RADIOHEAD, Supergrass, Foals and even The Pixies buy their instruments there.

Now, after 20 years in the same spot in Cowley Road, Oxford’s Professional Music Technology shop is moving.

The Aladdin’s Cave, affectionately known as PMT, is moving to a unit five times the size, further down Cowley Road, in what used to be a Morrison’s.

Oxford Mail:

Business has been booming and PMT’s parent company, which has 14 stores around the UK, has been looking for a bigger place in Oxford for years.

But with prices sky-high in the city centre, it is only now they have finally managed to find the perfect spot.

Oxford general manager Tim Midlen, better known to local music-lovers as electronic producer Manacles of Acid, said: “It’s going to be great.

“Guitars are our highest turnover, so we’ll have twice as many electrics and more acoustics, but mainly what we’ve wanted is to be able to have a healthy stock of digital pianos: we are forever getting people coming in for them but we just don’t have space for them.

“We’ll have more drums – more of everything.”

Oxford Mail:

The new store, set to open in February, will have a dedicated piano room and will become one of the company’s ‘flagship stores’.

PMT CEO Simon Gilson said the search for a new place had been ‘one of then most painful real estate hunts in the company’s history’.

He said: “Oxford was the third store we opened and it was obvious almost immediately that the city warranted a much better offering from us.

“But there just aren’t stores of a suitable size, and with rents at central London levels – we were beginning to give up hope.

“I can only congratulate our director of retail development Dave Black for delivering such a great store in prospect for what is such a great music city.”

Oxford Mail:

The new store will also give customers dedicated parking space for the first time.

Over the next two months the company will spend thousands converting 381 Cowley Road.

Asked why the musical instrument business was doing so well at a time when music publishing profits are plummeting, Mr Midlen, 36, of Yarnton, said: “Musicians are artists. They will go without food but still buy a new guitar. People are always going to be creative, and while online retail is great, if you’re going to buy a guitar costing a few hundred pounds, you need to play it first.

“It’s also the advice we give.People like the experience at PMT – we’re always friendly.”

Oxford Mail:

He said the store’s staff of seven would miss the hustle and bustle at the busy end of Cowley Road but were looking forward to not tripping of each other quite so much.

It is not yet known what the landlord plans to do with the old store.