Last Shop Standing

The documentary is about record shops closing across Britain. Close to two thousand shops in the country have already gone; at one point three were closing every week. The film begins by telling the rapid rise from the sixties into the eighties. It then takes up the influence of the charts, the underhand dealing in the trade, the decline of vinyl and the arrival of the CD and of new technology. More than twenty shop owners and figures from the industry speak. Among them are musicians such as Johnny Marr, Billy Bragg and Norman Cook. All of them describe those shops as part of their own musical education. The work was inspired by the book of the same name by Graham Jones. Pip Piper’s fifty minute British documentary was completed in 2012.