Radiolab - Mixtape: Dakou

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Through the 1980s, the vast majority of people in China had never heard western music, save for John Denver, the Carpenters, and a few other artists included on the hand-picked list of songs sanctioned by the Communist Party. But in the late 90s, a mysterious man named Professor Ye made a discovery at a plastic recycling center in Heping.In episode 1 of Mixtape, we talk to Chinese historians, music critics, and the musicians who took the damaged plastic scraps of western music, changed the musical landscape of China, and reimagined rock and roll in ways we never could’ve imagined.   Mixtape is reported, produced, scored and sound designed by Simon Adler with original music throughout by Simon. Invaluable reporting and production assistance was provided by Eli Cohen. Additional reporting by Noriko Ishigaki, Rebecca Kanthor and our amazing anonymous Chinese reporter.    Special thanks to: Paul de Gay, Juliette Kristensen, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, Nick Lyons, Michael Bull, Jiro Ishikawa, Hayley Zhao, Megan Smalley and Deanne Totto. This episode would not have happened without each and every one of them. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.   

Wait, you're listening. Okay. Okay. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. From WNYC. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab.

From WNYC. You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. Radio Lab. From WNYC. WNYC. Hello. I'm Akio Morita.

And I have been Sony's chairman and chief executive officer for the last 10 years. Before handing you over to our narrator, I would like to offer human beings use or abuse the grorages. And it is in our mind and heart that the future will be decided. And now, here is our narrator, tearing my story and that of tips like this one. I'm Simon Adler. And I'm Jada Bumrab, this is Radio Lab. Truth be told, I don't even know if this is the way to start, but let's just jump in,

I guess. Yeah, take it for a spin. Alright, so I've got a short story for you about a piece of technology we don't think about much today, and how one morning it tore a small hole in the time space continuum. This is Nureko Ishigaki, and whose memoir are you reading from there? Yasuokuroki. Okay, she's a Japanese to English translator, as as a long time friend and she says that on the morning of June 22nd 1979 in Yoyogi Park. One of the biggest parks in Tokyo

magazine reporters and editors are Gathered. Maybe a dozen or so alongside some some press people from the Sony Corporation. Sony has gathered this gaggle of journalists there to unveil this new product for them. A product called Walkman. The Sony Walkman.

These reporters had very little idea what exactly to expect or even what this Walkman was. Until the product leader. Carefully hands, each reporter. A Walkman? With a cassette inside it already. Okay. Did you have a Walkman, Chad? Yeah, oh my God, yes.

It was blue, steel, none of this plastic shit. Yes, I remember the way that you would put the cassette in and then click it shut. And there was something about that tactile sound? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyhow, so these reporters put on these orange headphones. And then the event organizer says, please press the play button. One, two, three, go.

And... Ooh.そして この音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音が この音が この音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音がこの音が この音がこの音が この音がこの音がこの音が この音が

この音がこの音がこの音がこの音が この音がこの音が この音がこの音が この音が この音がこの音がこの音が この音がこの音が この音がこの音がこの音がこの音が この音がこの音がこの音が

この音がこの音が this voiceこの音が this voice音が this voice音が this voice音が In the voice says to them, looking out into the park. And they see that they are not the only ones listening to a walk. There are dozens of other folks with orange headphones on moving through the park. Kids on roller skates, college students, joking, women exercising. People skateboarding even a Buddhist monk. Like the scene that you and I see every day walking down the streets, you know people in their own little world listening to whatever they want to.

Yeah. This is the first time anyone had ever seen that. Amazing. Amazing. And of course, if they took their headphones off, they'd rejoin our shared world, hearing the din of the park and the city around them. But then, when they put them back on,

they'd be back in their own little world. Headphones off. Collective reality. Headphones on. Whatever personal reality, headphones on, whatever personal reality, whatever mood they'd chosen for themselves. Oh my God. Totally. And maybe you can communicate this better than me

because you lived it. But like, this was all so new. Like, most of these people had probably never worn headphones before. They've never had stuff pumped directly into their ears. They've never listened to something outside before, short of a transistor radio or maybe a boom box. And they're now doing it all together, but by themselves. People don't really understand what a big deal the Walkman was. Remember when Steve Jobs did the iPhone, everyone was like, oh my god, oh my god.

Yep, yep. This was like that times a thousand. You'd go that far. No, really. To go from a world where you have to sit on your ass and listen to music in a specific place, to suddenly you could walk, like literally walk, and have the music playing

just for you, thereby soundtracking your journey. You know, I was like, this is a movie, and I am the protagonist. This is amazing. Like it was, it was, it was amazing. Well, as amazing and liberating as it was, it was also controversial. Almost immediately, folks were hollering that this personalized, siloed, intimate consumption of media was going to end community, if not society, as we knew it. It's like the same conversation we're having now about Twitter and Facebook.

Oh yeah, and so I don't know, in more ways than one, I think what Sony unintentionally gave those reporters that morning was a glimpse into the future. I don't know whether it's good for the people or bad for the people, but at least we gave people some joy or enjoyment of music. Now, I've spent the last year listening to thinking about and researching the object powering those Sony Walkmans, the cassette tape. And what I've learned is that this object, this little piece of plastic, change the world. It brought down governments, collapsed space and time, and remade how we say those three simple words.

I love you. So for the next five weeks, I've got a mixed tape of stories for you, a mixtape that'll take us to China, Vietnam, South Sudan, Czechoslovakia, 1940s America, exploring this object's impact and how, believe it or not, we're still really living in a cassette world. I'm Simon Adler. And this is Mix Take. Okay, well, Simon, why don't you just take it from here? I'll just, uh... Just excuse myself.

Go listen to my walkman in the kitchen. Alright then. So... Here we go. Hi, I'm Steve Moon. And in this tape, you're gonna pass on as much now as possible about playing rock and roll. As you sing, you will feel more and more freedom about yourself! It's here! Here it is.

We're kicking off in Hongzhou, China with this guy. Hello? Hello, teacher. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? It's okay. This is how fun. I'm how fun. You're right.

Alongside our interpreter and really a co-reporter in China who for political reasons has asked to remain anonymous. Or shi hua... Anyhow, these days, Hal Fong writes about music for a living, but he says, you know, back when he was a kid, he had no idea that job even existed. He was born in 1963 in this very small town called Tianjiang. Very small. The kind of place where you'd walk for ten minutes and be on the outskirts already. Surrounded by mountains, lush countryside and super isolated. There's a whole truth of what I do. I mean, the best source of reading material he had was, at the time, people would use old newspaper as wallpaper. Oh, no, you wouldn't need to.

Right. Like, you want to make it look good. And so, when how would go over to his neighbor's houses? He would just dash to the wall and start reading. Wow. Because they're so little for him to read. But, well, how was hungry for any information about the outside world? His real love was... Music. Colényo Yis-pain. Right. His mom worked in this art and dance troupe. He went there to a lot of key things. A organization under China's military.

Creating music and choreography. What we know this refers to as red songs or young bands, sea, revolutionary operas. This is historian and scholar Mabou. I'm a music fan. I also write about music. And he says these operas were really a tool of the government. I mean of course I didn't live for that time, but they were propaganda. I mean, can't be

Over the top productions filled with dolled up Chinese soldiers That should tie you me a suit really pretty girls long legs determined peasants So it's easy to use in that correct businessmen and in them the peasants seem to always win and the capitalist get what they deserve. I remember watching my mom sing and I was joined. it was simply something that made me happy. But there was very little for him to listen to. Because actually these revolutionary operas they were the the only officially sanctioned style of music and nationwide there were only eight that are that people could listen to. So there were only eight operas. That was the eight operas.

Virtually everything else was illegal. Does that mean that if I turned on the radio in China in let's say 1974, I would be hearing one of those operas being played? The answer is yes, but then back in those years, it's not that common for a person to turn on the radio. It's more about loudspeakers, which was the most common way to listen to music.

So you don't even tune into them. They're blasted to you through loudspeakers. Mm-hmm. In my son's unbelievable to you,去你, 自然的文化哼哼清醒來不可思議, 但當時 in my sound unbelievable to you but that's how it was back then and for how, it pretty much stayed that way for years and years

and years but then a decade or so later 那你是我們在一個大型裡面教� later So the year is 1948 By 1984? Sorry, what did I say? 48? Oh God This is fine

This is what happened when you worked 10 hours Totally absolutely fine Let me rewind So yeah The year was 1984. How just to graduate it from college, he went to Wuhan, Wuhan, where the virus started. During the day, how would venture out into Wuhan to explore his new home? So he was just wandering the city, looking for stuff to do with his roommates. They just happened to stumble across this theater-like place.

Little hole in the wall showing bootleg movies with a curtain for a door. Open the curtain and walk in. There were 20 or so people there, small illuminated screen up at the front. And he had to really squint through all the cigarettes smoke to make out the screen. But the first thing he noticed was the smell. And not just from the cigarettes. He was wearing a white shirt. He was wearing a white shirt. He puts oil over his hair.

Feet? Oh, sorry. You told him to describe as vividly as I could. Yeah, you did it. Anyhow, the movie they were showing was... Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba And a legal bootleg copy of Apocalypse Now. And he'd never seen anything like it. The realism, the violence, the explosive budget.在那裡, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張,開了一張, 開了一張, 開了一張,開了一張, 開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張, 開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,開了一張,那是《戴戴的戴戴》的《戴戴的戴戴》的戴戴戴那是《戴戴的戴戴》的戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴戴他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把他把把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把他把把他把他把他把他把他把把 was just totally touched by the music. He'd never heard such a simple yet powerful arrangement.

Basically never heard a song about death. Never imagined music could be so emotionally complicated and layered. I think it's just... I think it's just... Love at the first sight, really. And he needed more of it. But... I can't believe it.

There was nothing, nothing at all. I mean, China was opening up a bit at the time, letting some Western music in, but there was an actual committee that would hand pick which songs, and what they were letting in, like John Denver, the Carpenters. This is a new year, what? Yeah, very limited songs, only really, really popular stuff. It's pretty harmless.

And as for the more complicated, subversive music coming out of the West at that time, like no one had legal access to it. But there was a group of people in China who, like how, had gotten at least a little taste of that larger musical world. University students. Right, right. Students at the university, they were some of the few people who had connections to the foreign community. This is Kaiser Guol. I am a podcaster. I run the Seneca podcast on Sub-China. He's also a musician, was born to Chinese immigrant parents and came of age in Tucson, Arizona. Which is why I talk the way I do.

Everyone thinks I sound like I'm from Southern California or something, but it's the Tucson in me. He was living and studying in China in the late 80s, and he says exchange students like him, English teachers were giving Western music to these students, and they were beginning to express themselves through it. The question of the day are events in China out of control. For the second day in a row, a million demonstrators have filled the streets of Beijing and there have been demonstrations for democracy.

You know, the 89 protests started happening. The Tiananmen Square protests. Ties are actually attended these protests. And so, you know, students had taken over the entire center of the city. It is very important for me, for people in the world, for not the situation in China. These students in Beijing were demanding democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of access to the outside world. But also, Kaiser told me,

and we're doing this thing that doesn't really get talked about much. He said that right there in the heart of the demonstrations. People would just sort of set up stacks of PA, and then they'd have all the bands at the time just playing, you know, what long in the night. I assume standing in the ocean, whoa, I lose a ton. I assume standing in the ocean of them, I suppose. We don't talk about the seven weeks of just love and anarchy.

It was wonderful. Some of the happiest days I can remember. Peace, love, rock and roll. And yes, John Denver's Country Roads. But then, on the morning of June 7th, I turned the television on. Kaiser had left Beijing and was several days behind the news. The first image I see is of a charred body of a copper soldier hanging from a bridge. The protests turned violent.

Of course, they only showed the violence that had been perpetrated on the military, on law enforcement. And there was some, of course, but they didn't show the students or the workers who had been shot. Killing is in and around Tiananmen Square. As the army units approached, they were firing into the side streets killing and injuring scores of unarmed men, women and children. The bicycle rickshaw scooped up the injured. Air was filled with shouts of stop killing. Their own army was firing wildly at them.

Tell the world they said to us. The number of killed is not well known, but estimates put it in at least the hundreds. The Chinese Red Cross says at least 2600 people were killed. Some going up to as many as 3000. Students claim thousands of others were wounded. Wow. Yeah, yeah, it was really remarkable. Crazy. Now, the chilling effect Tiananmen had on China

really can't be overstated. And music got caught up in all this too. Of course, after the crackdown, just immediately, you really cannot listen to popular music from United States or England. This is Wenhua Shure. I'm from original French-China. He was willing to talk to us about this

because today he lives in Boston, where he teaches at the University of Massachusetts. During the crackdown, I was quite young, how this says in 9th grade, but I remember so vividly listening to Shorewave Radio's mostly voice of America. The OA, learning English, and then The O.A. Learning English and then listen to some like populous sounds. But after Tiananmen suddenly those are being removed. They produce a noise to jam the absickenos. So you cannot hear anymore. It's impossible. So you feel the air is really exhausted because of that, because of the no outside of the

possibilities. But just a few short years later, the outside came flooding in. In pretty much the most unexpected way I can think of.那也是春天或夏天的事吧你覺得分別嗎在昨天的前幾年 它是在沈北 在武漢或西安 又是一種音樂的高方 它真的是借來的錢 它是在一種商業 它是在一起的

但它不是在那裡 然後它是在前 然後它是在寫 一些 He wasn't there and he was early and he heard some rock music being played. He's like, where is that coming from? So he just followed the music. Down the street and around the corner. And he saw this store and pretty much a hole in the wall.

He stepped in and he was just caught off guard completely. It was a store filled with tapes. More than he'd ever seen in his life. Yeah, what? Walkus adds hundreds, hundreds of hundreds of tapes. And he's like, what the hell is this place? It's just a unit. You would be like, turning around and there is Jefferson's airplane.

A Michael Jackson service presently. Turns around and there's like Bob Dylan.然後他就說,然後他就說,然後他就說,然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說,

然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說,

然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說, 然後他就說,然後他就說,然後他就說,然後他就說,然後他就說, It was everything you ever dream of. In that tiny store. And it was cheap. So he thought this is his only chance to own these tapes.

And so, yeah, he grabbed all these albums. As many as he could carry. This big plastic bag was like 20-something tapes.你第一次去哪里?你第一次去哪里?你第一次去哪里? 这大大帝国的帝国是20多帝国的帝国 有的是资败本事 他把帝国的帝国帝国的帝国 他把帝国帝国的帝国帝国 他把帝国帝国的帝国 然后你要去挑战

一帝国的帝国他开始去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去去 started like examining them, analyzing and comparing. And he saw that each of them had been cut through the jewel case and into the bottom of the cassette. The cut was about the width of a quarter and an inch or so deep. And he was wondering, you know, like like why is there some marks on these tapes? Mm-hmm, or you know what happened to them. I mean, he didn't know but he was in country in Dacol Dacol? Dacol, that Dacol cassettes. Dacol. Dacol tapes. Dacol, you're quiet. You didn't know where they came from. He doesn't know there's going to be more access to Doco. He didn't know it's going to be a national scene.

He didn't know these Doco tapes were about to change how he and millions of others in China thought about music. All how new at the time was that he wanted more. We'll get to that right after a quick break. The Zeronia from Ipsilanti, Michigan. Mixed tape, a special series from Radio Lab, is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simon Foundation initiative, theHan Family Charitable Foundation, at the Alfred Peace Zone Foundation.

This concludes Sive 1. Turn your cassette over to begin Sive 2. Another way you can improve playing rock and roll. Is a absorb is much outside knowledge and information as you can, even if it's a simple kind of thing. Or very undesirable noises or something more easy to listen to or whatever, you know, because we're going to cut up and combine them. I just make up one.

I'm Simon Adler, this is Mix Tape before we went to break after decades of Communist Party operas sprinkled only with the occasional John Denver song. Hal Fong had stumbled upon a trove of cassettes filled with music that neither he nor pretty much anyone else in China had ever had a chance to hear before. And the thing is, he wasn't alone. I mean, rose, rose, rose, tapes. This again is Wenhua Shure, who also encountered one of these stories. You see Bob Dylan, and then you see, no, this is not just one Bob Dylan.

That's a 10 Bob Dylan. Wow, this is crazy. And where were they coming from? At that time, nobody knows. Well, I mean, I've been trying to confirm that very origin of that very first person who discovered Daco. Again, historian, LeBou.

And people have been telling me about this person who they call Professor Ye. Professor Ye? Ye. So Ye-Ye-Losher. Ye-Losher. Yes, okay, yes. Ye-Los, oh my god, even you heard this guy, Ye-Losher.

And while we couldn't 100% confirm that he was the first guy, he was certainly one of the first. So this is, I guess, the most common version of the first. So this is the most common version of the story, so he used to be a professor or at least a lecturer in the Shanto University located in South East China and in early 1990s. Professor Yuta took a trip to this nearby town of Huo Ping. Tiny, tiny village in a way, you know. Maybe to do some research, maybe on vacation. I don't know why exactly, but somehow he was there. And he got a tip that he should go check out this giant warehouse.

It was actually a recycling center. What we call Liu Chang. At that time, China was buying up an importing much of the world's recycling. And this town and warehouse was processing all of the plastics and looking around at all this plastic, waiting to be ground up into tiny little pellets, he realized he was standing in a mountain of cassette tapes. I mean, to the left of of him a pile five feet high, to the right a mound

of them ten feet high, there were thousands and thousands of cassettes, each with a cut into it. I mean of course he would be astonished, imagining what kind of sounds is in there and thinking who is the singer and he would be dying to hear the music and it. Yeah, the point is that those cassettes came in as plastic scrap and they came in tons. But I saw the scene so much. That warehouse made my job drop for the sheer number of cassettes in there. This again is Hal Fong, who years later took his own trip to Huping to see it. You could impossible conned how many cassettes there were.

Millions and millions of tapes, yeah. Ballpark estimates Mabou gave me put it somewhere between 45 and 150 million of them each year. I'm ready. Very good, so Simon will give you a ring here in a minute and um... Okay, so I just, I'll hear him coming through my phone, but I'm talking in the microphone, right? That's exactly right. All right now to figure out the origin of these millions and millions of garbage cassettes Hello, I gave this guy a call. Hello. Is this bill? Yes, it is. Hey, Bill Simon here from Radio Lab. How are you?

I'm good Simon. How are you? This is Bill Nadel-Cedar. I covered the recording industry from 1982 to 1989. And he says back here in the US, the late 80s and early 90s were just a period of decadence in the music industry. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh my god. The record companies were the cash cow You were Warner Brothers your record company was making more money and was more profitable than your than your movie division They were flush with bands selling millions and millions of records like R.I.M I went on to sell more than three million copies in this country to the Joshua tree selling well over 4 million copies and... Nirvana, Bon Jovi... Everyone went so 12 and a half million worldwide.

So the money was enormous. And so record execs were making big beds. Producing millions and millions of copies of just about everything they were releasing. Everything from Madonna to... I don't know, probably even the animated rapping character, MC SCATCAT. I mean, they were producing so many that even a hit record often left hundreds of thousands of unsold copies, let alone a flop like MCSKAT cats.

And so what did they do with this surplus? I wanted to get rid of it. Okay. And so what they would do is they would sell them in bulk for Penny's piece to a network of buyers and resellers. First, they ended up in record stores, labeled as cutouts. You know, a discontinued record is called a cutout

because they cut it out of their act of sale scatigore. If they didn't sell there, someone would buy them in bulk for pennies on the dollar again, try to sell them somewhere else. Truck stops, car washes, drug stores and whatever else. And finally, if no one wanted these cassettes, they sent it out to be destroyed. The standard way they did this

was to run a saw blade through them, cutting about an inch deep into the cassette itself, leaving a gash in the plastic and a break in the magnetic tape. And from there, unbeknownst even to Bill. It's getting there in garbage and like big fucking trash, does that what you're saying? Exactly. Yes, scrap barge. Wow. These cut up cutouts were thrown into shipping containers and shipped to China, where Professor Yulah found them as these mountains of scrap.

I take heart from this. The music will get to the people no matter what. However, for this music to get to the people of China, these cassettes needed to be repaired. Which is what Professor Yuh tried to do. Here's what we're going to do. Bring the tools out here. His theory was essentially. Even if the mechanism was damaged, he can take the tape out. Again, Kaiser Goul.

Splice it and rewind it onto a new cassette body. It wasn't going to be easy. In fact, it was going to be a royal pain in the ass. OK, here we go. But after sawing a John Denver cassette nearly in half. Oh, yeah, and you went right through. You can see we got the tape itself a split. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, and you went right through. You can see we got the tape itself is split.

Oh yeah. My AP and really copilot on this series Eli Cohen and I also set out to see if we could do this. So first things first. We're going to have to destroy it further in order to bring it back to life. We had to get the John Denver tape outside of its broken cassette shell. Smashing it with a hammer Now we've got some breakage and now it quite like the experience of like cracking open a crab leg or something

There we go With the John Denver tape out of its cassette Eli opened up the cassette we'd be transplanting John Denver into, and we taped the John Denver tape onto the new reel of tape. Yeah. Snipped off the excess. It's beautiful. Go!

Fuck! Struggled a bit. Damn it. Okay. Well. Eventually succeeded. Okay. It's time to, uh to sew the patient back up.

And screwed the new cassette back together. It looks functional. Yeah, I don't see why it shouldn't play at this point. And so, we popped it into my tape player. Big money, no anties. There we go. It doesn't want to move. Didn't work. No! We took the tape out and tried to wind it forward manually a bit.

Put it back in. Still nothing. Doctor, can you diagnose the patient here? Well, the host seems to be rejecting its new organ. And so, giving it one more shot, we manually wound a bunch of tape from the left reel onto the right reel. So we're losing the first song, basically. It might be okay. Alright, let's try again. of tape from the left reel onto the right reel. Sholders makes me happy. We did it. So nice. Now this tedious painstaking, repairing process,

professor Yuh and others began doing on a massive scale. Hiring folks to do the labor and distribute these tapes across the entire country. And he or someone like him eventually gave these things a name. Daco. Daco. Which just so happens to translate to. Cut out. We somehow also invented this term.

And they spread like wildfire. I left China after 89. There weren't Daco at that point. And I came back in 91 and 92 and they were everywhere. Even in cities that are not that big. Far-flung places like Urumuchi in Xinjiang, Dali in Yunnan. Outside of my home, there was a flower shop, and the flower shop was selling da coal.

That's how crazy it is. And they were affordable for Chinese consumers to buy. And there were so many of these things that the Chinese government really just had to throw up their hands. And so folks all across China got to have their own little apocalypse now. This is the end moment. And for all Fong.

He was so far away, he didn't come to me to visit him. Dacol was there when he needed it the most. The diversity Dacol was able to provide him, totally altered his life course. He says, without them, he definitely would not have become a music critic. That's how he was. Correct. This is a very good question. If I am in my... And so, what he felt about Daco, if you have to summarize in one word, is gratitude. Without Daco, he would not be him today, and help on things.

All these artists, many of them them would not be them either. Because these unregulatable garbage cassettes sparked a musical explosion and totally reimagined what rock and roll was. And totally re-imagined what Rock and Roll was. This is Lee Yang. Today he's a musician with tattoos, sleeves, crawling up each arm. And these dockotapes are what inspired him and countless others to form bands in the first place.而這道課是在他所說的而抗亂的方式 在第一位置上 他所說的名字

我不是說他所說的 你知不知道 他所說的名字 所以他不想說 他所說的名字 或他所說的 他所說的 就是有來記不清楚這個

我可以不明白 因為我生命 是在記不清楚是在記不清楚這個我可以不明白因為我自己的生活是在記不清楚了 所以我可以只能想清楚 然後是韓國的歌曲 《 Journalist in Shanghai》 他會給我一個註解 和在一起的註解

在他身上 來 來來 來 來 來 來 來

來 來來來來 來來來來來來來來來來來 One of the first bands Lee Young heard was Nirvana, and he loved it. He wanted to hear more stuff like it, but he didn't know what genre to be looking for. No, no idea. In fact, he wasn't even aware there were genres. There was Western music, and there was the music that everyone was listening to in China. Those were the two genres, because... Nobody was there to teach us.

This is metal, this is punk, this is grunge, this is garage, this is emo. We were just not clear on this in the beginning. All the young had was the recordings, nothing else. And so he was listening to all of this stuff. With no context. Again, Kaiser Gour. No understanding of what this particular album is in the history of rock.

No sense that the Beatles came before ACDC, or that ACDC came before Nirvana. Certainly no sense of what was quote unquote good. So for example, the Beatles and Bob Dylan, a lot of people complain about their sound or just very common sounds. Wait, wait, wait. People thought Bob Dylan and the Beatles were underwhelming.

Yeah. And in their place, what folks were drawn to was... God, there were so many obscure bands. For example... This really obscure, Finnish, symphonic metal band called Sonata Arctica. There were a lot of them that were like that. Stratoverius, get it? I think also from Finland, Finland was overrepresented here, but cannibal corpse.

They're Floridian death metal band. They're big, sort of. But I started seeing their cassettes all over in China. And for Kaiser, this was all sort of horrifying. You know, I would say, for example, you got to start with the beetles and the stones and the who. And you can't skip, because, you know, Nirvana doesn't make sense unless you understand

what it was in reaction to. Well, and I totally get that. Like I studied jazz saxophone for 10 years. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is all about knowing exactly what came before what. Right, right. And knowing who played what lick when and quoting those licks

and your solos to demonstrate a knowledge or an understanding of the form. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. Like, there is value in understanding something in its context. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

However, Kaiser says, I mean, I kick myself now for having done this sort of school of rock teaching. Because he says of what happened next. Mid 2000s, Kaiser is at a music festival in China. And who does he run into? But Le Young and the band he's fronting called De Marit. De Marit's the New Year show.

I see these guys. They show up to Soundcheck. And they've got, you know, gigantic Mo Hawks, denim jackets and the spikes on the Chuck Taylors. gigantic mohawks, denim jackets and spikes on the chuck tailors. They're dressed like a punk band, which is what Lee Young was going for. He says in hindsight the stuff he was listening to was, but Kaiser notices that under this punk exterior, they're wearing iron maiden t-shirts. The Kaiser notices that under this punk exterior, because Iron Maiden is one of the classic

heavy metal bands that plays these crazily technical songs with intricate guitar solos. Like punk and metal is just a total musical mismatch. But then later that day when it was demerits, slot to perform. They get up and they start playing their songs and they're like a punk major chords. Exactly what Kaiser expected from a punk band. Kind of brash, bratty vocal. But then partway through the song. They bust into these dual guitar solos. It's where they're, you know, they're shredding in tight harmony.

It's this chimera of 70s American punk in 80s British metal. And it's like, whoa! I thought it was an America. This is a punk band that would bother to, you know, apply that much technique. And the metal band that would have been okay with that aesthetic. But it was great. It was like, this is a music I could really get into. And so I talked to them. I'm asking.OK 跟那些是好的但是這就是很好的這就是很好的 這就是很好的

這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的

這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的

這就是很好的 這就是很好的 這就是很好的這就是很好的這就是很好的這就是很好的這就是很好的 There was something freeing, but he didn't know what it all was. That's right. We didn't have any rules. He could just make stuff. Make music. Mixing everything together.

The way that he wanted to. He was able to make music liberated from its own history or expectations. And all across China, other musicians were doing the same thing, obliviously mixing rock with bebop, with outlaw country, with classical. It was such an odd, completely disembodied borrowing.

It was like free of context, free of obligation. It was like taking a plant away from its soil, dusting off any residue of the old soil, and putting it in this totally different soil, with a different pH level, different level, you know, amount of sunlight, it's gonna grow differently and it did. It's sort of the mixtape on the grandest of scales.

Exactly, exactly. And the impact that it had on that generation was just utterly profound. For him, the biggest impact of Daco Cossess was not music. It was about him finding a new way to think about the world. Maybe he didn't know he was searching for it, but when he heard it, he was like, oh.

Yeah. Maybe he didn't know he was searching for it, but when he heard it, he was like, Oh. I would be like this. I would be like this. I would be like this. Yeah. That's me. I would be like this. If I had a change of 10 people, it would be a change. So, Daco, it was just like a little window.

There were a lot of changes. You would be like this. And then... Everything came rushing in. Now, what strikes me about all this, more than anything, is that we're all sort of living in this world. From Spotify playlists that span eras and genres, to the scattershot of news we consume, and then weave into our own understanding of what's happened. I mean our tastes, our beliefs, our realities, are a collage, a mixtape of decontextualized

and then recontextualized snippets. Next week, we're leaving China and going back to the moment, this remixed existence began. We've got the story of the first splice in our reality. And the two men, one you definitely know, one who you most definitely don't, who made it happen. Mix Tape is reported, produced, scored, and sound designed by me Simon Adler with original music throughout by me. In-Value Boy, reporting and production assistance was provided by Eli Cohen. This episode also included original reporting from Nareko Ishigaki, Rebecca Cantor, and our amazing anonymous Chinese reporter. I'd like to take a moment to give special thanks to Paul DeGay, Juliet Christensen, Rebecca

Tuos DeBro, Nick Lyons, Michael Bull, Jiro Ishikawa, Haley Zhao, Megan Smolley, and Dianne Toto. This episode would not have come together without each and every one of them. We got another tape for you. Next week. Radio Lab was created by Jada Broomrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and La Tefnause are our co-hosts. Susie Lechtenberg is our executive producer and Dylan Keef is our director of sound design.

Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Brestler, Rachel Qsick, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gabel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindunya Nassambundam, Matt Kilti, Annie McEwen, Alex Niesen, Sarah Kari, Aryan Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. With help from Tanya Chabla, Shima Oliai, and Sarah Sondbach, our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emilyliai, and Sarah Sondbach. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Adam Shibil.