Indie Three Inch Records

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. It’s just that those tiny records were intended to be played on standard turntables (or at least standard turntables that could play all the way into where the label would be on a 12” record).

I was hoping that the release of the new 3” mini turntable would mean that independent labels and artists would make new releases for it, and one month later we’re already seeing that starting to happen. Hopefully these early indie releases will be part of a larger trend. 1

The first indie release designed specifically for play on an 8-ban/3” mini turntable is a split A-side release from Carl’s Rock-and-Roll Phenomenon / Poodle Mouth as announced here:

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Here's our next release! We took two of the biggest songs, one about a prehistoric dinosaur and one about the universe, and shrunk them down to fit on a custom 3" record! A split release with two bands on a single sided record with custom printed B-side. Limited to 15 copies. This record is designed to be played on the Bandai mini record player (released in Japan in the early 2000's) or the newer Crosley mini or Third Man Records mini record player. Plus it will come with an adapter to let you play it on a modern record player (won't work on players with auto-return). First photo shows the front/back of the sleeve and the record. Slide to see it on the various turntables! . #3inchrecord #bandai #8ban #8banrecord #rsd3 #crosley #crosleyrecordplayer #crosleyturntable #thirdmanrecords #inchophone #miniturntable #brontosaurus #space #rocknroll #garagerock #punkrock #punkrecords #diy #diypunk #indielabel #nowspinning #limitededition

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You can see it in action on our Youtube Channel:

It’s rather cleverly lathe-cut into a 3” mini CD. I’m sure there’s a story there about its production.

We’ve seen an intriguing announcement from Hello Kutty (digging that blue vinyl, too):

Anything we’re missing? Leave a comment below or contact us if you’re making records for 3” turntables that aren’t yet represented on this site.


  1. Excuse the pun. ↩︎

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