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Shifting Transmission With JJ McCANN · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:22
  I'm James McCann uh front J. J McCann Transmission just released an album called
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  Hit with Love on Cheer Squad Records, produced by Rob Younger. The band
• 0:38
  at the Moment features Rick Student on bass. Rick's formally from plays an X
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  occasionally and his own band Migrains. Kay Patterson on keys, who has a
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  background and playing in Melbourne for decades with people like Conway Savage and Spence P.
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  Jones and drum. I'm a Scottie Bennett who plays with Mick Daily,
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  I believe. Yeah. So we've been doing a few shows over the last
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  few months to promote the record and here we are, beautiful mate, here
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  we are, indeed, thanks for joining us again. Thank you. Oh
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  so, as you said, brother, you recently released the album Hit with
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  Love under the moniker JJ McCann Transmission back in March. So we've had March,
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  April, May June, so i've been three months now. How's the
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  reception been, Oh, that it actually was officially released. I think last
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  year we did the launch. We did the launch in December down here,
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  so it was kind of a staggered kind of thing and there was it was
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  followed by a couple of film clips as well, So I think the last
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  film clip was March or Amphibious Skin, the song Amphibia Skin. Yeah,
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  it's been going well. It's been here in Malbourne on Cheer Squad Records and
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  co released with French label Beast Records in Ren in France, and I've worked
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  with those guys for fifteen years that label. So yeah, it's the first
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  record I've released in Australia in fourteen years. Everything else I've released either in
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  Spain or France. Yeah, generally because there was no There wasn't a lot
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  of independent labels around fifteen years ago. Believe it or not. It's picked
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  up a bit since then in Australia it is, and the Spanish and the
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  French people are a lot more polite than Australian to like, if you release
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  a shit album over there, they're just gonna buy your coffee or something over
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  here. They'll tell you about it. Ah, look, well I don't
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  know about that. I don't know about that. I mean they'll let you
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  know what they think, yeah, pretty quickly. And what's your audience like
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  over there? Like you is it pretty good? It's great? Look up?
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  Been going there since two thousand and eight. My first tour was solo
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  over there. That was from started up in France all the way down through
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  Spain to like the middle of kind of Spain and Tarragona around there. Yes,
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  great, look I found it liberating. You know. I felt like
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  I was beating my head against a brick wall in Melbourne for a while.
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  So to get something out over there and to get the opportunity to travel and
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  play to people and to be you know, the records to be distributed over
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  there and people know the music. And that was back in the CD days
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  too, when the CDs were sort of more popular, and you know,
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  you you'd sell you know, backpack full of CDs. You take a backpack
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  with your full of CDs and you'd sell them all. You know. It's
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  great. That the most money I've ever had in my life. I think
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  that's so much. My wallet was bursting at the seams, and people kept
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  asking me what do you do in Australia for a job. You got so
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  much money, you know, because I was paying for lunch and stuff and
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  nothing. This is it. And then I go back and I'm broke again.
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  Just say, someone's listening this, mate, and then it's their first
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  introduction to you or your music, Like, give us three songs from the
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  album that they should listen to to get to know you a bit better.
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  Okay, well, I would go New Machine that's got a bit of a
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  post punk feel, and I would go Amphibious Skin that's got a bit of
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  an eighties almost Australian underground indie feel. And I would go say Forces at
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  Work because that has more of a kind of melodic and keys side to more
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  sort of a little faster, And you know, I'll go those three,
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  I think, or you know, or maybe Marshaling Yard that's just that's that
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  song is quite twisted in the way it's set out. It's almost metal in
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  a way, the chord structuring and all that. Yeah, so that's four
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  and I'm just like an extra one in there, mate, but we'll let
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  you go. Yeah. Now, there might be your first under the band
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  name JJ McCann Transmission, but your journey thus far is much broader than that,
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  mate. So I know you've done a lot, but give us a
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  brief run through your history and what has led you to this point. Oh
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  look, okay, well, I started up in wa and then in the
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  eighties as a teenager and then moved to Sydney. Had started playing in that
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  scene in the early mid nineties and Harpoon and then at that period I was
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  involved in Nunchuck a superfly that recorded the album That's Just Come Out. Yeah.
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  I was in that scene for quite some time till the late nineties,
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  and I was back to Perth for family reasons for a couple of years,
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  and I thought I was going to give up music then that that was in
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  my late twenties and I ended up ended up in like three bands that was
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  in the Drones, the first lineup of the Drones and a band called Guttable
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  Splendor six and my own one called James McCann's Germs. I yeah, I
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  re called it that because no one will come and see us, because we
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  were like it was so it's like James McCann's Germs, you know, no
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  one's, no one's coming to see us because we had a French horn player
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  and a conga player and me guitar would be different. It was. Yeah,
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  it was pretty wild actually, Yeah, So I ended up with the
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  Drones. We all moved back to Sydney, but that did work out.
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  I stayed on there for a bit, started working on new stuff and it
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  became my first two solo albums, and I moved down to Melbourne to finish
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  them actually because I was always coming down here by on the train and people
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  got sick of me and said, you know, slipping on their couches.
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  Just move here. So I moved here twenty years ago and finished the records
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  and they came out on Torn and Frayed that that record label. My first
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  couple of solo records and they did pretty good. Yeah, there were CDs
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  and vinyl overseas. Bang Records in Spain put out one of my records on
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  vinyl. Then was my involvement with Beast Records after that. But yeah,
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  several lineups. I had a couple of different bands, was kicking around with
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  around Melbourne. But now it's I'm back to three bands again, you know,
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  after all these years. I'm busier than I've been in Bloody twenty odd
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  years playing with Moler, who were a nineties band, Melbourne nineties band fronted
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  by Helen had anak base player for Spencer P. Jones for about twenty years.
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  And I'm back in Nunchucker Superfly after nearly thirty years and also JJ McCann
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  transmission. So that's what's that's where we're at right now. Now, Henry
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  Love was produced by legendary radio Birdman frontman Rob Younger. So what did he
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  bring to the overalls now? Like is it his experience that you like?
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  Is it his opinion? Like what what's so special about having him involved?
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  Yeah, we'll look his experience. Yeah, well, also his love of
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  music and his appreciation of good records, and you know, I got talking
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  to him about different albums and his knowledge about you know, singles that came
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  out in the sixties or seventies, albums in the seventies and stuff, and
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  just an appreciation of his voice and his music. Always loved his voice since
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  I was a teenager, and I always wanted to work with him. And
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  yeah, his but he comes with a lot of knowledge and a lot of
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  experience, but he blends right in with the band. So he's on the
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  roller coaster with you. You know, he's kind of guiding you and helping
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  you where he can and offering suggestions. But he's not pushy at all ever,
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  and he's always like, you know, if you don't mind, you
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  try this out. And it's not like you're going to go. No,
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  Rob Younger, I will not try that out, you know. No,
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  So yeah, he him up with some great vocal ideas for me and arrangement
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  ideas. You know, there's one song on the album called Judas Jenny,
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  which if you're familiar with Rob Younger's vocal delivery, you'll hear it on that
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  because he guided me through that to sing certain way and it was great.
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  I was I was loving it. I was in heaven, you know.
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  And yeah, and some arrangements he helped with too, so yeah, and
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  the mixing process at the end. He was really involved in that, which
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  was invaluable. You know. He leaves no stone unturned, you know,
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  he wants it to be as perfect as possible. Bless his cotton stocks.
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  Oh yeah, he's He's unreal. Yeah, and he's a lot of fun
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  too. You know some of the stories you get in Body, they're putting
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  together to be priceless. Oh yeah. Look, it was after recording sessions
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  for you know, the studio for ford As. We get back to my
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  place about eleven PM and then before we knew it was like three in the
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  morning. You know, we're like, shit, We're got to go to
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  bed, get back up we'll just be sitting up listening to music and watching
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  docos music docos, and you know, it was fun, a lot of
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  fun to hang out with. You know. Hey, there's also a track
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  on the album written with the late Spencer P. James mate, So tell
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  us a bit more about the song. It must be pretty pretty special for
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  you. Yeah, well, look, that's that's an interesting one because it
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  was written finished after he died, in the sense that me and him messed
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  around with that the idea for that song a couple of times, and luckily
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  I had a record, I did the phone and I recorded a few things
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  that we did together, luckily, and I found it and when god we
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  never got around to finishing that, we just kind of let it go.
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  So yeah, I finished it. So it's his idea, his chorus,
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  and I just put the verse versus to it and that was it. Yeah,
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  So just to send it to Apraa is like fifty to fifty Spencer and
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  me his chorus, my verse. So yeah, it's pretty cool because he
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  was a close friend and he used to come around to my house here right
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  right now a lot, you know, and hang out over the years,
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  and yeah, so it's quite special to find that and go, oh cool,
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  what do you have got any more shows coming up in the near future.
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  Yeah, look, there's one show transmission coming up with the Kill Devil
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  Hills in two weeks, so that's the Brunswick Ballroom. That's Saturday, not
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  this Saturday, next Saturday. I'll go with the dates, just slip me.
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  So, yes, that's going to be i ron only show for quite
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  a while actually, then finishing off an album, a new album with Mola,
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  so we're rehearsing that at the moment. Then I'm off on tour with
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  Nunchuker. It'd be good. Maybe you got a bit happy. Yeah,
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  yeah, it's been looming for a while and it's like here we go trying
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  to be healthy and yeah, do everything right, make sure it all goes
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  well. Shit all right, JJ over thanks very much for your time.
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  It's been a pleasure. Chris good Love is out now, got the show
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  coming up in a couple of weeks, Nunchucker severa fly tour is going on,
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  so you get to get a massive fixture JJ everywhere. Look yeah,
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  yeah, it's my time to shine and that's like wis just get into the
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  window. That's an Areson disappe willows dances when a place today cash I'm so
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  spam. It's I'm gonna change the thing, so it doesn't mean it said
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  you want one that dances when a s oh yeah, oh yeah, that's
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  it's weird. Basbo I just got too little where that way shout tell us
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  so as to eventual they shot the men. You are now seven, stinging
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  to cock hating the Crocodi