News & Info

Now that people have bought a novelty mini turntable conversation piece to play 3” records, what else could Crosley/Record Store Day/Toyokasei (or heck, any label) do to further the market aside from releasing more records to play on it (which seems like a no-brainer, now that there are thousands of these turntables in the wild)? We have some ideas. Two Sides to Every Story Make them double-sided. Adding a second Read more »

Beastie Boys Sabotage Beatie Boys “Sabotage” The first of hopefully many upcoming new 3” record releases has finally1 been announced. Each will be available at participating Record Store Day pledged record stores2. From the Record Store Day press release: Beastie Boys’ classic “SABOTAGE” has been starting parties and ending Beastie Boys shows since 1994. And now, to mark the 25th anniversary of ILL COMMUNICATION, the album that returned Beastie Boys to the #1 spot, “SABOTAGE” will be issued as a 3” single, available only at indie record stores beginning Friday, July 19, 2019. Read more »

When Crosley and Record Store Day (the organization) paired-up to release a 3” mini turntable and new three inch records for RSD 2019 the limited releases came with a promise that more records for these mini turntables would be forthcoming. While 8ban never took off outside of Japan (and it didn’t even really take off inside of Japan) aside from a few White Stripes releases in 2005, indie bands have been releasing small 3” records on sites like Bandcamp for years. Read more »

After a spectacular re-debut of 3” records for Record Store Day all we know is that Record Store Day (the organization) has promised that there would be additional titles, and possibly additional non-limited Crosley turntables released to help increase demand for the medium. When the original 8-ban record series were released they came out in five themed series, including anime theme songs, songs from a popular children’s variety show, songs from pop groups from the 1980s, and a series of oldies from Western artists. Read more »

Shortly before Record Store Day 2019, tech site Ars Technica published a relatively in-depth story about the history of 8-ban records, including Jack White’s involvement in bringing the 3” format to the West, Michael Kurtz’s journey to bring a new three inch player for Record Store Day, and a brief review of the hardware itself, including a short YouTube video showing off a test pressing of Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally,” which appears to be an upcoming 3” release (it was not part of the 2004 “Oldies The Best” series). Read more »

For those of us who collect or collected 3” 8-ban records from Japan, there hasn’t been much news since the White Stripes released their last 3” record in early 2006. That’s why it was so exciting in January 2019 when the Crosley RSD3 was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with the promise of new 3” releases in the style of 8-ban (with the same spindle holes which means the new releases will also play on an original Bandai 8-ban record player). Read more »

Aside from the release of the White Stripes’ Triple Inchophone, one of the major sources of 8-ban record knowledge in the West comes from the Techmoan blog and subsequent YouTube video, released in December 2017: Ironically, the best line in the video turned out to be a bit prophetic: since Crosley released a 3” turntable that is decidedly better-sounding than the original Bandai 8-ban mini turntable. Read more »

These two series were removed from later archives of the original 8-ban.com web site, and to my knowledge were never produced once sell-through of the first five series failed to achieve sales goals. Just like the blind box titles that were actually released, these were poised to be priced at 367 yen (~$3.25 USD) and were slated for “mid-May 2004” and “mid-June 2004” releases. It’s a pity, as 8ban was Read more »