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Oisin Hendrickse - Brighton
My name is Oisin Hendrickse and I front a music collective by the name of the Guerilla Sound Movement (gsm).
21/05/2010 20:11:00
GSM LAUNCH PARTY!!!!!!!
Just off've the very popular St. James Street, Brighton, down a small sidestreet and opposite an unfortunate residential estate lies the small but resiliant Latest Music bar, a venue that like the GSM has played host to a wide spectrum of talents; Boasting two floors, an upstairs with P.A. and downstairs with a much heavier sound system, the Latest Music bar seemed perfect to host the first GSM Showcase, with bands and songwriters upstairs for the Alternative Stage and D.J's and M.C's downstairs, with the sub-woofer and good sound system - Unfortunately, two weeks before the event their manager told us we would only be able to take one of the stages, as the other had been double booked for the Brighton Jazz Orchestra (!) so with only 10 days to go I had to squeeze14 hours of young musicians into7 hours...! Considering everything, it went off without a hitch; Caitlin Stubbs opened the songwriters section with a passionate set on both the keyboard and guitar, accompanied also by Tim Lambert, a budding cellist from Brighton; they were followed by the urban acoustic duo Robin & James who's trip-hop lyrics and classic indie riffs kept the crowd bouncing. Local band Houston Has A Problem tore up the stage with some heavy punk rock savagery, check out the slideshow for some animated photos!!! Kicking off the Urban stage was TC & Gizmo, jumped up MC's from brighton, who were followed by the highly explosive Tenchoo, Ekyro & Omerta; this trio of wordsmiths had the audience stamping through the floor, they hyped the crowd up past the point of control, it was off the hook, and straight after them the hip-hop headliner Big L3W set the stage on fire with Beau Manston, promoting his new album, 'I Eat People'. As the urban stage shut down we could tell the venue were hoping we'd leave; NO CHANCE, we still had 3 DJ's who were chomping at the bit; D.J. Dodgermann opened up the decks with a seriously easy dubbed out session, followed by DJ Del Santo, breakin out the fidget, some electro - I don't know what he played, all I know is we rushed the stage and raved it to death; with only 45 minutes to go DJ Ragoh Wizzard got up on the decks to school the dancefloor in some insanity, with the Dirtiest Most Banging Breakcore Set Ever Imagined, featuring his own DirtCore remix of the Rocky Horror Picture Shows 'T-T-T-T-T-Touch me'. As the clock hit half one, the lights of the venue came on, the last ravers slumped into chairs and one of the cones blew in the speaker like a fat lady singing in the end of a good night... Thanks to Everyone on the GSM team who made this great night happen, Chloe Branwhite for managing the stage, Sam Chase for helping sort out the equipment issues, And A GSM Represent to Oscar De Rocha who missed hosting the event due to incarceration - NEXT EVENT 25th MAY!!!! GUERILLA MOVEMENT AT THE VOLKS!!!!
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27/03/2010 02:48:00
March's Update - A Busy Month
I haven't blogged in a little while, but you know, I take that to be a good thing, I have been so involved with everything I haven't even though of it. Thats a lie, I thought of it and filed it under 'consider procrastination'. When I was young I use to keep a diary, and reading it now is such a despressing endevour because whenever I was Happy I wouldn't find the time to write anything at all. Paints a pretty self involved view of this blogs author. Oh well.
I've been running around town this month, alot of organising and alot of phoning, and it's all coming together nicely; the Latest Music bar have neglected to get back to me about exactly how much it's gonna cost to put the Launch event on, but thats a month away, I'm not going to start freaking out until the flyers absolutely Have to be printed, which is when I'll need a guarantee that the venue is solid, and thats not for another two days so thats all good...
Following the closure of our favorite little art gallery/coffee shop, The Hanover Canteen, the GSM saturday Meetings have been relocated to The Cowley Club, London Road. From 5 till 7 we'll be inviting Britains, but probably only Brightons creative populace down to get involved with the inner workings of the Guerilla Movement; Our first meeting will be this Saturday, 27th March; feel free to come down.
I booked a recording studio and put together a team of volunteers to train in the studio as the GSM production team; five guys, no girls - don't meet many female producers, it's strange, it'd be good to see - and together with the musicians we've picked up we're gonna record the first GSM Podcast, a monthly show featuring live sessions, interviews and exclusive tracks. Quite a number of young producers out there looking to get some experience, I'm thinking of circulating a new team every month, alot of reaction from college students and out of education producers, I felt bad only really being able to fit five. The first session was supposed to be today (Friday 26th) but they phoned us this morning and said they wouldn't be relinquishing responsibility of the keys and access code until they recieved the full £200 (we've paid £100 already) so we'd have to wait till next week. A bit of a dowse as I hadn't taken a reciept; the studio manager, Ben, said he didn't have a reciept book and would have to get one for me the Friday I came into the Studio, so if they did decide to bend me over I'll have no proof they have my money... and for this I am fretting. A little. They seemed nice, and greatly apologetic for having to favour security over trust.... theres alot of equipment in there, I can appreciate that. What else, what else...
Scouted alot of young talent for the Launch Party, going to see some bands on Monday hopefully, as Brighton Bands is what we are lacking, most of the alternative acts are singer songwriters... It's late, I started this blog literally Hours ago and I think it's time to draw it to a close, I've burnt my brain out so much I don't even know whats next on the list of updates... It's a real test putting this together with no money, I'm praying that my CRB comes plopping through the letterbox so I can charge on, theres a list of people I can pick from for a reference, just need someone close enough to sign it...
Suddenly, and with no warning Oisin slumped slightly forward, and, sighing into his keyboard emitted a low frustrated groan, which escalted sharply to a grunt. Sleep had eluded him these past few years, as he travelled the treachorous road up through manhood; his nights were troubled with thoughts of change, and constancy, how humanity could struggle to instigate one in lew of the other, thoughts of love that had been stirred and forgotten, and how quickly it seemed to have forgotten him. His sleep had become terrible, and frantic, short, fleeting periods of miasmic confusion where familiar demons swarmed to claw at his anklebone as he ran through the endless dusty corridors of archaic, mahogany institutions pursued by the raging doubts that festered in the forefront of his flaccid lobe; they drilled, these doubts. They drilled their way through, like a poison worm infesting his third eye and blinding him until all his waking days were filled with the screams of someone elses insecurity, every dead girl before a vanity mirror, every sweating man above their weeping lover, every school child struck dumb at the butt of a teacher made cold and pretentious by a Society that did not love Life, their screams would fill his days like smog until he would choke on them. As the pool of saliva that had collected in his cheek ran over and dribbled onto the desk, Oisin's head slipped from the cup of his hand and hit the desk, and he woke with a start.
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05/03/2010 23:06:00
The First GSM Urban Acoustic Open Mic Night!!!!
The Guerilla Sound Movement Open Mic, at the Hanover Canteen on Elm Grove, was a HUGE success. And considering the size of the venue, thats really saying something.
It almost didn't happen, on the morning of the first open mic, Jin, the owner of the small arts cafe, called us with the bad news that they were unable to stay open the extra 2 hours, due to staff!! Which, I guess is all well and good but on the morning of the event? Still, after much begging, and offering for Chloe Branwhite, the GSM photographer, to work the coffee machines, we were given the go ahead. After the Saturday meeting we got stuck in to transforming the lounge like downstairs into a small staged area, and by 6 o'clock it looked decidedly boudoir, a small mirror-ball dancing a slightly tacky red filtered light around the underground room.
The performances were top, with an Urban Acoustic twist to the night we invited a few Hip-Hop artists down to lay some lyrics down over the acoustic guitar, Big L3W and Hybrid Cypher on the microphone and Oisin Hendrickse on the guitar; Hip Hop Acoustic duo Robin Norris and James Heathy played a chilled original set, + Caitlin Stubbs delivered a hypnotic few songs; there were a few covers,Tenacious D's Tribute from Uther Vagliviello amongst others, plus loads more excellent performances from our musical guests.
Unfortunately, devastatingly and agonizingly the Hanover Canteen, which has been the meeting place for the GSM volunteers on saturdays, and was the venue of our open mic night has been CLOSED DOWN!!! Horror of horrors, they couldn't afford to stay open which is a shame, it was a really lovely venue and the open mic we had went great.... well, we're searching for another one, should have info on our new meeting space soon!!
A huge thanks to Chloe Branwhite, Jake Cordal, Oskar De Rocha and Mary Platts of the GSM team for getting this night rolling, and to everyone who performed on the night, it went down without a hitch. Heres to Next time!!!
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07/02/2010 15:11:00
Sweet Christ I'm Swimming in treacle....
For some reason - or not for some reason, but because Lloyds TSB are a gallery of flaccid intellects - I'm being refused a bank account. Also because the Cooperative don't seem to do a current account without at least a £200 overdraft. Is our country really so mired in the debting - sorry, banking system WE CREATED that we have to force our customers into borrowing? It's almost guaranteed that I wouldn't have to spend a penny before their charges start eating into their little bear trap. Hmm. I'm off to drink some bleach. Seems like a year in trauma could be the most profitable path in this 'recession' of the rich. The only time I even Notice the Credit Crunch is when some wide belt conglomerate chairman decides his war isn't funded well enough and it's time to boost the bank charges. I don't know if it's a secret or not but the crop system doesn't rise and fall with the economy, maybe it's niave to say but not having insurance, a mortgage, loans or credit to pay off kinda makes 'the failure of mans transient banking system' more an I told you so situation then anything to fear...
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03/02/2010 15:14:00
Saturday Sessions + the Story So Far.
The planning sessions for this years push have started, every saturday at a little cafe on Elm Grove, Brighton; a place called the Hanover Canteen, nice little boheme artspace/coffee shop. Nicely enough they've said they want to put on an open mic night, which they'd love for us to organise and promote. Fantastic opportunity; We've also got a slot at the Brighton Fringe Festival, which is all over Brighton from the 15th of April till 3rd May, which you should all definately check out; we haven't booked a venue yet but I'll definately post back with more on that; I'll call it
GSM; The Fringe Festival Line-Up
so look out for that :P
The Meetings have been great, already a huge bank of musicians within our collective grapevine, and the whole crew seem full of ideas to expand our little enterprise. The design element is heavy in the air at the moment, Website design, Logo etc. The website is proving to be a pitfall, so if anyone knows any Website designers who would be interested in putting something together please get them to contact us.
Just Add 'Guerilla Movement' on facebook
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25/12/2009 14:17:00
Merry Christmas From The GSM!!!!!
Is it lazy that I'm taking christmas off planning? Probably no more than it is antisocial for me to be blogging on christmas day!!!! Everythings going great, people are already pouring their ideas in, I feel like the volunteers I've got are perfect for the road ahead, with a wealth of vision and ambition floating around - the Welcome note will be posted up on the 01.01.10... wonder what that means in binary code? It feels very much like an important stage in our great little era, don't you feel? And definately a curtain call, if not preparing for the descent from a lofty peak...Merry christmas. Only two more till the End of the Old Ways. Whatever that means.
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22/12/2009 16:03:00
A WHOLE MONTH OF BLOGGERY!
SORRY FOR THE ABSOLUTE NOVELLA OF BLOGS HERE, BUT I'VE ONLY JUST MANAGED TO GET ONLINE: HERE'S DECEMBERS UPDATE!!! READ THE VOLUNTEERS WELCOME NOTE FOR AN OUTLINE AND BRIEF HELLO FROM THE GSM, AND STAND BY FOR A FACE BY FACE INTRODUCTION TO THE TEAM!
JOIN US AT 'GUERILLA MOVEMENT' ON FACEBOOK
OR MYSPACE.COM/GUERILLA_SOUND_MOVEMENT
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22/12/2009 15:57:00
The First GSM Volunteers Meeting – Thursday 10th December
As the days crept on toward the first GSM meeting, and the list of volunteers was whittled down to the few remaining six, a certain panic began to settle into my bones; 70% of the people I had invited had dropped out at the last minute, uninterested in an idea that had yet to take any form of root, and another three had cancelled on other accounts, still hoping to be involved. In the end, and as providence would have it, I felt like I was left with the team that would most WANT to be involved, rather then being open to the possibility of having to motivate people into creating. Which never really works, and isn’t what I needed. I needed people to give responsibility to, people eager to apply their craft. At 5:30pm on Thursday me and five other young creative minds sat down in the meeting room of the YOS building in central Brighton and I set about trying to inspire them to join the Guerilla Sound Movement. I didn’t want anything too intense, just for everyone to meet each other, see the talents we have on display, and in the small intimate room get a feel for the kind of feeling and scene I wanted to create here – a collection of artists from all walks of life coming forward to promote and inspire each others creation, and the worlds. Well, the bank of volunteers has grown by seven – the future of the GSM is looking bright.
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22/12/2009 15:55:00
The Big Challenge Residential 4th – 6th December
Up in the freezing fields of Chester, in a small homey chalet type conference hotel, around 40 pioneers of the human condition sat bouncing ideas around on how to save the smogged and flaccid world from its own psychological bricks and mortar. I was surprised to find, out of the 15 Big Challenge winners, how few of the projects were Arts based – it’s an arrogant belief amongst creatives that art is the only thing that can save the world and unify, a prejudice only too happily broken by the range of projects being undertaken here – and relished in the opportunity to drink the varied intellects around me.
With each prize winner being paired with a kind of ‘Peer Support’ volunteer, the monitoring system seemed tailored to be unintrusive, but encouraging; the was weekend filled with intensive talks on campaigning, promotion, blogging, and the passion and relevance of it all steered the event well away from the hotel conference, stuffed shirt environment I had been fearing. My Youth Leadership Team peer, Sarah, became quickly adept at reigning in the demented notions that rattled my scrambled brain and was a great help in fine tuning the organisation, and generally turning my brainstorm into a mind map. The speakers were inspiring, down to earth and the leaders were interesting and without condescension managed to make our time seem more a meeting of ideas and a bouncing of projects then a guideline conference on how to spend our winnings. The whole experience made me feel confident to have the support network of the team; the idea of bringing a lifelong dream into fruition is a scary concept. Because at the end of the day I feel like it’s not a prize I’ve won, it’s a responsibility, an opportunity, a little money to put where my mouth is.
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22/12/2009 15:54:00
Brighton & The Big Challenge
It’s hard to imagine that your idea might be worth funding, to the kind of organisations that have the kind of money you need. Every dream must seem so small and precious to the dreamer, just having one makes the world seem so much more... valuable. It was quite late in 2009 when I heard about the Big Challenge, Unltds nationwide search for social entrepreneurs still at Dream level of production; I’d already applied to the princes trust some years before, but with some experience and a skin some inches thicker I felt no fear from my previous rejection as I tapped out my application on someone else’s computer, still in someone else’s house. I was confident in my application; it wasn’t that I ‘knew’ I was going to win, or even that I thought my dream to be particularly prolific sat there amongst the righteous endeavours of Britain’s many thousands of dreamers, but it was time; the GSM had been a ‘pipe dream’ for so long that I was set to give up if something didn’t come along soon. I can handle having had a bad idea, even a childish ambition – hell, at one point I wanted to be the Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi – but if it’s time to give up then it’s time. This was the Guerilla Sound Movement’s last chance to catch the eye of a power that Be’d before I flung it head first into the miasmic sea of lost dreams and got a job pedalling charity in a call centre in Hove... In October I read with great self-doubt that the GSM had been shortlisted, and it was time to get the votes in.
You never really recognize the power of a strong support network, good friends, family and fraternity until you enter an election like this, until you have something you love at stake. I don’t know how, but somewhere between my little brothers, the London GSM crew, West London’s SGI Buddhists and a lot of help from Jo Bates and the Brighton youth services in their good and many, my small arts collective dedicated to enlightening the world with creation managed to secure itself a generous grant of £5000. I turned a good few angry heads in the library when I found out, and have been wracked in ecstatic planning ever since; this money is going to go a long way, a huge step on the long road ahead.
Late in November I met my first representative of the Big Challenge, Abby Kegg, and together we had a fairly intense scan over my strengths and weaknesses. More and more I began to feel like my dream, my little kingdom was about to become tangible, and it was beginning to stretch my fingers...
As time went on it began to crush me, the responsibility involved with the ideas I had, the money and time – and there’s only one person on the GSM staff. I began making a list of all the artists I knew in Brighton, all the people I could dupe into joining the GSM 1st team, delegate a little responsibility so to speak! Jo Bates, who throughout the application process was a Godsend, procured me the use of the Youth Offending Service meeting room and I set about contacting names for my first Meeting of Minds. By December 1st I had a good healthy list for my team of volunteers, all that was left was to wait for the 10th to roll by, broken up nicely by the Big Challenge Residential on the 4th.
It’s important, above all else, that you understand how integral every one of you is to the success of this project, how vital your talent and personality is going to be, how much of a catalyst, a fuel your creation can be. For now we are in Brighton, and to all in Brighton we want your art on the stage; but if my dream flowers in the way I hope then it’s the creation of our entire Island that I want to make public; Britain’s first media platform of Free Expression, dedicated to and produced by Grass Roots creatives, the Unsigned Channel. An entire world of our creation.
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22/12/2009 15:53:00
Leaving London
London is an elitist scene...if it was obvious anywhere that the evils of the media were set to segregate and control then it’s obvious there... and the GSM is too small, too weak, too much of a piss in the ocean to make any real waves. It might sound stupid to the people able to ignore the lies, and the games that come with everyday life in the metropolis but I feel like the very knowledge of human understanding is a responsibility to live a life of unfulfilled misery and alienation, trading lies for good company or holding your tongue, trapped under a glass ceiling of cloud cover caught in storm between integrity, shame, and the intrinsic nature of self awareness... All of which is only to say I know you, as I know myself.
I know why you raise your backs when you see that my skin, like yours is tanned under a cold sun. I know why you paint yourself in paste and pigment, I know why you pay to relieve your guilt £2 a month and why every night you go home from work and lay in your bed and know deep within your heart that on the other side of the wall is a world rich and green, pregnant with opportunity and restricted by the Chubb lock and key that holds what little space you control from spilling out into the chaotic miasma you battle through each morning. All of this I know, because in me, they have cut the same wounds as you, all of you in the smoky, gagging metropolis, my mind has been twisted by the flashing neon, tinted by St. Nicks red, white and black and I too have been fed to the demons of the spirit realm. And it kills me, because all I’ll ever want to do is tell them all that it’s okay, no one need worry, there’s nothing to fear but our fear itself, just don’t Do it and it WON’T HAPPEN! But march after march we sign our petitions and smash our broken skulls against the wall and may after May they trample their selfish way across the hopes of an entire species.
Oh, my sweet and naive London, like spoilt Americas juvenile uncle, middle aged and well to do but still choking youth from his pig idiot nephews childish and poison ideals, dressing in lambskins and blowing saccharin plastic idols across our screens to capture the tame beast inside us and drag him, snarling and wild to be sacrificed and judged at the great superficial alter of the BBC... How much I want to scream from Hampstead Heath my wish to save you, cradle your waning souls in my hands and wring out the poison that makes us so lazy, so eager to insult and judge... I want to pluck out your eyes for 10 years so you can want and WANT for the beauty that pours from every one of us, to sear your ears closed that you could know the explicit joy of a world without your lies, Agh! London I want to grab you and shake you till you vomit and see how sick you’ve made the Silver City, and how sick you make me... I once made a Promise that I would not die until my hands had done all they could to shape this brittle world to the beautiful dream it could be, and I would not run. Well, I’m not running, because London isn’t the world. It just seems to be the problem, the oil spill in this great ocean and if I’m going to do anything about it then my dreams are going to need work. The G.S.M is too small, too weak, too much of a piss in the ocean to make any real waves in a city this big... me and Chloe are considering moving to Brighton, for the fresh air, to get out of the city really, I think it will do us both good to be away from the aggro, see if I can’t make a few waves down by the coast.
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22/12/2009 15:52:00
GSM Genesis - Humble Beginnings
Back in school I came up with the Idea to amass an army. Seemed to me an army was building on the other side of the wall and no rebel force existed to oppose it – the people of this world were being fed to an ineffable monster, by a lying empire that existed on an entirely untouchable plain of existence. The musicians, creatives, media role models and messages themselves seemed to be growing in their number and dishonesty, becoming more and more like spin doctors of a dark and plastic propaganda than mongers of the Arts of humanity. The John Lennons, Bob Marleys, Bill Hicks and Jimi Hendrix’s of this world seemed to die on the commercial frontlines of the war between personal freedom and consumer excess, whilst Iggy Pop, Paul McCartney, and countless others back over the steaming progression of ‘celebrity endorsement’ have fattened themselves preaching the poison, subliminal messages of the corporate entity, the Disney corporation, the Tobacco industry. No art form has been safe from the spindled fingers of the government. Not since we gave them the Media.
As you’d probably have thought, the dream became a little less militant over the next 10 years, but the element remained, it seemed to me that there was no platform of expression designed to present the peoples art, the ones we see everyday in the street, the unsigned bands and unsung artists of our communities cropping up in sporadic flourishes across the minor media, only to be snapped up by the conglomerate entity, packaged and assimilated, or ignored and brushed over with the next big thing. It became my dream, my focus. I wanted to create an entity of artists, all the artists, a glowing web spanned across the isles and we, together would present our OWN work, print our OWN words, and be the lips that spoke our message. The possibilities in drawing from such a vast bank of minds would be endless.
In 2007 I began plans for a series of showcases, promoting my small collection of grass roots musicians under a name that resonated with me, seemed to capture the ethos of my plight perfectly; the Guerilla Sound Movement. ‘Rebel Music Army’ had been thrown around but GSM seemed non aggressive but pointed enough to last. On the 29th March 2008 we had our first event, 7 performances, Hip Hop, Rock and Acoustic over an evening. Not a screaming success, we half filled the 300 capacity venue in west London. With no outside funding, and with help from friends and family and a very lenient manager, somehow we managed to pull off another two events, and the feeling of community was Great. When the bands didn’t turn up and the host was flustered, the crowd was always receptive and it didn’t matter one bit that we didn’t break even once, we were bringing music to the peoples, man...
We lasted a year before the pressures of having no base of operations, no funding and no home forced the GSM into dormancy, and deeper planning, but this ‘Pilot’ period had proved to me that the artists and fans of at least my little corner of the world could see the need for my personal campaign, my multi genre movement of free expression, and I was inspired, to take my dream to Mt. Mariah and have it tested under blade.
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19/12/2009 13:49:00
This World is Not Yours if you Don't Have a Screen.
I don't have the internet at my home, so I've taken to writing all my blogs on the old precarious P.C. that sits in my room. I didn't buy it, it belongs to my partner, my computer is gathering dust in the garage at home; I've written about seven pages now, an update on the whole GSM, the events in 2009, the Big Challenge competition, the residential in chester; but the library at the computer can't handle the version of word I use. And the computer cafe doesn't have office facilities; they have every game you can think of, any console, but they don't have Microsoft Word, the most basic function of a 21st century computer.
So this is my first blog; you can't do ANYTHING, know anything, or enjoy your life without a screen in this century, and it disgusts me. I feel like a world so lazy that it's whittled down it's every working process to a systematic twitching of the fingers, if not only to aswer the door to a delivery man you don't even have to speak to anymore, a world this lazy is not worth trying to save. In a world this lazy it's not hard to see why our greatest artistic emissarys are suger coated children selling loose sex and a cosmetic lifestyle, why our children don't respect us and why our parents kick us out on our heels. It's because we know theres a problem, with both seed and tree; a problem with everything we create at the insipid and toxic jobs we work in the City of London, a problem with every truth and value we were taught by good old Papa T.V.
Maybe I'm just annoyed that I can't upload my documents. Oh well.
We Apologise For The Inconvenience - The GSM Knows You Are Waiting.
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