{"id":275862,"date":"2026-04-19T18:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/275862\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T18:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:41:12","slug":"how-record-safari-became-a-staple-for-record-store-day-redlands-daily-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/275862\/","title":{"rendered":"How Record Safari became a staple for Record Store Day \u2013 Redlands Daily Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

As festival goers weave through the music and desert heat at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival<\/a>, a different kind of experience awaits just steps from the entrance, one that trades booming speakers for the soft crackle of vinyl.<\/p>\n

Inside Record Safari<\/a>, the festival\u2019s on-site record store, fans flip through crates of new and used records, many stopping in during Record Store Day, which landed on Saturday, April 18, during Weekend 2<\/a> and continuing into Sunday as crowds make their final rounds.<\/p>\n

\"Record<\/p>\n

Record Safari\u2019s Alex Rodriguez poses for a photograph during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Festival<\/p>\n

Festival goers shop for vinyl records inside Record Safari during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Records<\/p>\n

Records available inside Record Safari during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Karrina<\/p>\n

Karrina Carrasco of Modesto shops for vinyl records inside Record Safari during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Amara Lucero and Anthony Martinez of Long Beach shop for vinyl records inside Record Safari during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Arturo<\/p>\n

Arturo Cecena, second from right, shops for vinyl records inside Record Safari during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 6<\/p>\n

Record Safari\u2019s Alex Rodriguez poses for a photograph during day two of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

For Alex Rodriguez, the man behind Record Safari, the moment is the culmination of more than a decade spent building something that started almost by accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was part of the Glass House in Pomona<\/a>,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cOne year, the people doing the record store at Coachella couldn\u2019t do it, so they kind of scrambled and asked me. They threw me into it with only a couple of months\u2019 notice, but I made it work. They liked what I did, and now I\u2019m the record guy at Coachella.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since stepping in around 2013, Rodriguez has watched the space steadily grow. What once was a smaller setup with fewer records has expanded into a fully built-out shop, stocked with thousands of vinyl selections and designed to feel like a pause from the festival\u2019s intensity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely expanded,\u201d he said. \u201cThe tent used to be smaller, we carried fewer records. Now we keep the walls with a signature pink color. With all the craziness going on out there, waiting in lines and loud music, you come in here, it\u2019s air-conditioned and it kind of calms you. It\u2019s like a decompression zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

That balance is part of what continues to draw fans in, especially during Record Store Day, a global celebration of independent record shops and vinyl culture. This year, Record Safari carried a range of exclusive releases, including a limited run from Elton John, with two signed copies given out to lucky buyers just earlier on that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them were pretty limited,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cElton gave us two signed copies to give out, and people were stoked.\u201d<\/p>\n

But beyond exclusives, what sets Record Safari apart is the journey behind the records themselves. About half of the shop\u2019s inventory is made up of used vinyl Rodriguez personally sources while traveling the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the used records, I travel all over Europe and Japan trying to find things you don\u2019t see in America,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I was in Japan a few months ago, they had different pressings with different artwork, or what\u2019s called an Obi strip; people really like that because it\u2019s something unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

That global approach often means festival goers are flipping through records they might never come across back home, a detail that resonates with a crowd that itself has traveled from across the world to be in Indio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people come here from all over, so there might be records they\u2019re seeing that they can\u2019t get where they\u2019re from,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cOr maybe they live somewhere where there\u2019s no record store, so it\u2019s fun for them to actually shop instead of ordering online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in a digital era, the appeal of vinyl continues to show up in unpredictable ways. Rodriguez has seen fans treat records not just as music, but as mementos tied to the festival experience itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people look at it as a keepsake,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s a Coachella<\/a> artist or even something else, it becomes a Coachella memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls one moment during Coachella<\/a> when Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> headlined, and a fan purchased her vinyl with no intention of playing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t even want us to hold it for her,\u201d Rodriguez said with a laugh. \u201cWe told her it might warp in the heat, and she said she didn\u2019t care. She just wanted the cover so she could frame it. For her, it wasn\u2019t even about the record, it was a piece of artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a festival defined by quick moments, Record Safari offers something a little more lasting. A physical piece of music, memory and place that fans can carry home long after the final set ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As festival goers weave through the music and desert heat at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,51325,9548,21497,48,52,51,47,50,49,6998,612,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-275862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-coachella-festival","10":"tag-coachella-valley","11":"tag-indio","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-headlines","14":"tag-la-news","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","17":"tag-los-angeles-news","18":"tag-music-concerts","19":"tag-riverside-county","20":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}