It’s not often I like to get all sickly sentimental on the PoP blog (that may or may not be a lie) but Monday night saw the absolute end of an era in Oxford Town when the Cowley Road branch of Videosyncratic, presumably one of the last remaining independent video-rental businesses in the UK, closed its doors for the final time. Now I know it’s probably been on the cards for a while, and a cynic may say ‘who rents DVDs these days’ and they’re probably right…
But that didn’t stop the hordes of wellwishers, bargain hunters and other randoms who showed up for the final night, along with some of Oxford’s finest musicians, to wave goodbye to the place. Amongst such luminaries as Ute, PoP favourites The Family Machine and the charming Richard Walters (ex BSM) – The Candyskins (or 2 of them at least, performed a tear-jerking acoustic set – whilst everyone fought for the remaining couple of copies of Cool Runnings.
But as the sentiment ebbs away and the dust settles on the memories of a once great institution, I cannot help but be left with some of the comments that I heard while I was in there. “Oh, should have come to this place more often” one fella said, whilst another suggested “used to come here a few years ago before on-demand. Shame it’s shutting down”.
Sure is! But with the passing of Videosyncratic (a shop lest we forget that had branched out into selling toys, tees, comics and investing in films beyond just the renting of movies) comes a timely reminder that bricks and mortar indies do still exist, but are continually under threat as ‘progress’ sweeps our beleagured nation.
Whether it be butchers, DVD establishments or cafes whatever… Lets support the indies! Well – actually, having said that, noone should feel obliged to support the indies – it’s not y/our duty to keep everything alive. But if they care, you care and everything’s good – lets get on it! Here’s a video of the (very) latter stages of the career of one of my favourite bands ever, fresh from Monday… Viva las Candyskins…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFKDF8PJJw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
I think it sounds a bit like Reuben too….
