I really couldn’t have hoped for better news this week when I opened my email and learned that two of Vancouver’s pioneering independent culture outlets, Zulu Records and Videomatica, were joining forces to create a “combined movie and music emporium” under one roof! You read that right, Zulu and Videomatica are moving in together to create a 4th Avenue indie powerhouse of audio video greatness.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been bringing you the hilarious-yet-sad-tuba-sounding web series “Support Your Local Video Store” put together by the employees of the formerly-ill-fated Videomatica who announced they were going out of business. The workers were all still trying to figure out what the heck they were going to do when the doors of the struggling video rental and sales store shut forever, and the good news is that a few of those employees are still going to be employed come November when they move across the street, dump the dead weight of rentals and focus exclusively on sales with a new Videomatica store-within-a-store at Zulu.

“Our loyal sales customers have convinced us they need a source to continue to buy movies and what better place for that than the best independent music store. Zulu is a natural fit for us,” said Videomatica co-owner Graham Peat.

Zulu founder Grant McDonagh says “I’m convinced both Zulu and Videomatica customers will benefit from being able to buy the music and movies they love at one location.”

So we figured we’d get these two together for a High Fiving Celebrities, the infamous Graham and Grant in front of the soon-to-be most even more infamous location where magic happened. Neighbours for 28 years, come November 2011 they’ll be living under the same roof at 1976 West 4th Avenue. Like I said, more awesome news for local independent culture I cannot imagine. HIGH FIVE!!!

Graham Peat and Grant McDonagh high five! Photo: Rick Tetz