Watch: We visit Blitzkrieg record shop which has moved to a new premise across from the Barrowlands

All of Glasgow’s independent record shops have adopted their own unique positioning in the structure of the city’s social fabric, each driven by a passion for analogue music, specialised genres and an ambition to immerse in community. Individually they are an expression of a person’s creative interests, reflected in design and stock, and because of the healthy offering there is a hub suitable to almost every taste. It is commonly believed that Glasgow punches above its weight when it comes to musical offering and the demand for these stores is proof of that.

Along the Gallowgate, directly across from the Barrowland Ballroom is Blitzkrieg - recently relocated from a smaller premise on London Road. At its core it embodies the city’s DIY spirit and approach to music, a trove of rare finds and host of live sessions. Founded by Tony Gaughan as a means to punt his personal collection, the shop has now firmly established its identity as a Glasgow favourite.

We visited Tony at the new shop recently:

“I fell into retail, I had a pop up shop in the Savoy Centre and the pandemic came along and I moved on and got a shop on London Road and we had quite a few successful events in there. I was looking for somewhere a bit bigger and closer to the Barras - the Barrowland Ballroom in particular. This one came up where we can do what we were doing and more. It’s a kind of hub, we’re going to have book launches, we’re going to have live events.

“I’m an old punk rocker you could say. A lot of this stuff originally came from my collection. There’d been a real kind of scramble for original punk records. Also, I ran a record label so had a few guitars and stuff lying around, we started off down that road but eventually we became a Record Store Day shop and I signed up with all the big majors - the Warners and the Universals and some of the independents. That’s when I started getting in new vinyl that people were asking me for. We also have a lot of second hand vinyl and all of it’s cleaned, we offer that service.

“I’ve got a massive collection of cassettes and believe it or not cassettes probably will be the next thing to come back in. I’ve got kids in here every single day asking me what cassette tapes I’ve got. But with vinyl, there was a massive revolution with vinyl, I think people possibly got a bit fed up with CDs and wanted to go back to having the original artwork in their hands and they could see it, not just this tiny little reflection of it. You know, if you’ve got the lyrics in a piece of vinyl and you can read it rather than trying to look at a tiny CD sleeve.

“There’s been a big scramble for vinyl. I feel I had to be more than just a vinyl shop so that’s why I sell guitars and I sell artwork - I do fine art printing. I offer so much more than just one shop and I think that’s what really is the successful model. How I see Blitzkrieg moving forward, to offer people something whether that be a book or a record or a T-shirt or a piece of art or a piece of memorabilia.”