This Mumbai record store reopens in Mahim in a new avatar; here's all you need to know

A patron listens to a record at The Revolver Club in Mahim. Pics/Kirti Surve Parade

While pursuing his undergraduate studies in the US in the mid-2000s, Jude de Souza, the founder and CEO of The Revolver Club, found a defunct turntable in the basement of a library where he worked as a student.

He got it repaired and started using it. It was around that time that he heard about the common myth that if you play Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven backwards, it would reveal a message from Satan. It sparked his curiosity, as it would for any teenager. And perhaps the most organic way to test this myth would be to reverse the vinyl record on a turntable. Now that he had the equipment, he bought the entire discography of Led Zeppelin for about a hundred dollars, which was roughly Rs 4,500 back then.

Today, he estimates that each record from the discography would cost a hundred dollars, which is now around Rs 8,500.

It didn't take long for de Souza to get hooked on vinyl record collection and music in general.

The record store also has a coffee shop on its premises

Nearly a decade later, he decided to channel this passion into a physical store, and in 2016, he started his company, The Revolver Club, and opened a flagship store in Mahim. After a hiatus of around five years, their flagship store has now re-opened with more to offer - it now has a coffee shop, a vintage watch collection for sale, and vinyl records, of course.

Today, there are only a couple of places in the city where you can buy vinyl records in person. This includes the pavement shops in Crawford Market and Colaba Causeway. The Revolver Club is the only formal store with a history and a community around it. Interestingly, it opened in 2016, the same year Mumbai's iconic record shop Rhythm House shut its doors.

The place shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic but the proprietors had another store in Bandra West. "So there was even less reason to hurry to open the Mahim store, but the vision was always to get it back up and running. We have made the space more community-friendly with a coffee shop in it, which has added to the number of visitors we have here now," says store director and social media manager Mihir Lapalikar. "Now, apart from vinyl records, we also have EZ-Fi systems. They're for the modern listener, who wants premium audio without the complexity of a traditional hi-fi system. Modern houses have less space, so an EZ-Fi is a perfect setup." The idea behind this concept was to make great sound accessible to anyone with plug-and-play solutions.

You can request any record you want, and The Revolver Club will source it for you. Genres are no bar - anything from old Hindi film music to rare Western records, you'll find it all here. Lapalikar says, "You can buy pre-owned records, too, which sometimes cost more than the originals, depending on their condition and rarity."
De Souza says 99 per cent of the business is online, and the reason he wanted to open a store was to build a culture in the age of social media. He says, "This place has become a melting pot for people with a shared common interest. Since vinyl records are an interactive way to engage in music, they give people a good basis to bond."

One can now even browse through a vintage watch collection

According to de Souza and Lapalikar, Gen Z is buying most vinyl records today. They say the trend is global. They offer the "enthusiast's pack" for new vinyl enthusiasts, which includes an Audio Technica LP-60X turntable. Basic technical support is also offered by the store, such as setting up the system and replacing the record player needles.

The revamped space, Lapalikar explains, will also function as a co-working space. "We also aspire to add other elements like board games and live performances in the future," he says.

On average, a classic album may cost you anywhere between R3,500 and R10,000, and rare ones may go up to lakhs. "It's an expensive hobby to have, but the community is growing. The level of authenticity in owning a record is the core value of this hobby. We did good business last year, and daily sales are in the hundreds, both in-store and online combined. The annual growth of the business has been up by 20 per cent per year, and we're expecting it to grow more" says de Souza.