One of the best things about being an internationally famous music journalist is the great opportunity for travel, the chance of covering epoch making musical 'happenings' in distant climes and of hob-nobbing with the famous in some of the world's most illustrious nighteries. And I should know. I once met an internationally famous music journalist!

All of which has virtually nothing to do with my assignment this week, dubiously named Operation Rock Stop; an undercover investigation into a newly established music shop nestling in the heart of London's music town, the north end of Charing Cross Road. Hardly Nassau is it? More train set than jetset you might say. Mind you, I don't suppose many people would consider going to the Bahamas for the sole purpose of buying a Super Distortion and Feedbacker pedal, a Porta One or any of the other very useful though not particularly exotic items on display in Rock Stop's freshly painted shop window.

Once upon a time Rock'n'Roll was dirty. Reputations could be made or broken on the strength of how rarely you washed. In fact, rumour has it that in the early days you couldn't get near the Boss for aromas. Music stores too were dirty. Marshall stacks towered over cavernous recesses which upon closer inspection would reveal some hairy monster hideously torturing a battered Les Paul, thus explaining the terrible whines and roars which made conversation with shop assistants a virtual impossibility.

But these are, of course, the new-clear eighties; music is clean, music shops are clean too. The crisp pink-on-white logo over the front of this shop looks very Covent Garden, the sort of place you could imagine taking your date to for some Gnocchi al Forno — if it was a pasta bar, that is. The interior of this small shop is a mite featureless, and owing to its basic box shape, a little lacking in the kind of cover us sensitive musicians appreciate whilst deciding whether we want to spend the next few years of our lives living with this or that musical instrument.

Like its predecessor the Boogie Shop, Rock Stop caters mainly for the pluckers and strummers of this world, although it also does a sideline in home recording items, such as budget drum boxes by Soundmaster, Boss and Roland, and portastudios, variously first and second hand. At first sight the home recording angle does look a little like window dressing, but I later learnt that the shop owners intend to develop this area of stock. No dumb move since home recording is about the biggest growth area in equipment sales at the moment.

One of the best things about being an internationally obscure music journalist is doing assignments like these, where one is able to vent ones frustrations by being ruthlessly cruel to music shop assistants. It's all in a good cause of course. Investigative journalism it's called, designed to bring you, my faithful readers, the truth. There is, of course, a whole gamut of ploys which we investigative journalists have to use to relentlessly scrutinise our quarry, and it is at this juncture — having penetrated the facade of the institution — that we bring these ploys into play.

Ploy 1: Pretend not to know what a portastudio is, ask how it works and whether you can see it demonstrated.

To be honest, the results of this initial ploy weren't too encouraging. Had I really been the brainless nurd I was pretending to be I would have learnt the basic principles of multi-track recording, but not how they were applied to a compact cassette. When I insisted on hearing why the mixer in the Tascam 244 was better than the mixer in the Porta One no mention was made of parametrics, let alone what parametrics consist of. In short I was treated like the idiot I was pretending to be.

Ploy 2: Make a lot of noise on an instrument and see how long they can stand it for. The results were much better in this instance. All the guitars on display in the shop, (the range including Tokai, Squier, Ibanez, Yamaha and some interesting looking second hand vintage models by Epiphone, Hofner and Gibson) are arrayed around the walls within easy reach, so that even the furthest specimens wouldn't be a source of too much embarrassment should you have to ask someone to get it down.

My choice of guitar, a Tokai strat copy with locking trem, would have been boringly obvious but for the fact that I can't play a note of lead guitar. I pedantically insisted on being initiated into all the intricasies of the system and found to my satisfaction that I actually came away the wiser for it. At the moment, unfortunately, the noise tolerance isn't really high enough to get a good buzz out of a guitar, owing to the intimate proportions of the shop, but I was assured that booths would soon be installed downstairs.

Further persistent questioning of the staff on the mysteries of the guitar showed them to be knowledgeable, willing to talk and enthusiastic about the subject. The extremely comprehensive selection of effects pedals on display by Boss, Pearl, Ibanez and Tokai, a long with the compact amps by Roland, Mesa Boogie and others, and the shards of leads suspended behind the counter, indicate that however well the shop's other merchandising efforts go, serious guitar playing will remain a primary focus.

Which rather ruled me out since the only thing that is serious about my guitar playing is the fact that nothing short of surgery is likely to improve it. Nevertheless, in the unlikely event of an improvement in my axe-craft I'm sure that Rock Stop would be well worth a visit. A better bet than the Bahamas, that's certain.

ROCK STOP (Contact Details)