make it immune to market trends - or is it just as vulnerable as Fopp was?