drawing by Sara Marshall

Mastering is the final stage of the recording process. I am very pleased I got to master my new album “Lover’s Cliche” with Mike Gibson of Munki Mastering in Wellington, New Zealand. February 9, 2012
Such a pleasure!

Munki Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Munki-Studios/243785812343165?sk=info

Film Crew and Editing of Video done by Roderick Fransham
www.roderickfransham.com

Special thanks to Barista at Supreme Coffee (yummy coffee in Wellington)

http://www.coffeesupreme.com/

Plus thanks to Zack Proteau and Miguel Zelaya for giving me “Preparing for Mastering” notes.

Also thank U to Samuel Scott and Craig Paul Terris for referring me to Mike Gibson.

Biggest thank U to folks on Kickstarter for pledging money so that I could afford to Master this album. I couldn’t have done this without all of U!

Song used in video is by Uni and her Ukelele
“I Often Think Of U” off of new album “Lover’s Cliche”

South Island Tour with Johanna Mystery and Friends Feb 17-24th!

Uni and her Ukelele will be joining Johanna Mystery and Friends on a wee tour of the South Island in New Zealand.

Please repost and tell friends and family that live in these towns!!!

Feb 17th: QUEENSTOWN, Dux de Lux 8pm FREE
Feb 18th: OAMARU, The Penguin Club, 8pm door sales $10
Feb 19th: DUNEDIN, Chicks Hotel, 2pm door sale will be announced
Feb 23rd: CHRISTCHURCH, The Brewery, 8pm FREE
Feb 24th: NELSON, The Boathouse with The Nelson Ukulele Orchestra, doors open for meals and drinks. Show 8pm

Fun Stuff on Soundcloud

ding!

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Uni and her Ukelele will be joining Johanna Mystery and Friends on a wee tour of the South Island in New Zealand.

Please repost and tell friends and family that live in these towns!!!

Feb 17th: QUEENSTOWN, Dux de Lux 8pm FREE
Feb 18th: OAMARU, The Penguin Club, 8pm door sales $10
Feb 19th: DUNEDIN, Chicks Hotel, 2pm door sale will be announced
Feb 23rd: CHRISTCHURCH, The Brewery, 8pm FREE
Feb 24th: NELSON, The Boathouse with The Nelson Ukulele Orchestra, doors open for meals and drinks. Show 8pm

In Other News, I will be Mastering new album “Lover’s Cliche” this week and trying to talk some Wellington men into rollerskating with me!

ding!

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I have the pleasure of playing some shows this month with JoHanna Mystery

Baobab Cafe Wellington – Newtown – Fri 3rd Feb – JoHanna Mystery (w. Sage K & Ben Wood) + Uni & her Ukelele

“Lover’s CLiche” Update: Mastering Scheduled; It’s playlist making time!

I’m having that High Fidelity moment today. Like when John Cusack’s character is figuring out the perfect playlist for his mixtape. Well that’s me, trying to find out what my song order should be on “Lover’s Cliche”. It’s got to have the right vibe and flow, (how New Wave of me) a perfect balance of hits and sad bastard songs, I must do a good job or else!

I also need to have my song list sorted out because next Thursday “Lover’s Cliche” will be Mastered by Mike Gibson of Munki Studios in Wellington, New Zealand.

This week on Youtube
“Every Night” (Paul McCartney cover) performed by Uni

This week on Soundcloud
Field Recording: When u gonna make up your mind

ding!

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When Johnny Otis moved to Sebastopol, the whole county buzzed about the Sass-Slap of Soul Music he was giving every Friday and Saturday Night. I was about 17 at the time, and remember the first time I walked into Michelle’s Restaurant to see the Johnny Otis Show. The band was rocking and sweating all over the dancers and the dancers were, well the only frame of reference I had for it was the movie “Dirty Dancing”. And that Music!! I had never heard R&B, and I was so mad at my stale white upbringing for denying me such fantastic music. I was in love! I went back pretty much every weekend until Johnny Otis himself asked me to start singing back-ups in his band.

Johnny Otis used to call me “Disco Dancer”. He often gave me words of wisdom (like stop shaking it so much, they didn’t pay for that and when the song is done, stop singing). He introduced me to the wonderful world of R&B and Show Business…. I was very young when I sang in his band, and was scared speechless when around him and the other musicians. Because of him I got to open for the great James Brown and Ray Charles. He believed in me and I owe him so much gratitude. He was such a role model because he loved music so much he could see it in others, write it and lead the band.

Johnny Otis was the most prolific person I’ve ever known. This article captures his mojo. Forever love U Johnny! your Heather Marie

By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times

January 19, 2012
Pioneering rhythm-and-blues singer, songwriter, drummer, bandleader and disc jockey Johnny Otis made the kind of conscious life choice early on that few people have the inclination, or circumstance, to carry out.

Born white, the son of Greek immigrant parents, and raised in a predominantly black neighborhood in Northern California in the 1920s, Otis decided as a youth that he’d rather be black.

The choice put him on a path to a life in music during which he created the sensually pulsing 1958 hit “Willie and the Hand Jive.” It also gave him a deep connection to black culture that helped him discover such future stars of R&B and rock as Etta James, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard and Little Esther Phillips.

“Yes, I chose,” Otis told The Times in 1979, “because despite all the hardships, there’s a wonderful richness in black culture that I prefer.”

Otis died Tuesday in the Los Angeles area, where he had lived for much of his life, said Tom Reed, a black-music historian. He was 90.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Otis continued leading a big band R&B, jazz, soul, gospel and roots-rock revue in recent years, literally and figuratively beating the drum for the music that fired his imagination.

“I get a wave of pride in America when I look back at what we’ve accomplished in the field of music,” Otis told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000. “People are going to wake up to this great reservoir of music we’ve created in America — cakewalks, one-steps, boogie-woogie, country and western. I had a bit to do with one of those traditions.”

“I’m not suggesting our music is the only music,” he told The Times in 1986 when the once-endangered musical style he helped create was staging a comeback, “but I am suggesting that there are certain elements in America’s culture that are so precious that it would be a shame for them to go down the drain.”

He was born John Veliotes on Dec. 28, 1921, in Vallejo, northeast of San Francisco, and was raised in Berkeley, where his father ran a grocery store in a largely black community.

“When I got near teen age, I was so happy with my friends and the African American culture that I couldn’t imagine not being part of it,” Otis told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 1991.

He started playing drums with big bands and jazz combos, and in his early 20s came to L.A. to join Harlan Leonard’s Kansas City Rockers, the house band at Club Alabam on the thriving Central Avenue jazz-blues-R&B club scene.

“Man, you could go into one club and there’d be [jazz saxophone giant] Lester Young jamming, go into another and you’d find T Bone [Walker, the Texas blues guitarist and singer], and down the street Miles [Davis] would be blowing,” Otis said in 1979. “Yeah, L.A. was happening.”

But tough times in the late 1940s forced bandleaders to pare their large ensembles back to a small handful of players — the perfect size, as it turned out, for the new styles of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll that were emerging.

“To compensate for all the instruments we were eliminating, we had to put in some new ones, each with a fuller sound: an electric guitar, a blues guitar, a boogie piano,” Otis told The Times in 1984, and “the sound changed too, into more of a cross between swing and country blues…. We ended up creating a whole new art form: a hybrid music that became known as rhythm and blues.”

Otis scored a signature hit of that nascent style in 1946 with the moody, saxophone-driven instrumental “Harlem Nocturne,” which was revived in 1960 by the white New Jersey rock group the Viscounts.

At one point, Otis was asked to judge a talent competition in Detroit and selected three winners: Wilson, Ballard and Little Willie John. Otis’ talent, he once said, was being able to “see something before anyone else.”

He wrote the song that became James’ first charting hit — vaulting her to No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1955 — with “The Wallflower,” popularly known as “Roll With Me Henry.” It was a female-centric response to Ballard’s sexually charged hit “Work With Me Annie” that raised eyebrows for its frankness.

Then he came up with a variant on Bo Diddley’s signature 1955 hit “Bo Diddley” using the same five-count “shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits!” beat and created a smash of his own in “Willie and the Hand Jive.” It’s been recorded dozens of times by a wide variety of musicians, most notably by Eric Clapton in 1974.

Otis wrote other R&B hits, including “So Fine,” “Double Crossing Blues” and “All Nite Long,” and produced early recordings for Little Richard, Big Mama Thornton and Johnny Ace.

He also hosted early radio and television shows in L.A. and later guided new generations of listeners through music history on oldies radio shows at KPFK-FM (90.7) in L.A. and a sister station in the Bay Area.

With the British Invasion in the early 1960s, “the white boys from England came over with a recycled version of what we created. We were out of business, man,” Otis said in 1994.

He saw a brief revival of interest in original R&B in the late 1960s and 1970s, when he performed with a band that included his teenage son, Shuggie, on guitar. But with the arrival of disco, then punk, hard rock and heavy metal in the 1970s, Otis was effectively forced to retire.

He turned his home in the West Adams District into the nondenominational Landmark Church and became its pastor, often leading a choir that included some of the greatest voices in pop music, including James and Esther Phillips.

In 1968, he published the book “Listen to the Lambs,” a sociological critique he wrote in the wake of the Watts riots. He chronicled the music scene he knew so well in the 1994 book “Upside Your Head! Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue.” Otis even found his way into politics, serving as deputy chief of staff for Mervyn M. Dymally as the Democrat rose in state politics and served in the U.S. House of Representatives.

While cultivating his interest in painting and sculpture, Otis tended homegrown crops in Altadena and in Sebastopol in Northern California’s wine country. He also opened a short-lived grocery store and for a time marketed Johnny Otis Apple Juice.

“Today’s musicians are better technically,” Otis said in 1979, “but that’s not a virtue in itself. What’s important is the emotional impact…. Most rock or disco today doesn’t stir up anything in my heart — not the way a Picasso does, not the way the blues or gospel does.”

Otis and his wife of 60 years, Phyllis, had several children and grandchildren.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

One of my Favorite Johnny Otis originals
Sung by Gladys Knights & The Pips

In other news, I am heading to Whangamata for 5 days of swimming in the ocean!

every-night-paul-mccartney
Tags: uni every night paul McCartney ukelele piano
I always skipped over “Every Night” to get to “Maybe I’m Amazed” on the McCartney album. What a gem I’ve missed all these years. Here is attempt on the piano. Thanks to Roderick Fransham for helping me record it and let me be a bossypants. ding!

I always skipped over “Every Night” to get to “Maybe I’m Amazed” on the McCartney album. What a gem I’ve missed all these years.
Here is attempt on the piano.
Thanks to Roderick Fransham for helping me record it and let me be a bossypants.
“Every Night” (Paul McCartney Cover) by Uni and her Ukelele

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Happy New Year Everyone!!!

See how Mary Van Note, DJ Real and Uni and her Ukelele spent their NYE!!!

I’m so thankful to have met my goal on Kickstarter. Thank U to everyone who pledged and reposted. If U still want to pre-order the album “Lover’s Cliche” there are a few more days left on Kickstarter. I will be posting updates as I finish Mastering, Artwork and Pressing of this album.

I’m heading to New Zealand this week! Gonna enjoy friends and have a Kiwi Summer.

ding!
Uni and her Ukelele

p.s. I hope Music always makes U feel this way!

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SFBG › Noise ›
Localized Appreesh: Uni & Her Ukelele
12.06.11 – 11:52 am | Emily Savage |

A girl and her uke.
Localized Appreesh is our weekly thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. Each week a band/music-maker with a show, album release, or general good news is highlighted and spotlit. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

This is the time of year when sparkly holiday affairs are everywhere. Depending on your current state of mind, these tinsel-coated, candy-caned, dreidal-spun affairs can stink like commercial biz abominations, or warm like twinkling, nostalgia-inducing winter shindigs. With San Francisco act Uni & Her Ukelele opening up for the Yule Logs (a band that just released an album called You Ruined Christmas) at Amnesia, the evening is bound for greatness. It’s the seventh annual “Christmas is the Best” show, and both holiday-loving acts play clever and folky power-pop with tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek sweetness.

Uni & Her Ukelele can’t avoid the sugar, given the doe-eyed, oft-frilly skirted uke mistress at the band’s helm, Heather Marie Ellison. She writes songs (and records) like 2006′s “My Favorite Letter is U” and a covers album that includes “Tonight You Belong to Me” (which brings to mind the best ever use of uke in film – Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters strolling the beach in The Jerk). She even uses her signature sign-off (Ding!) to end emails. It’s giving me a toothache.

Year and location of origin: 2005. Uni & Her Ukelele began in Hollywood.
Band name origin: Uni is short for Unicorn.
Band motto: Light Rock Less Talk!
Description of sound in 10 words or less: Dreamy, melodic, folk-pop that is emotional and melancholy, but also funny.
Instrumentation: Vocals and ukelele, although on the album there’s a full band.
Most recent release: I’m doing a Kickstarter right now to finish my fourth full length album, Lover’s Cliché.
Best part about life as a Bay Area band: There are many places to play and good bands/acts to share the bill with.
Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: At the end of the show, it’s hard walking away without money.
First record/cassette tape/or CD ever purchased: Wham Make It Big.
Most recent record/cassette tape/CD/or Mp3 purchased/borrowed from the Web: I just bought Tom Petty’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Favorite local eatery: Green Chili Kitchen.

Seventh Annual Christmas is the Best
Uni and her Ukelele
With Yule Logs
Sun/11, 9pm, $7
Amnesia
853 Valencia, SF
www.amnesiathebar.com

A tender portrait:

Band of the Week Holidays Localized Appreesh Music Uni and Her Ukelele

“You Ruined Christmas Tour” with The Yule Logs Dec 8-11

Thursday, Dec. 8th

Duffy’s in Chico    Facebook event

Friday, Dec. 9th

Crepe Place in Santa Cruz   Facebook Event

Saturday, Dec 10th

Murphy’s Irish Pub in Sonoma  Facebook Event

Sunday, Dec 11th

7th Annual “Christmas Is The Best” at Amnesia  Facebook Event

Please feel the Christmas Spirit with us at these shows!!!!

Yule Logs Website

Uni and her Ukelele’s Kickstarter Project!

Thank U to all who have pledged to my Kickstarter! I still have a ways to go. I must reach my goal by Jan 13th, or risk not having the funds to finish album “Lover’s Cliche”. Pre-Order “Lover’s Cliche” today!

Enjoy Kickstarter Video

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Wishing U a Happy Holidays!

Shows:

Every Tuesday from 10:30-11:30, I play for the toddlers at Recess

Tuesday, Nov. 29th

Stork Club in Oakland, Featuring Adrian Bourgeois, Brandon Decker, Graham Patzner and Uni & Her Ukelele.

Wednesday, Nov. 30th

Daytime: Private Party with Dottie Lux

Evening: Red Hots Burlesque at El Rio. Doors open at 7:30

Saturday, Dec 3rd 

The Paper Dolls will play Sunrise Mall behind the Sears, In Sacramento    9:30-1 pm  info@bemoneysmartusa.org www.bemoneysmartusa.org

Sunday, Dec 4th

The Paper Dolls play a farmer’s market at Carmichael Park  9:30-1 pm
info@bemoneysmartusa.org www.bemoneysmartusa.org

“You Ruined Christmas Tour” with The Yule Logs Dec 8-11

Thursday, Dec. 8th

Duffy’s in Chico    Facebook event

Friday, Dec. 9th

Crepe Place in Santa Cruz   Facebook Event

Saturday, Dec 10th

Murphy’s Irish Pub in Sonoma  Facebook Event

Sunday, Dec 11th

7th Annual “Christmas Is The Best” at Amnesia  Facebook Event

Please feel the Christmas Spirit with us at these shows!!!!

Yule Logs Website

Uni and her Ukelele’s Kickstarter Project!

Thank U to all who have pledged to my Kickstarter! I still have a ways to go. I must reach my goal by Jan 13th, or risk not having the funds to finish album “Lover’s Cliche”. Pre-Order “Lover’s Cliche” today!

Enjoy Kickstarter Video

Fun friends that make fun things U can check out!

Happy Darling’s 5th Episode is up!

Free on ITunes

A comedy podcast winging its way from Wellington, New Zealand to your earholes. Roderick Fransham and Clayton Foster take into account, and hold to account, culture, life and love, worklife and other things that you’re definitely interested in. Did you know that Julian Assange put coffee paste behind his ears to seduce women? Or that Jesus has a sword? You would if you listened to Happy Darling, or if you read this sentence. We play music too, and we think you’ll like it. We really do.

Watch trailer of new movie starring Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall) “The Immigrant” You’re welcome Canada!

ding!
Uni and her Ukelele

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November 14th marks day 1 of Uni and her Ukelele’s Finishing New Album “Lover’s Cliche” Kickstarter!

(artwork by Rick Whitmore)

I need to raise $5000 by January 14th!
Please repost, pass around the office and tell your Mom about this project!

Please visit the sight to see the awesome pledge package deals. Find out why I need to raise 5000 dollars. Read about the making of “Lover’s Cliche”, and so much more.

“Lover’s Cliche” Kickstarter Page

Stay tuned for updates and fun deals!

ding!

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The Paper Dolls are gearing up for a mini weekend tour! Sparkle-lee bits in check! Mic chords, cds and lipstick ready to go!

We will be performing at Taste of Himalaya (The Du) in Sonoma Nov. 11th from 8-10p.m. 464 1st St E in the Katmandu Corner, across from Murphy’s Irish Pub

Nov. 12th The Paper Dolls will play Sunrise Mall behind the Sears, In Sacramento    9:30-1 pm  info@bemoneysmartusa.org www.bemoneysmartusa.org

Later that night the Paper Dolls will be performing at the Art Bazaar in SAC 1115 H St. 7-10. Mary Van Note (comedy) is performing that night too! Check out Art Bazaar on Facebook

Nov. 13th The Paper Dolls are a farmer’s market at Carmichael Park  9:30-1 pm

The Paper Dolls are also meeting up with friend Zack Proteau to work on a Paper Dolls collection of songs. Here’s alittle more info about that!

Lookie, lookie! The Paper Dolls are recording an album of our faves – originals and covers. We need some sweet art for the cover of our album – so we’re putting the word out, right here and now – send us your finest. The winner gets something REALLY GOOD. What is it? We will record a personalized video-gram for you – song of your choice – to give to yourself or a loved one. Take THAT! This drawing is all we have so far…obviously we need your help. Maybe something that doesn’t make us look quite so ugly and stumpy. I swear we don’t look like that in real life.

In other News, I’ve been working on a Kickstarter to raise money to finish Uni and her Ukelele’s album “Lover’s Cliche” I need to raise $5000 dollars for these 3 final steps

Mastering

Artwork

Pressing

If all goes smoothly, I will launch Kickstarter on Monday, Nov 14th! I am asking all Friends, Family and Lover’s of Uni and her Ukelele music to help by passing the word around and donating!

This album took almost 3 years to make. I need your help to finish it! It’s Worth It!!!!!

ding!

Uni and her Ukelele

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Who are the Harbours?

Let this video be your guide. ( Special thanks to Roderick Fransham for making it)

The Harbours. Parlours & Electrics from Roderick Fransham on Vimeo.

Hear the New Album by The Harbours “Parlors & Electrics”

For any band a lineup change is tough. For the Harbours it was positively redefining. With two nationally released albums and a third in the works, two key band members moved across the country, leaving singer/songwriter M. Zelaya and drummer Bob Nickolopoulos, the driving force behind the San Francisco-based group, back at square one: lots of songs, no band. Due to this sudden dilemma, Zelaya re-evaluated his entire approach to making music and working with other musicians. Instead of replacing band-mates to simply finish the record and continue on, the decision was made to scrap the tracking done thus far, write new songs, and find a way to move forward.

It was friend and recording engineer Damien Rasmussen that suggested working with guitarist Peter Weldon during a conversation about the Harbours’ lineup troubles. By sheer luck, Weldon and Zelaya lived mere blocks from each other. The two met, and what followed was an outpouring of activity. New songs were written, old songs reworked, and recording sessions commenced utilizing the format they both love most: 2” reel-to-reel tape.

Around this same time, Zelaya and Heather Marie Ellison (aka Uni & Her Ukelele) got together to work on vocal parts for what would become the Harbours’ third album. From these rehearsals came the obvious idea to play live in the stripped-down format in which they were working. Opening sets around SF for such acts as Timber Timbre and Black Whales (Seattle) soon followed.

To complete the recordings begun with Weldon and Ellison, Zelaya relied on longtime Harbours drummer Bob Nickolopoulos, while also enlisting help from previous band member Braden Towne (bass) and SF scene staple Mark Dantona (piano, bass). The resulting collection of songs, titled Parlors and Electrics, is due for release in early 2012.

The Harbours’ sound still holds true to its roots, but with a new focus on vocal and instrumental layers, “moving easily through elements of classic pop, Americana, R&B and indie rock flavors. Their love of the Zombies and the Kinks are well intact…. and certainly reflect the finest moments of ’60s and ’70s radio, but in no way could they ever be confined to mere homage territory.” – San Francisco Bay Guardian

“the Harbours are fast-rising stars of the Bay Area music scene. Seamlessly blending 60’s and pop sensibility with modern indie rock, they are a band to watch.” – Pirate Cat Radio

“psych-pop perfection” -Noise Pop
credits
released 19 February 2012
Sean Coleman – mixing, keys
Mark Dantona – piano, bass
Heather Marie Ellison – vocals
Charles Gonzalez – engineer
Conor McCormack – bass
Bob Nickolopoulos – drums
Damien Rasmussen – engineer, mixing
Braden Towne – bass
Peter Weldon – guitars
Miguel Zelaya – songs, vocals, guitars, percussion, piano, keys

The Harbours: Late Night Live Recording from Roderick Fransham on Vimeo.

Now that U know who we are, come see us play!

Wednesday, November 2 ·

The Make Out Room

3225 22nd St

San Francisco, CA

NOVEMBER brings together 4 fantastic acts that I’m happy to have on board! The amazing HARBOURS – these indie local faves return to our stage with their beautifully tailored and star-woven tunes – shimmering pop radness i…ndeed. SILENT PICTURES makes their Penny Arcade debut! I’m excited to hear the acoustic versions of their gazey/moody/pop – think the dreamier side of Love and Rockets. MATTHEW EDWARDS, our favorite troubadour returns with a set full of heartfelt solo ballads. Perfect for warming up all the cold souls in the room – love this man’s voice. And opening up is HEY LITTLE BIRD, also making his Penny Arcade debut with a tray full of rad pop nuggets for y’all.

Doors 7:45pm
STARTS promptly at 8PM!

WEDNESDAY 11/2 8pm $8
PENNY ARCADE
a live music showcase
featuring
HARBOURS
SILENT PICTURES
MATTHEW EDWARDS
HEY LITTLE BIRD
hosted by Raul

Links:
Harbours:
http://www.myspace.com/harbours

Silent Pictures:
http://www.heylittlebird.com/

Matthew Edwards:
http://www.myspace.com/552507951

Hey Little Bird:
http://www.myspace.com/heylittlebirdsf

Wednesday, November 9 at 9:30pm – November 10 at 12:30am

Loney Dear plus Harbours

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market St.

San Francisco, CA

Tickets:
http://www.ticketweb.com/fb/3828595/cdnord

Artist links:

www.loneydear.com

www.myspace.com/harbours

Price:
$12.00

Additional Info:
This event is 21 & over
Ding!

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