The Journey
Pagal Records Store is an independent record shop established to give music lovers in New Delhi a place to meet, relax and browse new, reissued as well as second-hand vinyl in a friendly and chill environment. More than just another store, we are a community of people brought together by our mutual love for all things music. We are always striving to bring you new and vintage vinyl records, casettes, books and much more at a reasonable rate. Pagal Records is the hub for discovering and sharing new music and we are grateful for all our customers and their precious feedback.
DIGGING IN AGRA
The journey of Pagal Records in Rajasthan begins at Agra. After asking some locals about music stores, we meet an autorickshaw driver. He tells us to hop onboard and starts driving around the fort. After just five minutes, we come across this little store just near one of the doors of the fort. A lot of the records here were in pretty bad shape. Most of them had lots of scratches and were unplayable. The records here were pretty much destroyed due to poor storage. The covers were almost gone, falling apart if you picked them up. The condition of this store and its maintenance of the records reminds us of the fact that not many people in India know about this part of their heritage and how hundreds of such stores just sit in various corners of the country, hiding away. At Pagal Records, we try to preserve all this music in many different forms ranging from vinyl records to simple audio cassettes. We collect to discover, to share and, most importantly, to learn. After one hour of digging, we successfully scored a couple of Indian classical records! We take some quick photos and leave for the next city.
DIGGING IN JODHPUR
In Jodhpur, we start our music-hunting voyage at Shalimar Music Center. The owner was very welcoming and cheerful. We came across some very nice records from influential artists of Pakistan like The Sabri Brothers. We ask around for more music stores and end up in a store owned by an elderly Sikh man, mostly selling CDs and mobile phones along with a few cassettes that were hidden away. We buy what we find and we proceed.
DIGGING IN JAISALMER
Although the stores in Jaisalmer had little to offer, we were able to find some amazing casettes of Rajasthani music.
DIGGING IN RISHIKESH
In Rishikesh, we visited the famous 'Beatles Ashram' (also referred to as Chaurasi Kutia). Although it was largely abandoned and expensive to explore, spending a couple of hours here was quite enjoyable.
DIGGING IN PUSHKAR
Finally, we arrive at Pushkar. We found a few stores here that offered casettes hiding behind a wall of CDs. The owner of one such store even showed us a box full of cassettes. Though we found plenty of cool things here, a lot of their collection had duplicates, some recordings from parties held at Goa and two recordings from a Roots reggae party which, interestingly, didn't even have a name on the cover.
