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Off the record: Life in the old records yet

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Vinyl solution: some record shops are reinventing themselves with live music and coffee to create a place where customers will hang out

Tenuous: Creaky Boards (above) have no claim on Coldplay (below)

Unremarkable: Agyness Deyn

You might think a beautifully put-together book about the traditional record shop ought to be stocked in the British Museum alongside histories of codpieces and the pennyfarthing. But there's actually a feeling of celebration about Old Rare New (Black Dog Publishing), a collection of atmospheric photographs, essays about the joy of snuffling for obscure vinyl, and interviews with DJs, shop owners and musicians including the Manics' James Dean Bradfield, Cat Power and Devendra Banhart.

Even if established Soho stores such as Mr CD and Reckless Records are closing as they fall victim to increased rents and the rise of downloading and eBay, the vinyl-o-philes are determined to play on as the Titanic goes down.

The book was inspired by editor Emma Pettit's road trip around America, where the situation is even more dire. Between 2003 and 2006, more than 900 record stores closed down in the US, about 25 per cent of the country's total. But as well as struggling veterans, she found new establishments such as Manhattan's Cake Shop, a record emporium that incorporates a live venue downstairs, film screenings and, yes, a vegan cake shop.

Over here we have the recently opened Rough Trade East, off Brick Lane, which is also utilising live music and coffee to make it a place to hang out rather than just flick idly through the record racks and leave. It's an approach that is challenging the intimidating air of some record stores, where super-cool middle-aged men froth giddily about their rarest purchases. In the book James Lavelle, of UNKLE, even has the brass neck to claim that the first record he ever bought was the superhip Electro Streetsounds Comp 1 when in all probability it was Shaddap You Face.

But what also shines through is the feeling that places such as Rough Trade, Sounds of the Universe in Soho and the recently reprieved Beanos in Croydon all offer something you will never find on the web, even if the music is the same.

"The internet is all surface," Pettit argues. "If you find a rare record you've been hunting down for weeks or months or years, what an amazing feeling that is. There's a satisfaction there that you don't get from Googling something."

Everyone agrees that a well-packaged piece of vinyl is a beautiful thing, but so is an iPod. The hope from record store owners and enthusiasts is that the two media can continue to co-exist. "If everything is on your computer, that doesn't leave you with very much. You'd have empty walls and nothing in your house."

Of the musicians interviewed in Old Rare New, it is the folk mystic Banhart who does the best job of making the vinyl experience, being caught in a "magnetic rip tide of 7-inch lust", sound so magical that you'll want to bin your MacBook there and then. "There's no way it comes close to pullin' a record out of its sleeve and droppin' that needle," he enthuses. As long as people like him exist, it won't be the end for the independent record store yet.

Not so much plagiarism as free publicity
Talent borrows, genius steals, they say. On the evidence given when Coldplay were accused of plagiarism this week, I'd have to conclude that the band are neither talented nor geniuses.

The unknown Brooklyn singer Andrew Hoepfner and his band Creaky Boards have posted a video online claiming similarities between their track The Songs I Didn't Write and Coldplay's Viva La Vida (type "creaky boards coldplay" into YouTube to hear both).

Hoepfner suggests Chris Martin was in the audience of a show he performed in New York last October (which the band strongly deny) and plays poor impoverished David to their corporate Goliaths, saying: "If they ever want to collaborate, I've got some microphones we could use in my bedroom."

Listening to his tune and to Coldplay's, you can hear a slight similarity between the stretched-out vowel in the middle of each line. Aside from that, any connection is tenuous at best. Oasis have got away with far worse.

This kind of thing does happen accidentally, however. Liam Fray from Manchester indie stars The Courteeners recently told me about their song, Smiths Disco, a recent B-side. It's an exact copy of the melody from Stephen Fretwell's song Scar - and Fray wrote it shortly after attending a Fretwell gig while very drunk and absorbing the tune in his subconscious. The two are mates, though, so legal action wasn't needed.

The case of Creaky Boards looks far creakier, but at least Hoepfner is getting a lot of publicity out of it. And even more fortunately, at least Coldplay haven't copied his moustache.

Will Boris put an end to Rise?
Six weeks into his tenure as Mayor, Boris Johnson is already making controversial decisions. First he banned drinking on the Tube - now the anti-racist element has been dropped from his office's annual free music festival, Rise. If only he had got rid of bendy buses so quickly.

The one-day fest, which takes place in Finsbury Park on 13 July this year, was called Respect until George Galloway nicked the word for his political party, and then Rise: London United Against Racism. It will now be just Rise. Munira Mirza, GLA's director of arts policy, said: "Above all we are making Rise fun. As a result, the festival will hopefully attract a more diverse audience."

The National Assembly Against Racism, which has been heavily involved with Rise since Ken Livingstone first made it a GLA promotion in 2001, is predictably angry: "The sincerity of Boris Johnson's claimed commitment to opposing racism in his election campaign is shown to be false by the fact that one of his first decisions is to abandon Europe's biggest anti-racist festival."

However, it's understandable that he should want the event to change when it was so clearly Ken's baby, a gathering ground for trade unions at which Lee Jasper regularly appeared on stage. But when he removes any political element from the day, what he's left with is a festival that isn't very good.

Past headliners such as Kelis, The Buzzcocks and Lemar and this year's CSS and Jimmy Cliff would be fairly minor mid-afternoon acts at any of the commercial festivals with which Rise will now be in direct competition. In fact, at Rise the main act usually performs mid-afternoon, leaving the day to fizzle embarrassingly while lesser bands carry on to the finish.

In years to come, the best names will become even smaller in stature as there is no good reason for them to perform for a reduced fee.

When the Mayor's spokesperson says, "Boris has made a commitment to go ahead with the Rise Festival this year but wants to emphasise its cultural and community dimensions", the key phrase is "this year". I doubt Londoners will be Rising to anything in 2009.

NEW ON THE NET
You've seen endless photographs of her and read about her haircut. Now hear model Agyness Deyn sing in an entirely unremarkable way on the Police-style pop of Who, the new single by minor indie band Five O'Clock Heroes, in download stores on Monday.

Primal Scream have abandoned the classic rock pastiche of their last album for something more diverse and rather pop on their forthcoming ninth, Beautiful Future. Before its 21 July release, the band are giving away a typically obtuse cover version of Hawkwind's Urban Guerrilla at http://myfreedownload.co.uk/ primalscream.

If you want a taste of what the next Strokes album might sound like, head to www.converse.com for a free download of their frantic dance pop track My Drive Thru. Commissioned to make you buy trainers, it's no worse for that. It features vocals from Santogold, Strokes singer Julian Casablancas and Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes, who is currently pitching hard for the job of producing the Strokes' fourth album.

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