Canal Street was legendary for mixtapes—first cassettes and then CDs, which entered circulation as mp3s on the internet relay chat network EFnet, in turn feeding the bootleg scene of pre-release album rips ending up back on Canal. This feedback loop was recognized as such an effective means of distribution and hype that major record labels began seeding mixtapes to the streets, akin to luxury brands making street style-inspired “bootlegs” of their own wares. 

To dub—from the word double—is to make a copy. But the single syllable has a storied outlaw past. 16th century definitions for dub are numerous: a single drumbeat, a key used to pick locks, and a jail. Originally, to dub meant to confer knighthood, as in the tale of Robin Hood when King Richard “dubs” the charming bandit in gratitude for foiling his royal brother’s efforts to raise taxes on the poor. Mixtapes were so often dubbed that the mixtape was dubbed a style in itself. (A dub-ble meaning.)

A lesser known definition of dub is to “cut down hedges”—the hedges that demarcate property out of land once considered common. Thus, as in the freestyle mashups of jazz, noise, and mixtape culture, the dub may be seen as a refusal of enclosure, transcending  proprietary laws that contain and commodify. Fred Moten describes the commingling of “legitimate and illegitimate and semi-legitimate economic activites” on Canal Street as part of a poetic tradition connecting the hip hop of the South Bronx to the free jazz loft scene and Fluxus concerts of SoHo. From Nam June Paik to Brian Eno, from no wave band Mars—whose drummer Nancy Arlen made resin sculpture of Canal Plastics—to David S. Ware’s Apogee `at 501 Canal (down the street from Cecil Taylor), Canal Street’s markets, both formal and informal, inspired sonic experimentation. Cheap bells from Canal Street fire alarm shops, along with foam, rubber, and found machinery, made their way into many a recording. The markets of knock-offs grew alongside the markets of mixtapes, embracing shanzhai poetics and the Robin Hood ethos of the dub. A dub is a way of making something new from something existing. Dub invites overdub, layering poor copies into riches.


--

Tonight at 7 pm! @canal_street_research dubs a new Canal Street  mixtape on @montezpressradio featuring tracks produced, peddled and pilfered from Canal Street by Cecil Taylor,  Louise Lawler, the band at 501 Canal, Terry Fox, Bernard Heidsieck, Nam June Paik performed by Charlotte Moorman, Mars, Allison Knowles, Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force, Doowop,  Keith Murray, Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, DJ Clue?, AV & SWV, and Tafa. (Special thanks to Sommer @mixtapemuseum for expertise and suggestion of crucial tracks).

Canal Street Mixtape

A reading of shanzhai lyrics at Picture Room(NY), December 2016.

ENDLESS GARMENT

Taking poetic liberties with the acronym for the food-qualifying "Protected Designation of Origin" (P.D.O. / D.O.P), RADIO P.D.O. explores several moments defining an elusive “community” which, in light of the tensions produced when local production and life ways run up against the demands of the global economy, are frequently thrown into flux. In both form and subject-matter, RADIO P.D.O. transgresses territorial and cultural boundaries in order to move away from a static rhetoric of authenticity and closer to definitions inspired by movement, hybridity and itinerancy. 

Postcards from Disadvantaged Outreach
Promoting Domains Off-Limit 
Poetic Disapproval of Order 
Power Delegated by Obligation 
Planet’s Desired Odyssey
Persistent Discount Objects 
Pastures Distributing Overseas 

Edited and produced by Ming Lin & Heidi Maribut for Nature, Art & Habitat Residency 2019: "Grasses and Pastures: Imagining a Regenerative Economy of Cheese" (Val Taleggio, IT)

Featuring: Letizia Bindi (Anthropologist), Adele Ravasio (CasArrigoni), Laura Ruffinoni (Orobie Tourism), Michele Corti (Historian), Sarah Kantrowitz (Software Cheese), Siobhan Riggs (Artist), Rachel Mead (Eco-poet)

Special Thanks: Benny (Radio Galena Ornica), Ilaria Bassoli (Educator), Osvalda Quarenghi (Archivist), Ana Maria (Shopkeeper), Ruby Chang (Consumer), Katie di Bari (Dancer), Enrico Bassi (Naturalist) 

Music & Sounds: “Theme” Cibo Matto (Viva La Woman), “La Crepiscule” from N the Madness of Reason (2014), “Avanti (Ten Don’ts for Honeymooners)” The Monochrome Set (Volume, Contrast, Brilliance), “When I’m Walking” Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, “Amore Disparato” Nada (Live Stazione Birra), “La famme dello zanni” (YouTube), “Italy: Sikh Cheese Producers” European Journal (DW News)

Thanks to Ilaria Mazzoleni and NAHR (https://nahr.it/)

--

Prendendo libertà poetiche con la sigla DOP, ogni segmento del programma esplora diversi momenti che definiscono una "community" elusiva che, alla luce delle tensioni prodotte quando la produzione locale e le vie della vita incontrano le esigenze dell'economia globale, vengono spesso gettati nel flusso. Sia nella forma che nell'oggetto, RADIO P.D.O. trasgredisce i confini territoriali e culturali per allontanarsi da una retorica statica o insinuata di autenticità e avvicinarsi a definizioni ispirate al movimento, all'ibridazione e all'itineranza.

--

Radio P.D.O. (D.O.P.) Community Radio / Radio della comunità for NAHR 2019

Shanzhai Lyric excerpts threads of the "Endless Garment," a collective poem drawn from their ever-expanding archive of shanzhai poetry-garments, currently on view at Abrons Arts Center as part of AIL PALACES ARETEMPORARY HALACES. They will discuss this ongoing T-shirt lyric as proposing a model of collective ownership and authorship, drawing from the tradition of Chinese landscape painting and embracing linguistic hybridity and experimentation.

Shanzhai Lyric is a project of Display Distribute carried out by Ming Lin and Alexandra Tatarsky. Through poetry-talks, publishing, installation, and archival practice, the project investigates how shanzhai garments challenge standard English, destabilizing assumptions around global hierarchy to reflect the distortions and nonsense of contemporary life. @shanzhai_lyric

Montez Press Radio

AIL PALACES

In residence at the Canal Street Research Association, Shanzhai Lyric shares some preliminary investigations and restagings of Canal Street lore, including sections of Jack Smith’s nearby “Hamlet in the Rented World,” soundscapes from neighboring emptied-out storefronts, and fragments of oral history with local artists and vendors. Celebrating the legacy of bootleg text, this is a fragment of research questioning assumptions around ownership, authorship and the politics of who gets in trouble for stolen property.

Originally aired on Montez Press Radio, November 21, 2020

Ming Lin

Popular tracks