Oh, Monseur le Fopp, you are really spoiling us...

So, I strolled up to Reading Fopp this lunchtime.

All it looks like is closed. All the stock still there, a couple of brochures stuffed through the letterbox, on the floor.

Who knows.

note on door of cambridge one: IF YOU'RE FROM ERNST AND YOUNG, THIS IS MY MOBILE NUMBER...

You should phone them up saying you need the keys to do a 'stock take'.

sign on front of TCR Fopp says premises are patrolled by HORRIBLE DOGS so I wouldn't try it.

Eh that's just a bluff probably, I'd give it a go.

I said it was going to snow last Tuesday and DID ANYONE BELIEVE ME NO

and did it?

It was on page five of last Wednesday's Daily Mail.

Are there actually guard dogs wandering around inside Fopp TCR? I think not. £3 Shins cd's are there for the taking guys! Don't forget to leave the money though.

£1 and £2 Shins CDs a go-go in MVE Berwick Street up the road. As Brother Beyond so rightly stated in late 1988, there "ain't no competition."

All those £3 rudeboxes, and a whole display of "Icky Thump"s for full-price!

i'd rather fucking eat a copy of 'icky thump' than listen to it.

I have a copy of Icky Thump to which I am yet to listen.

Check this out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/fopp/

Amazing, yeah? Note presence of Our Starry.

i'd rather fucking eat a copy of 'icky thump' than listen to it.

I would love to see you try.

i've deliberately avoiding walking past the brighton i think i might be a bit emotional

Scotland on Sunday...

Fopp founder in buy-back talks to keep music alive
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=1101312007

We gotta keep up with this one...

COuld this deal go through and the shops open like nothing happened? They're all stil there, stocked!

Today's Music Week has:

HMV to buy Fopp stores?
HMV is reportedly considering the purchase of several former Fopp stores from administrator Ernst And Young.

Stock raiding, I reckons!

hmv has now bought fopp, apparently: http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2256542

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6923511.stm

Music and book retailer HMV has struck a deal to buy the Fopp brand and revive six of its stores.

HMV has bought the shops - which will trade under the Fopp name - in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London's Covent Garden, Manchester, Nottingham and Cambridge.

FOPP ARISES!!!

same shops, same staff, crazy new hmv prices

No TCR? NO COCKBURN ST?! Buffoons!

I reckon they have bought the Fopp brand and only six stores, to kill off any chance of a Gordon Montgomery come back.

by Covent Garden do they mean the one between Seven Dials and Charing Cross Road?

Guess so. So much for the "flagship" TCR hyperstore.

go manchester!

No TCR? NO COCKBURN ST?!

It made little sense to have two stores in Edinburgh, and Rose St was bigger. My guess is that TCR is too big. I wonder if the decision is also based on whether they expect a Fopp to cut into HMV sales in those cities. In Bristol or Dundee they presumably have a monopoly of sorts now there are no independent stores, but in Edinburgh they can take sales of Avalanche. [Avalanche is now totally rubbish, and HMV already carries better stock if you like anything other than a narrow range of styles.] Would the same logic go for Manchester (Piccadilly) or Nottingham (is Selectadisc still open?). If anyone can explain the Cambridge situation to me I'd be grateful!

TBH I had assumed that someone would do this -- it was hard to believe that NO Fopp stores were profitable. Without seeing the figures ourselves it's kind of hard to speculate! Wasn't sure it would be HMV though. If HMV can take Fopp backwards i.e. less pile-em-high-populist and more of a combination of well-chosen-specialist stuff I'd pay 10/12 alongside the fiver stuff, i still think this is a good strategy in cities with large enough music scenes. But either a bargain-basement chain or an alternative music chain has no hope.

Cambridge situation to me I'd be grateful!

no independent music stores left in Cambridge, 2 universities, another brand to fleece money from the student toffs.

But students no longer buy music!

I wonder if the decision is also based on whether they expect a Fopp to cut into HMV sales in those cities

But surely rose st - within a couple of minutes walk from the two HMVs on princes st - would do this more than cockburn st? You're right, though, it is bigger and probably more likely to get passing trade. I suppose I'm just heartbroken that the wee shop I spent my entire teenage life in isn't there anymore! (And, as you say, avalanche is now pish).

I'd love to see them return fopp to the way it was five years ago, but I reckon it won't be too long before you have to navigate a big stack of mobile phones before you can get to the checkout, to let them know that yes thanks, you did find everything you were looking for. Bah.

Hmm, well I remember being shocked and heartbroken when fopp moved across cockburn st!!

I think Rose St counts as more central -- I bet there are people who shop there who wouldn't brave the teen-goth contingent on cockburn st. Also it is ideally located for yr 30-something bloke who has been dragged out by the missus and has managed to escape for twenty minutes while she is in jigsaw or wherever ;-)

i wonder what these will be like. cambridge hmv is for shit, so i'm at least a quarter-stoked we'll have, like, another record shop. still a bummer.

no independent music stores left in Cambridge, 2 universities, another brand to fleece money from the student toffs.

-- djmartian, Tuesday, July 31, 2007 4:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

hey fucko, not everyone in this bitch is a student. i am, obviously -- but not at either of the so-called universities that are located here. sike.

does newcastle still have the awesome record store i remember from my one visit there in 1994? their bins were organised by record label, in my hazy memory, i.e. a whole stack of stuff just from "alternative tentacles"

If you mean "Pet Sounds" I don't know but they have moved at least three times since 1994.

maybe? i bought a boredoms record there. i think it was also the first place i ever saw an autechre record.

Fopp Nottingham will be re-opening soon:

http://tinyurl.com/ypmu35

Presumably the others will re-open soon

When's the Cambridge one reopening? I might be working up there soon!

oh i was going to say: there were people stacking shelves there yesterday. it was closed still, but there is activity!

that simian mobile justice album (whatever the heck it is) is getting a lot of free advertising from the closures.

the two glasgow branches are meant to re-open on monday.

both of them! that was quite quick, really

Now that HMV have bought the Fopp brand I wonder if they will accept Fopp vouchers as a goodwill gesture?

There were people working in the Rose Street branch in Edinburgh on Wednesday when i passed so I guess that'll be opening Monday too.

Yeah, I spotted shelf stacking going on in the Nottingham branch earlier in the week... it is all Very Exciting.

that simian mobile justice album (whatever the heck it is) is getting a lot of free advertising from the closures.

indeed - but no sales.

will report on the Bristol side of things when i am allowed back into the town centre next week.

Your asbo ending?

ha. if only. instead, my well earned stint of summer hols/parenting hell is ..

When's the Cambridge one reopening? I might be working up there soon!

If so, I will almost certainly be like HI DERE at some point over the next year.

Good news about the re-opening!