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Gann Brewer



Last Updated: 10/13/2009

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Status: Single
City: Charlottesville, VA/Brooklyn, NY,Memphis, TN, etc.
Country: US
Signup Date: 3/19/2008

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009 
Hi friends, I guess I've been back almost 3 months now from India and just wanted to say it's really good to be back and I've enjoyed seeing all of you in the travels these last few months... a special thanks to Trey out in LA (Korea now) and the "Crew on 43rd in San Francisco", and also have enjoyed seein geveryone in Memphis and up here in NY City where my friends have shown me a great time and the gigs have been a lot of fun----  i'm basing out of Charlottesville, VA at current, but traveling with the guitar (some old and new songs )when I can and hope to see more of you soon ---- I so wanted to make Kerrville this years, see "Camp on This" crew and all, but that's the way it goes sometime ---- just a quick thank you to all now, will write more later, and I wish you all the best and stay dry and cool or whatever it is you gotta stay so as to keep on keepin on proper, yeah...

G
3:17 PM 
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Friday, November 28, 2008 

Category: Travel and Places
Well, hello friends!  I've been wanting to post an "update" of sorts for the past several months, as my dear friend Nancy Apple -- also my record producer, "roomate", record company head honcho, harmonica player, rhythm guitarist at times, "chair drums" percussionist, as well as 'pack leader' of the infamous 'Canine Carnival' with Sparky the Wonderdog -- has been kind and gracious enough to update this myspace site in my absence(s). 
I'm writing from India and, in particular, Southern Goa, but have been "absent" somewhat since those couple've gigs at Albina Green in Portland, Oregon back in late July.  Thanks again to Nancy and Matt Meighan in Portland for their kindness during that time and all the fine people I met in those few days there....  I meant it when I said i could go back to the Rose City and stay awhile.... a place I would love to return.  After Portland I mozied on down to San Francisco for a week or so to see "the crew on 43rd Avenue" and Aussie Nick drove me to the airport in early August after a bunch of us had camped and played music for Mimi Clarke's birthday party down around Woodside, and the Asia journey thus begun.....
Six, seven years ago I spent almost a year in Southeast Asia, and Hanoi (up in the northern part of Vietnam) was one've those places I stayed awhile, but i'd never been to Saigon (aka 'Ho Chi Mihn City')... that flight in early August out of San Francisco landed me -- (thanks Judy !) -- in Saigon, but only for about 4 days as I had Nepal on my mind.... armed at the time with a small martin travel guitar i'd bought at the Haight-Ashbury Music Center, i landed in Kathmandu and spent the next two months in magical Nepal.  A few or at least a couple've good songs (I hope) came out of my time in Kathmandu which consisted of about 10 days when I first got there, plus the last week two months later while there to secure a VISA for India....  "Freak Street Blues" was written on top of Hotel Sugat overlooking Basantapur and Durbur Square, just near the junction of the New Road and the old hippy haven of Freak Street.....  but it was treking that called me to Nepal, more than music or the city, and I headed Phokara way and eventually was on a 20 day solo trek around the Annapurna Range of the Himalaya's..... this is an incredible trek for those who would like to go to Nepal!   I did the counterclockwise trek, starting in Besisahar and culminating in Beni....  crossing Thurong Pass (5,500 meters, about 18,500 feet) from High Camp was the highlight in a lot of ways, but the villages like Kagbeni and Pisang, Manang and Tatopani  -- coupled with just the trails and wildlife and the supurb mountain views (and, yes, I thought I spied a 'Yedi') -- all came together to just make the trek unforgettable in a 'sensory overload' sort've fashion.... 
I decided to fly into "Mumbai" (aka 'Bombay') instead of travel overland into India, as many travellers from Nepal going into India do, as I wanted to concentrate on Southern India for the time being....   Bombay's one've the biggest cities in the world, and the financial (and fasion/film) capital of India  -- located on the Arabian Sea along the countries west coast.  'Colaba' in south Bombay is the tourist and backpacker area for those passing through.  There's some pretty intense stuff going on up there even now as I type, as I awoke yesterday to the news that the Taj Hotel and Leopolds Restaurant, as well as the Chhatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (Victoria train station) and another luxery hotel in south Mumbai/Bombay, were all attacked the night before, with the attackers specifically looking for Brits and Americans.  Over 100 people are dead now, and over 300 injured.  Hostages are still in the Taj Hotel, and the situation is too bad.  Leopolds Restaurant (a travellers restaurant and popular watering hole in the heart of Colaba) was peppered with gunspray, and the beautiful black and white tile floors in the lower level were said to just be covered in blood.  This is just too, too sad -- and my heart goes out to those locals and travellers not only in Leopolds Cafe, but also in the Taj and Oberoi Trident hotels and the train station, as well as those caught in the crossfire on the streets and those hostages who may still be trapped inside the Taj....  the train station attack occured at 10:33 PM and was said to have focused on the very travellers like you and me who were boarding that 11 PM overnight train to Goa.  It's really unfortunate and it's going to hurt the Indian tourist industry I know.  A cloud hung over Southern Goa all day yesterday as the news drifted through..... 
But, going back to my arrival in Bombay back in early/mid October, after several days lounging around Colaba and meeting travellers and locals at places like Leopolds and even a brief flirtation with the Bollywood film industry, I took that overnight train down to Goa and landed in a small place in Southern Goa called 'Agonda', just a small little village about 10 kilometers north of the more popular beach vilage of Palolem.  The first night I was there I was playing a gig with Bombay Bob and Panama Dave and the routine at this small resort there continued for about 4 or 5 weeks, with one or all of us playing music for the guests and travellers and locals there.....  unfortunately, the owner of the place decided not to pay as he'd promised and, once I realized he was not paying the cooks or waiters or even his investment partners either, I (along with Panama Dave and most of the others) drifted away and came to terms with our losses....  but gigs abounded down in Palolem, where I'd already played a time or two, and that's where I find myself now, just singin' "Mr. Bojangles" and "That's the Way the World Goes Round" to Indians and Israelis and Brits and Aussies and Swedes and so on who've often never heard of Jerry Jeff Walker or John Prine, and throwing in my originals and traditionals in the mix.... there's this great mandolin player down here as well who I've been able to play with, and he -- Mandolin Dave from England -- has to be my favorite mandolin sidekick short of Ike Eichenberg down between the Texas hills and Coral Bay....  an older British bluesman named Alan can play the down home Lousiana and Mississippi Delta blues like very few i've heard shy of on old, crackling vinyl... Bombay Bob up in Agonda, as i've told him, lives and breathes the true, crossroads blues and one can feel it when he plays as well...    I foresee staying around here until the end of the year, and in the meantime I'm hoping to kick off a tour starting around Charlottesville, Virginia in the late winter or early spring.....  i will be passing back through both San Francisco and Memphis at some point before then, and I really, really look forward to catching up with everybody and hearing what all you've been up to! 
So, I just wanted to take this time to catch up and say, no, I have not fallen off the side of the earth and that life is good out here!  I travel around here to places like Hampi and Gokarna, and I ride my scooter most days in no particular direction (startin' to sound parallel to my life), but mostly still do the same things i'd be doing in Memphis or Coral Bay or San Francisco or wherever -- running 5 days a week, trying to eat and live healthy, and sitting around with my guitar playing songs to the crowd if they're around and, if not, to that long green snake with the white stripe that I know damned well just slid under my bungalow for a well deserved nights rest....
I wish everybody the best out there and I look forward to seeing you all real soon!  Until then, keep on pickn' all you pickers and keep on pushin' all you pushers....  I'll be doin' the same, ok..??
 
Peace --
 
Gann (Nov.28th, Palolem Beach, Southern Goa)
4:04 PM 
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Thursday, November 27, 2008 
Hey everyone,
Wanted to give you a heads up that Gann is safe this Thanksgiving. He is in India, but managed to dodge the violence yesterday.
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone -
Nancy
11:19 PM 
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Friday, October 31, 2008 
Hi there friends and neighbors,
I am sending this out to those of you who may be voting members of the Recording Academy to let you know that Ringo Records has two releases on the Nominating Ballot, which is due in NEXT WEEK....
There are so many great projects to choose from, and we hope you include us on your ballot!
If you are not a voting member, but are friends with some - will you share this with them (if you are ok with that, if not I understand!)

FIELD 14 FOLK
Category 69 Best Contemporary Folk/Americana record
25 Gann Brewer
this was recorded in Memphis at my studio, Hillbilly Paradise - and features all Delta talent (including Gann Brewer, Brandon Bear Hughes, Mark Autry, Delta Joe Sanders, Nancy Apple and mix help from the lovely Dawn Hopkins)
You can hear sound bites at
www.myspace.com/gannbrewer
or e-mail me and I will send you MP3s
It's a good'n, please consider this!

FIELD 31 MUSIC VIDEO
Category 110 Best Long Form Music Video
180 Nancy Apple's Song Slinger Showdown
this was filmed in Memphis by Last Train to Memphis and Rusted Sun - at Kudzu's and also Hillbilly Paradise and features Nancy Apple, Phil Lee and Jake Kelly
It has been aired about a million times on Memphis' Library Channel 18 and we have gotten a zillion comments on this, so now is your time to mark it on the ballot for a nomination!

thanks so much, and best of luck to all of you who are also in consideration for the running this year -
Love,
N

Nancy Apple
Have songs will travel

Memphis Song Slinger

www.nancyapple.com
www.myspace.com/nancyapple
www.ringorecords.net
5:54 AM 
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008 

Current mood:  thankful
... there was this guy, this Palestinean, became a good, good friend of mine in Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand, back in 2001, called himself "The Sadking", i started callin' him 'Sadking' and seems like that's the way it was...  he worked at the ski lodge on coronet peak with me, he sharpened knives mostly, but they called him the 'assistant chef'... Sadking, he didn't really talk much, kept to himself and most've the other folks who worked in the restaurant (almost more Brits and Aussies than Kiwi's and most around their early twenties) weren't too keen on talkin' to him i guess as he just wasn't outwardly that sociable but me and Seaun the Head Chef who had about a dozen kids and a heart've gold would always shoot the bull with him, gettin' to know one another, passin' the long and unpredictable days up there in the kitchen on the mountain, all ridin' back down into town, worn out, crackin' jokes or just givin' knowin' glances about whatever we 'caught' and 'understood'...... sadking loved to rattle me about america and since i guess neither judge judy nor uncle rumsfield would call me a 'good american' i used to take it and we became fast friends... "..you're country.. it do BAD THINGS.. but, my frrrieend, 'de sadking like you.. you good american.." and so on and the like... he knew i'd been in israel awhile, but i'd always try and call it "palestine" and he'd catch me if i didn't... he was a good guy, always wore this old ruffled baseball cap with COKE written on it, had a big ol' wooly beard, wore a black leather "fighter pilot" jacket and had those little lennon glasses.... said he'd escaped as a kid with his mother and sisters into jordan during the '67 War, never had been back.... i thought he looked older than his 40's but that's the math, and, like i said, he had this big beard & didn't speak much, sharpened knives with a passion --  i didn't question his age....  used to be when we'd get off work and take that bus back down the hill, back down into queenstown, we'd oftentimes sit next to each other, not really sayin' much, but both knowin' there'd be a few monteiths or speights waitin' on us at the Rattlesnake after a couple hours rest for him and usually a run for me....  the sadking would always get in his little red datson and drive off to his place and i'd take that little $600 nissan of mine over to my little brown pad right next to hotel esplanade, on the water, on park street, and a couple hours later he'd either show up in front of my place honkin' the horn or i'd make the 10, 12 minute walk into old town to meet up with him, always the rattlesnake bar.. always...  the sadking was a man of habit, and i was "just a kid they all called his sidekick".....  the kiwi's are great people, like the irish... good hearts, big hearts.. would do anything for a fallen mate, or a stranger... (if you busk on the streets, learn "the gambler")... but one thing the kiwi's could never do was keep a count on which coin in the pool queue above the coin slot was theres... almost consistantly, if my coin was third and i watched with my own eyes some bloke walk up there 5 minutes later and put a coin up 4th, it could almost be guaranteed two things:  first, the kiwi was bigger than me, and i'm no pushover and , secondly, that big kiwi was gonna claim my coin was his, and he wasn't gonna take 'no' for an answer....  maybe i'm 26 years old and in the best shape of my life and feelin' a'right, but, this is one BIG friekin' KIWI..!!
...That's where the Sadking came in, always... like clockwork.....
..... everyone played 'doubles' and the sadking would always let me do the early negotiations on behalf of our coin but, if he sensed a flaring temper or a raised voice on the part of the Kiwi, or basically after a discussion of longer than 20 seconds, he'd calmly put his beer down and walk up to the table with his pool cue cusped between his hands, coming in from over my right shoulder, keeping his head down, where the big Kiwi could never see his face, waving with his right hand as he held the stick with the left his fore and middle fingers as if to some child who'd done something wrong, and say "..no, no, 'de coin belong to us..."  --- that settled it every time....
......nobody wanted to challenge the Sadking, who probably weighed a shade under 170 and stood around 5 foot 10 and looked to be in his 50's....  he just had that aura about him.. that 'somethin'...  and so we'd get to playin' pool and neither one've us was what i'd call a 'pool shark', i mean, sure, we'd played before but, i mean, at the rattlesnake we'd almost always win 5 or 6 games or more before giving the table up, often out of boredom.. somethin' about our chemistry, i'm thinkin'.... 
....sadking liked western women... he knew that young, beautiful women had a slightly greater chance to be near me wherever i was than him at his little house somewhere on the outskirts of town that i never got to go to.... i guess, lookin back, Sadking never was figurin' on The Big Score , but just bein' around all us 'esplanade rats' was good enough for him...( 'esplanade rats' being the ten or so of us from about as many countries and all between 19 and 32'ish who hung out together near the hotel esplanade on park street)... sort've our 'friends' circle... about 4 or 5 really hot girls, and sadking would get to talk to 'em all... that was good enough for the sadking... sort've like the dreamin' "just comes natural.. like the first breath of a baby, like sunshine feedin' daisies", you know....??  ... i suppose the sadking was as much've an 'esplanade rat' as any of us.....
....and then i was out've queenstown in a flash, and on to other places and i never saw nor heard from the sadking again... it all happened so fast, the gettin' out've queenstown and tryin' to sell my car up on the north island and the whole 'seeing guide dogs' incident in auckland that drug on for weeks but hopefully changed the world (i'm workin' on a "Talkin' Blues" song about that one) and so on and so forth.... but i never forgot the sadking..... i think about him all the time... one time, about a year later, after the world had changed, i got out my little travel journal and i intended to write about the sadking, but all i could seem to do was draw that face lookin straight at me with the chin tucked and the big grey and black beard and the eyes back behind a low bill on a cap that read 'COKE'... and i called it "the sadking" and i prayed for his family, wherever they are, and i guess i've tipped a few lucky shots into a pool table in honor of the sadking since, silently tellin' myself as i'm measuring the shot "...this ones for the sadking" and then ususally nailing a shot with a lot of green that i normally wouldn't make....
....so if you're ever in queenstown on the south island, and you make it up to the coronet peak ski lodge, and should you further happen upon the sadking whom i suppose'll work there 'till he can't work anymore (13 years running when i got there), DO give him the americans regards and go have a game've pool with him down at the rattlesnake....
.... for some reason, it's the only bar i remember in queenstown, the Rattlesnake Bar.....
Currently listening:
Diamonds in the Rough
By John Prine
Release date: 1990-09-17
10:46 AM 
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Monday, August 25, 2008 

Current mood:  enlightened
Category: Music

Hey there friends-
Nancy Apple here, head honcho of Ringo Records.
I just wanted to keep all of Gann's peeps aware of the radio stations that are playing Gann's CD, or have requested it (meaning we hope they will add Gann to rotation real soon!)
If you are within earshot of any of these stations, or have a chance to listen on line, know that these are the good guys - thank them for keeping real music on the radio for all of us to enjoy! And thanks in advance for calling your station and requesting Gann Brewer.
If there is a station you know of, contact me and give the the call letters, city and state, address bla bla, cool DJ to get his CD to etc....
thanks again!
Nancy Apple
info@ringorecords.net or
NancyApple@aol.com


WEVL Memphis 89.9 - Nancy Tanas Pathway Show, Tuesdays 6-8 PM CST

WLSR, 96.5, LPFM Community Radio, Sarasota, FL - Craig Huegel - Our Kind of Folk

KLCC 89.7 FM -  Eugene, Oregon - 'Saturday Cafe' hosted by Frank Gosar

FM-95.6/95.2/99.3,  Radio EVW - Germany, "Hillbilly Rockhouse/Roots"

WVGN - St Thomas, Virgin Islands - Doug Dick's show

WBGU-FM (www.wbgufm.com) - David Sears - Bowling Green, OH

WYEP 91.3 FM - Pittsburgh, PA - Ken Batista - An American Sampler

WOMR 92.1 FM - Provincetown, MA - 'The Old Songs Home' w/ Bob Weiser

WLRN Radio - Miami - Michael S. Stock

Hinesburg Vermont - Rik Palieri - this might be internet only, check out banjo.net

WCVF-FM - Fredonia, NY - Tom Bingham "General Eclectic"

KGLP - Gallup, New Mexico - Tom Funk

Wide Open Country Show - Alberta, Canada

Belmonth, New Zealand - DJ Eddie O'Strange

KVMR - Nevada City, CA - Backroads show, Ruby Slippers show

Third Coast Music Network, San Antonio

Ralph's Back Porch Show - San Augustine, TX

WTUL 91.5 - New Orleans, LA

Currently reading:
Tilled Earth: Stories
By Manjushree Thapa
4:33 AM 
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Thursday, August 21, 2008 

Category: Music
GANN BREWER
Gann Brewer
Ringo Records

Looky here, another folksinger. Brewer is sort of in the mold of John Prine, that style between talking and singing while spinning yarns about the uncommon common folk with a wry sense of humor and great respect for real people. He is not nearly as deep down dark as Leonard Cohen, but he does slip in a line here and there that puts me in mind of the old Canadian singer/songwriter. He got a lot of help from Nancy Apple on this and I have learned to listen to anything she has a hand in because I know it will sound good and make sense. She did the production and engineering on the recording (done at Hillbilly Paradise in good old Memphis, Tennessee). Bear Hughes and Mark Autry shared bass duties and also added other picking, some lead guitar, Dobro, and mandolin and all like that.
1:36 PM 
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Friday, July 25, 2008 

Current mood:  chipper
Category: Music
Hey everyone, Nancy here - Ringo Records head honcho, ha!
Gann is out working hard on the road, so I will be doing his myspace page for him will he is traveling the far ends of the earth....
So, keep that in mind when you send those messages, that he might not be able to read them for a while.
He will be in Portland for a few days, then San Fran - and off to Vietnam, and plans a stop sometime soon in India,
ahhh, the life of a gypsy - ain't it nice!
Adios friends,
N
2:43 AM 
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Thursday, June 19, 2008 

Category: Music
"Pilgrim on a Train" This was originally a poem i wrote while recalling an old European backpacker in his 70's that I knew in the countryside in southern Laos after he'd told us all his stories for a couple weeks... it became a song one day while tooling around in an a-minor, and the added chorus part sort've made the character an American for whatever reasons.... so it's that old Dutch guys story, but with a flash of Ike Eichenberg, Paris, circa 1979, and a good chunk of Ali Baba when he rolled off that train in Amsterdams Central Station in late '99 as well.... just jone'zin for a smoke

"Buskin Blues" I got lost in  Ireland (Galway & Dublin mostly) for a brief spell in 2006 summer... it was the 1st time i'd busked steady since Queenstown in 2001 and i wrote this song a year later in Memphis....

"The Hammer Song" I first heard Ike Eichenberg sing this song at the Maho Pavilleon on St. John in 2000... and it took me 4 or 5 years to get him to teach it to me.....

"Blues From Dunedin" here was this young girl from the European Alps that left me high and dry in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand... Bob Dylan had just turned 60... Dunedin's a lonely place if you've got the blues....

"Spoon' Mon" one can't do Crab Mon/Spoon Mon Ted justice in a song... he deserves a whole set've short stories but so too would all the other characters down in and around Coral Bay..... i'm workin' on that one.... (Note-- this song did not make the CD at last minute for lack of Ted's spoons)

"What Did the Deep Sea Say? " an excellent Woody Guthrie inspired traditional song, this is told from the point of view of a young lady who's lover was more than likely lost at sea or battle....

"The Chinchilla Song" ... with apologies to my good friends at the 1900 block of Balboa in San Francisco.... Ling-Ling the Chinchilla heard so many of my songs I finally decided to write one for him (or her)

"Ode to Ponsonby Jim" --- Ponsonby Jim was gone when I came back to the north island later that year, but i can still hear him tellin' his stories, playin' that slide, & dreamin' about makin' it back home someday...

"Arthurs Keep Greens"..... on down the alley, beside the Old Ghazala Market... (that's where you'd find Arthur's Keep...)

"Danville Girl" ... like 'Arthurs Keep Greens', a tip've the hat to Ramblin' Jack Elliott......

"Tiger Beer Rag".... I guess Tiger Beer's damned near as common as a Singha or Heinekin in S/E Asia... so here's to all the travellers I met over Tiger Beers in some've those places.... oh yeah, in Tel Aviv they really prefer Goldstar, i know....

"Caroleen" .... just a memory for that girl that comes along and loves you for bein' gypsy-esque but you both know it's gotta end when she goes back to reality... then it does and she's back in the City with her memories and you're sittin' in a bungalow on a beach wishin' maybe you'd never had that gypsy bone in the first place 'cause you'll never no more than the lonesome road...

"Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home" the first song on the last album Mississippi John Hurt made in his lifetime.... Mississippi John Hurt's music is as pure as it gets in my book... he died almost a decade before I was born, but I can hear him in the wind when I'm back home in Mississippi, most notably when the hills meet the Delta.....

"Riding in My Car" --- I started playing this spontaneously just so we could deal with the dogs and twirping, exotic birds towards the end of a long day recording.... Nancy found it a week or two later and we said "what the hell -- lets keep it".... the percussions are either the dogs feet or us slappin' for 'em to bark along, which they did....

"I'll Be Fine (when I get home to you)" My only co-write ever up to this point, Nancy and I had this one down pretty fast after we started... .. i was envisioning maybe Billy DeLyon walkin' down the street in South Memphis circa 1895, boastin' about his "brand new hat and travellin' shoes" anyways, but maybe a card game later that night kept him from makin' it back down to Leland...... Mark Autry's lead on that 1890's Martin Parlor guitar with the nylon strings (probably my favorite part of this record) took us to that time and place a lot quicker and smoother than any two lines could......
1:26 PM 
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008 

Current mood:  artistic
Category: Music
Gann sent this to me (Nancy Apple) from the road on some time off he is taking before the national release date on July 1st for his record ----


We did some hard trecking for a week, visiting remote, remote villages with no roads or electricity.. our guide was a former guerilla warrior from the 80s and 90s with {schoolteacher friends) scattered in various villages, hiding out with family's... one schoolteacher who's adobe we stayed in had a classical guitar... guess what? it found it's way in my hands.. all the village children came to listen.... it was an experience i'll cherish.... played until it was time to sleep.... we traveled hard in the pouring rain.... a 3rd friend went back to Argentina, and me and my buddy Brad are now holed up in a bohemian hideout on a crazy jungle river with hammocks and tubes for the river, supposed to go swing on ropes and vines later... caves, you know.... it's a great break.. i am having guitar withdrawals though.....
3:03 AM 
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