I’m listening to Andrew Bird’s album Noble Beast in preparation for tonight’s show at Slowdown that I don’t have tickets for and hence won’t be attending. This one sold out very quickly, an example of another popular band that’s flying under the radar. Bird’s albums — released on Fat Possum records — are filled with slight songs that accentuate his twee voice with strings and other acoustic instruments. He’s in the same league as Belle & Sebastian or even Sufjan Stevens, but darker and less poppy. Bird is a midwesterner, living in Chicago and on a farm somewhere in Illinois. He’s been on a number of late-night chat shows, including Letterman and Conan, which is one of the reasons for his popularity. Another is his music. Opening is Lonely Dear. Starts at 9. Also tonight, Led Zeppelin tribute band The Song Remains the Same plays at the Waiting Room again, this time with The Big Empties. $7, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) is the CD release party for Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies at Slowdown Jr. I suspect that this will be an SRO occasion as this record has been a long time coming (I’ll have a full review of the album at a later date). Opening is Pueblo, CO’s The Haunted Windchimes. $7, 9 p.m. Finally, on Sunday night, blank.wav recording artist Broken Spindles (formerly on Saddle Creek) is playing at The Waiting Room with Capgun Coup and Drake’s Hotel (remember them?). $8, 9 p.m.

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Before we get to the column, I just wanted to point you toward some free music that’s actually worth downloading. Minnesota rocker Mark Mallman is giving away his “greatest hits” compilation as a free download right here. Titled Loneliness in America (Best of 1998-2008) and released on Badman Records, the 10-song collection of arena-style pop-rock ditties includes tracks from his five full-length albums. Mallman has played in Omaha a couple times (including opening for Head of Femur at Sokol and playing for three people at the defunct Sammy Sortino’s pizza restaurant (reviewed here)). He’s got a new album coming out this spring on Badman, so maybe we’ll get to see him again.

* * *

This week’s column is a rehash of stuff that’s already been on Lazy-i — that’s the beauty and the curse of reading this blog. There are a few new ideas thrown in, however, so reading it won’t be a complete waste of your time.

Column 211: Next Steps
Ladyfinger, Cursive and Conor Oberst…

I’ve been watching local bands rise and fall for more than 20 years; the trajectory never fails to inspire or disappoint, depending on the circumstances.

Seems like every week another band pulls its rocket ship onto the launching pad in the form of a CD release party. All of their friends show up along with the curious others who were coaxed to the event by the endless hype. The celebration feels like the conclusion of every rock ‘n’ roll movie — the big finale where a yearning crowd leans forward, desperately stretching over the edge of the stage to touch the rock god before he leaves his little town to better things, bigger things, to a world seen through funky dark sunglasses aboard tour busses filled with sexy groupies and drugs, a world of jaded inconvenience and ever-growing expectations.

But real life almost never ends that way. After the CD release show, while the hourly guys sweep the floor and pick up empty beer bottles, the rock god returns to his life as a mere mortal. He’ll never see a crowd like he just saw until a few years later when he calls it quits and all his friends show up one last time for the farewell engagement. He’ll tell them he has no regrets for not taking the time to schedule a tour, no regrets for merely playing weekly gigs at the local bar or coffee shop of steak house. No regrets for giving up on his dreams.

Actually it doesn’t always end that way, and here are three examples to prove it.

* * *

Slowdown Jr. was packed last Saturday night for the Ladyfinger (ne) CD release show. When I walked through the front doors I was met by a wall of humanity glued to opening band Landing on the Moon. It took about 10 minutes to get my pair of Rolling Rocks, but I didn’t mind because there was nowhere else to comfortably stand anyway.

Shortly after 11, Ladyfinger took the stage, and I realized that the club and the band had made the right call in hosting this show in Slowdown’s small room. Sure it was packed — it was crushed — but that only added to the vibe. Despite being supremely uncomfortable and unable to get a beer, you felt lucky to be there. It certainly wouldn’t have felt that way had they held the show on Slowdown’s big stage. That 150 (or whatever the number was) would have seemed like nothing, and the show would have felt like a failure instead of an event.

In the old days a few years ago, Ladyfinger was content just grinding it out. Today, the band’s music sports real melodies, hooks and riffs. But for me, the best part of their new sound is Chris Machmuller’s vocals. I don’t know why, but for whatever reason his voice reminds me of Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan — a comment that will surely produce some snickering at O’Leaver’s (where Machmuller tends bar). It’s a different band than the one that released Heavy Hands in 2006 to disappointing sales. Now the question is: Are there enough hooks on the new album for Ladyfinger to finally capture the larger audience it deserves? Only time and touring will tell.

* * *

When it comes to deserving bands, there are none more so than Cursive.

The indie-rock four-piece on Saddle Creek Records has been writing and recording and touring since the mid-’90s. If Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst is the new Bob Dylan, than Cursive’s Tim Kasher is who? The new Lou Reed, albeit a Lou Reed that can actually sing? Kasher has watched as Oberst/Bright Eyes, The Faint and Tilly and the Wall have made their way onto late-night network television, leaving Cursive behind.

That changes March 13 when Cursive finally makes the leap, performing on Late Night with David Letterman. Kasher already is a god in the tiny, insular world of indie rock. Now a new, much larger world will be introduced to him and his band, and who knows where that will lead.

Those doing the math may wonder how Cursive could be on Letterman the same night that the band is scheduled to play a sold-out show at The Troubadour in L.A. with Ladyfinger and Little Brazil. Saddle Creek Records executive Jason Kulbel explained that Cursive will tape the show while in NYC March 9 for airing on the 13th. Presumably they’ll jet out to the Left Coast shortly afterward. Very rock ‘n’ roll. The Letterman appearance will come just three days after the release of Mama, I’m Swollen on March 10.

* * *

Finally, some next steps by a guy who’s already there. Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band announced last week that they’re releasing their second album on Merge Records, Outer South, on May 5. The album features songs written by Oberst and other band members, including Jason Boesel, Nik Freitas and Taylor Hollingsworth. The tracks were recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas, just outside El Paso.

With this release, it’s beginning to look more and more like Bright Eyes may be a thing of the past. It’s conceivable that Oberst will be touring in support of this new album through the balance of this year. That will be followed in 2010 by the long-talked-about Conor Oberst / Jim James / M. Ward / Mike Mogis album, which likely will see a tour of its own. If Oberst is working with Nate Walcott in Mystic Valley Band and Mogis in this separate project, why bother with Bright Eyes, whose only “permanent” members are these three musicians? Is Oberst writing a new ending to his movie, one where he liberates himself from what some consider to be his teeny-bopper past?

If you missed last Saturday night’s Ladyfinger show, you’ll get one more chance to see them live this coming Monday at O’Leaver’s. After that, they’re on tour with Cursive and Little Brazil, headed south to SXSW.

Omaha’s version of Michael Hutchence, Matt Whipkey (see yesterday’s blog) and his band The Whipkey Three are opening a show for Little Black Stereo tonight at The Waiting Room. Also on the bill are Under Water Dream Machine (read a review of their CD here). $7, 9 p.m.

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Remember that pair of columns I wrote about the Omaha INXS try-outs back in February 2005? You can still read them online here. Just scroll down to the Feb. 10 and Feb. 17, 2005, entries (Columns 12 and 13).

The column started like this:

So you wanna be a rock star, huh?

Well, Friday just might be your lucky day. Mark Burnett Productions, the fine folks who brought us such intelligent, thoughtful television programs as Survivor, The Bachelor and The Apprentice, will be at Mick’s in Benson all day looking for an “INXS Rock Star.” The talent search/reality TV series is an effort to help ’80s rock band INXS find a replacement for deceased frontman Michael Hutchence, who hanged himself in 1997.

The casting director, Michelle McNulty, had told me they were looking for that person who has “it.”

“‘It’ is that charismatic quality that comes from someone who can perform in front of 50,000 people. It could be a man or a woman.”

Among those who made it to the second round were Sarah Benck, Korey Anderson, Matt Whipkey and Lovetap’s Galen Kieth. None of them made it on television, which is lucky for them.

Reuters reported in this story that the winner, Canadian rocker J.D. Fortune, was unceremoniously fired by the band with a handshake in a Hong Kong airport.

“I found myself really alone because I had travelled with these guys for 23 months,” Fortune told Entertainment Tonight Canada without saying exactly when he was sacked. He acknowledged that he had been taking drugs including cocaine while with the band but said he had been drug free for two years.

Since then, Fortune’s fortune has continued to turn rather bad, as he says he’s now back to living in his car. Ah, Matt, that could have been you.

* * *

Speaking of old stories, last fall I was asked by Midwest Airlines to write a feature about Omaha for their airline magazine, MyMidwest. They wanted your typical “what to do on a long weekend in Omaha” sort of story. The piece ran in the Jan/Feb issue, which presumably is in airplanes now. Of course, like all magazine articles, it was partially rewritten (they changed my lead, which referenced hilly Omaha streets and Les Nessman, and my ending. Oh well, at least the check cleared.). I’ve never seen an actual print copy of the story (I don’t fly Midwest much these days, though I do prefer it over any other airline if only for its first-class leather seating and chocolate chip cookies). I discovered this PDF version of the story online, and include it for your amusement, since you already know all of this stuff. I tried to highlight Benson’s music scene, and some of it actually made the cut. At the time I wrote this, Mick’s was of course still in business. Warning, this PDF is a 2 meg file.

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Is Fat Tuesday becoming another calendar event with the sole purpose of getting drunk like St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween and New Year’s Eve? It’s beginning to look that way judging by the number of shows going on around town. The Waiting Room, Saddle Creek Bar and O’Leaver’s all have shows tonight. The stand-out is at O’Leaver’s with Ric Rhythm and the Revengers, and from Minneapolise, Private Dancer and The Chambermaids. 9:30, $5.

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Slowdown Jr. was indeed packed Saturday night for the Ladyfinger CD release show. When I walked through the front doors I was met by a wall of humanity, all glued to Landing on the Moon. It took about 10 minutes to get my pair of Rolling Rocks, but I didn’t mind because there was nowhere to comfortably stand anyway, figured I might as well just stand in line.

LotM, which formed after The Quiet Type broke up in 2003, is now recognized as a veteran band in the scene. When they first started, they were tight — almost too tight — but years of playing on local stages has loosened them up, made them more relaxed. And while I like their brand of indie rock (I’m told they’re working on new material) I’d love to see them venture outside of their comfort zone, i.e., improvise somewhere within their set. I know that improvisation is a dirty word in the indie music world and conjures images of the most dreaded description of all — the jam band. But look, I’m not talking about “jamming,” I’m talking about letting their songs breathe a little bit, to loosen that musical corset. LotM is methodical. They stick to the script as closely as any band out there. But they also have some of the most talented musicians in the scene, which makes me wonder what they’d come up with if they slid an extra 16 or 32 bars onto the end of their songs. What would happen?

The very nature of indie rock seems anathema to improvisation. Bands write songs, record them and then do their damdest to replicate them live, and for the most part, that’s how it should be. As much as I can imagine LotM strolling off the path, I can’t imagine Ladyfinger budging from their formula, nor would I want them to. We’ve come to expect something from them, and would only be uncomfortable if it varied from that expectation.

Shortly after 11, Ladyfinger took the stage, and it didn’t take long to realize that the club and the band had made the right call in hosting this show in the small room. Sure it was packed — it was crushed — but that only added to the vibe. Despite being supremely uncomfortable and unable to get a beer, you got the feeling you were lucky to be there. That certainly wouldn’t have been the case had they held the show on the big stage. That 150 or whatever the number was would have seemed like nothing, and the show would have felt like a borderline failure instead of an event.

The band roared through its set — a selection of old and new songs. Joining them on six songs was LotM’s Megan Morgan — a smart addition. When I interviewed Ladyfinger a few weeks ago, they talked about how they brought down their volume level so that Megan could be heard better in the mix. That adjustment was noticeable when they played on the big stage opening for Neva Dinova a few months ago. It wasn’t so successful last Saturday. Ladyfinger kept the amps roaring, and Megan did the best she could to push her voice above the fray.

For me, the best part of the new stuff is Chris Machmuller’s vocals (I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, Machmuller’s voice reminds me of Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan — that comment is bound to result in some snickering at O’Leaver’s). In the old days, just grinding it out was enough. Now Ladyfinger’s music sports true melodies, hooks and riffs. It’s a different band than the one that released Heavy Hands. So the big question is: Are there enough hooks on the album to finally capture a much-deserved larger audience? Time and touring will tell.

* * *

Speaking of O’Leaver’s, I spent Friday night there catching sets by Cowboy Indian Bear and Thunder Power. CIB was a pleasant surprise, a trio out of Lawrence where all three members provide vocals and harmonies (as well as some expert chops on guitar/bass/drums/keyboards). About half the set was performed using a double-bass attack. Nice. They’re said to be working on a new album, which hopefully will bring them back through town. Thunder Power continues to be defined as Omaha’s version of Belle and Sebastian, and for good reason. The six-piece knows how to play whimsical chamber pop as well as anyone out there. Good melodies and fine vocals, though for the life of me, I can’t understand a word the cooing lead singer is singing. Does it matter? With this style of music, the answer is yes.

* * *

Just got word this morning that Cursive will be performing on Late Night with David Letterman March 13. Waitaminit, don’t they have a sold-out show at The Troubadour in L.A. that night with Ladyfinger and Little Brazil? Jason Kulbel from Saddle Creek tells me that the band will be taping their performance March 9 for airing on the 13th. Very rock and roll. The new album has a street date of March 10. Entertainment Weekly is currently hosting an exclusive track off Mama, I’m Swollen, here.

* * *

Tonight at The Waiting Room, it’s our old friends The Appleseed Cast with Tie These Hands and Anniversaire. 9 p.m., $10.

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Catching up on some news from earlier this week, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band announced it is releasing a second album on Merge May 5, titled Outer South. According to CMJ, “The album will feature songs written by both the Bright Eyes mastermind and other band members, including Nik Boesel, Nik Freitas, and Taylor Hollingsworth, and was recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillio, just outside El Paso.” The sold-out April 9 show at Slowdown apparently is in support of the release. It’s beginning to look more and more like Bright Eyes may be a thing of the past. It’s conceivable that Oberst will be touring this new album through the balance of the year. That will be followed in 2010 by the long-talked-about Conor Oberst / Jim James / M. Ward / Mike Mogis album, which will likely see a tour of its own. If Oberst is working with Nate Walcott in Mystic Valley Band and Mogis in this separate project, what’s the point in even doing a Bright Eyes album since Conor, Nate and Mike are the only permanent members of that band? It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since Cassadaga was released…

* * *

Marty Hillard, the Lawrence, Kansas, chap who you remember from a few years back performing as TheSisterMaria, is playing tonight at O’Leaver’s with his new band, Cowboy Indian Bear, along with Thunder Power, Why Make Clocks and Platte River Rain. The show should be the usual $5, and start around 9:30.

Also tonight, Saddle Creek Bar has hard rock acts Constant Velocity and Sin. $5, 9 p.m. Thank You and Mi Ami are at Slowdown Jr. $8, 9 p.m. And Midwest Dilemma is playing at The Barley St. with Down with the Ship, Where Astronauts Go to Hide and Fiance. $5, 9 p.m.

Tomorrow night, it’s the long-awaited CD release show for Ladyfinger‘s new one, Dusk, at Slowdown Jr. with Noah’s Ark Was a Spaceship and Landing on the Moon. That’s right, I said Slowdown Jr., which means this one will be packed to the gills. Get there early. $7, 9 p.m.

Also happening Saturday night: Underwater Dream Machine is playing at The Barley St. with Cat Island. $5, 9 p.m.; and Javier Ochoa is having his 40th Birthday Bash at The Waiting Room with a bevy of tribute bands. Your $10 cover will go toward the Multiple Sclerosis Society. This one starts early — 7 p.m.

–Got comments? Post ’em here.—

Work has kept me from posting today’s entry until this late hour. Hey, a guy’s got to make a buck, right?

Column 210: Unheard Melodies
A critic’s guilt upon spring cleaning.

I had to clean out my office over the weekend, or at least begin to clean it out. Endless clutter is one of the by-products of being a music critic.

As I’ve said before: I got involved in writing about music for one reason and one reason alone: To get free CDs. When I started writing reviews over 20 years ago, compact discs were still sort of a novelty. Working my way through college at Kmart, I remember flipping through the bins of albums and seeing the racks of cassette tapes, but CDs had only just begun to arrive, displayed in large cardboard boxes, which later were replaced by impenetrable plastic containers. The odd, oblong contraptions were designed to prevent thieves from sticking discs down their pants, but they also kept buyers from getting their CDs opened after they got home. I remember struggling with a pair of industrial-strength scissors desperately trying to cut through the thick plastic CD holders, often cutting my hand in the process. I once had the brilliant idea of melting the container with a lighter only to have it catch on fire along with my copy of Billy Idol’s Whiplash Smile.

In the late ’80s, record labels had just begun mailing CDs to music writers, and getting a compact disc for free was a real treat. Vinyl records seemed old-fashioned and junky, but free CDs, well they just had to be quality or the label wouldn’t have wasted the money making them, right? Funny how times have changed. Now I can’t imagine anything more valuable than finding a box in the mail filled with free promotional vinyl albums and 45s.

Getting free CDs also was the driving force behind creating lazy-i.com back in ’98. And just a few short months after the website’s launch, I began to reap the harvest. CDs magically began arriving in my mailbox, one or two per week like prizes awarded for my writing. I eagerly tore open the envelopes to reveal these little presents before neatly stacking them next to my stereo. It didn’t matter that only one out of 10 was actually worth listening to, my collection was growing.

By the time Omaha became recognized as the center of the indie music world (in around 2001), I was getting three or four CDs in the mail every day. My cup quickly runneth over. Soon, the dining room table was littered with stacks of unopened manila envelopes, to the annoyance of Teresa who would eventually gather up an armful and drop them in my office to await the tedious task of opening and cataloging each on the website.

The envelopes themselves became a screening device. Opened first were packages from recognizable labels — Matador, Merge, SubPop, Saddle Creek, Secretly Canadian, YepRock, Caulfield, Homestead, etc. This was the good stuff.

Next were packages from larger metropolitan areas and indie music hubs — New York City, the Pacific Northwest, Athens, North Carolina, Lawrence and of course, Omaha. After that were the quirky packages that obviously contained something more than a CD. Somewhere along the way bands got the idea that if they threw in little treats like candy or toys with their music that it would catch a reviewer’s eye, and they were right. What they didn’t understand, however, is that the reviewers are more interested in the trinkets than their music.

Last opened were the plain envelopes with hand-written return addresses and “Do Not Bend” scribbled on the back. Anonymous packages from anonymous locales. It’s amazing how much one assumes about a band and its music simply by its name, photo and album artwork.

It didn’t take long until towers of precariously stacked, unlistened-to CDs covered every horizontal surface in my office. It’s not that I didn’t want to listen to all of them. The problem is that in addition to CD reviews I also write feature stories about bands — their music has to take precedent or else I’ll come off even more like an idiot during interviews than I actually am. Falling to the wayside in all this was time for listening to music that I actually sought out and knew I liked.

About every 18 months things reach a tipping point, and I have no choice but to undergo a global purge. I’ve never sold a promo CD in my life; I’ve only traded them for other music, which is what I did this past weekend with more than 600 CDs (and with another 500 on the way). I’d like to tell you that I’d listened to all of them, but that would be a lie. It simply wasn’t physically possible.

While packing away those CDs, I felt a tinge of guilt and regret. Somewhere in there could have been a diamond hidden among the hours and hours of derivative indie folk, sloppy garage punk, geek metal and personal confessional monstrosities. Could I be missing the next Elliott Smith or Husker Du? I’ll never know. What I did know was that each one of those poorly packaged and designed CDs represented someone’s hopes and dreams. All they wanted was for me to take a moment and listen to their music. Instead, here I was sending it away, unheard.

Over the past couple of years, the number of CDs arriving in the mail has slowly dwindled thanks to new ways of distributing music via digital download — a much more efficient, economical and earth-friendly approach. It won’t be long until finding a CD in the mail will once again be a novelty — an unexpected gift — instead of an ever-growing monster that slowly takes over my office.

Look for the usual Friday pre-weekend update at the usual time tomorrow…

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Just posted (here) is a brand new feature / interview with Ladyfinger. The band talks about their new album, Dusk, and how they hope it performs better saleswise than their debut, Heavy Hands. So what went wrong with the first one? Beyond basic quality issues, who knows why one record sales well and another doesn’t. The assumption was that HH would sell much better than it actually did, based on sales of the band’s self-released demo and the fact that they had Saddle Creek backing them. Add to that months and months of touring, and you had a recipe for success — or so everyone involved thought. The sales numbers outlined in the story are bracing, but do they reflect a new reality for the indie music business? I don’t think so; I certainly hope not.

I didn’t have room in the article to talk about the words within the music. Ladyfinger frontman Chris Machmuller writes all the songs’ lyrics, and we went through a handful during the interview. The standout is “Plans,” which would be my pick for the first single. The song opens with the lines: So much for plans / So much for heavy hands to take / The hopes we had were bound to break. “It’s about an ex-girlfriend and close friend of the band who died of a cocaine overdose,” Machmuller said, adding that they got the sobering news about her death the day after Halloween while in Belgium on tour. The song epitomizes the more thoughtful, more layered approach Ladyfinger has taken with this album. Check it out.

* * *

Val Nelson at Slowdown is asking that anyone interested in how downtown Omaha evolves over the next 20 or 30 years attend a meeting tonight between 6 and 10 p.m. at The Embassy Suites at 10th and Howard. Val says it’ll be the first opportunity to see where the Master Plan is headed, and a chance to let the City know where you’d like it to go. If you care about downtown, you’ll be there.

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There’s a Q&A with M Ward in Time Magazine (here) wherein Matt mentions the now legendary M Ward / Conor Oberst / Jim James project that’s been kicked around since the trio did that show at Witherspoon Hall in January 2004 — five years ago. It’ll be another year until the actual recordings are released (my guess is it’ll be on Merge). It’s hard to believe it’s been almost six years since I did this interview with Ward. Time has indeed flown by. Of course one drawback to being associated with Conor and Mike Mogis is that Pitchfork will only give you a fair-to-middling review, as they did today for Ward’s new album Hold Time (here). It got a rating of 6.7 — in the same ballpark as all Saddle Creek releases.

* * *

Someone posted on the ol’ webboard that Ladyfinger will be performing live in the studio on Z-92 tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. CT. More details here (I didn’t know that Todd & Tyler listened to rock music). Watch for my feature interview with Ladyfinger tomorrow on Lazy-i.

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I ended up not going to any shows this weekend. None. What’s up with that? It was a combination of the crappy weather and pulling a muscle in my back. Fact is, I knew that the It’s True CD release show at the Barley Street would be so packed that I wouldn’t be able to see or hear any of it anyway. Sure enough, someone who was there told me it was the biggest crowd he’d ever seen in the place (which only has a capacity of 40 or 50 in the showroom) — a real crush mob. It’s a shame that the show couldn’t have been held in a larger venue.

Anyway, my back’s fine now, so much so that I’m contemplating dropping in on that Marah show tonight at The Waiting Room tonight. Landon Hedges is opening, doing a solo acoustic set as Fine, Fine Automobiles. $8, 9 p.m. Marah’s out touring its latest on Yep rock, Angels of Destruction, which has a sort of chug-a-lug rock ‘n’ roll vibe. Also tonight is Ben Kweller at Slowdown with The Watson Twins and Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir. That show’s $15 and starts at 9. I have no interest in Kweller but wouldn’t mind seeing the Watson Twins, who came through a few years ago as a backup to Jenny Lewis.

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