Rough Trade took an unexpected step into the well known when they decided recently to open up a record shop just off Brick Lane in Spitalfields. The record shop is dead isn’t it?

But this isn’t just a record shop. Well it is. But it’s a new concept. There’s a place where you can get a bite to eat and just sit and chill. You can surf the internet. And there are facilities for printing your own t-shirts and making your own fanzines which you can then put for sale in the shop. Maybe we should put an edition of Vanguard Online out.

The shop has a very relaxed feel to it, above the shop at the back there’s an open plan second floor, with no wall so you can see all the back-up staff doing the administration.

Rough Trade are banking on a critique of the state of retail culture, which sees music crammed together in stores which sell discount rather and cram music in with DVDs, computer games and other non-music products. Rough Trade argue that if the music fan is given an environment which celebrates music and its qualities, then consumers will come back. One store director has been quoted as saying "We would like to go back to the days when we had to kick kids out at close of business. There are no record shops where people hang out any more."

The store is equipped to hold concerts. A spokesman was reported as saying that the store would be, "an environment that celebrates music as an exciting art form, not just another commercial commodity - but on a scale that is a departure from the traditional perception of an independent record shop."

Rough Trade began trading in 1976 at Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill, specialising in US and Jamaican imports. In 1978 it launched its own label. After a period of rapid growth the shop and label separated in 1982.