Fools of the World
written by Don Bown


New Fan Club And Rag!!

What you now hold is the sample issue of The 77's new newsletter "Fools Of The World", made especially for the fan who wants to have all the latest information on the greatest darn band in the world!

This newsletter will be produced quarterly with special issues inserted here and there. It will feature not only band info., but also articles written by Mike, Mark, and Bruce answering many of your questions! We are pretty excited about doing all of this because we want to be closer to our fans scattered all over the place. We will give you the chance to score some free stuff when we hold contests for all of you who sign up.

As a way to garner some personal information on our fans, a questionnaire was generated, which you will find on the back of this letter. We would appreciate it if you would make copies of the questionnaire and give it to all of your friends who may be interested in joining The Official Seventy Sevens Fan Club.. don't forget yourself! The questionnaire will help us find out exactly who our fans are, where they live, their interests, etc.

Now here's the deal on receiving this newsletter every time it is published...It's gonna cost us a few bucks to print and mail over a thousand of these four times or more a year! Hours of thought and prayer went into how much we should charge, or whether or not we should charge at all, and here's the conclusion: Once you fill out and mail us the questionnaire (you gotta pay the 32 cents...) you are automatically a full fledged member of The 77's Fan Club, which entitles you to receive this newsletter, which will be much longer and full of cool stuff......but we'd like to ask for a "donation" of 5 or 10 bucks (whatever you can send) to help out our younger fans who can't fork out the cash. Please earmark your checks or money orders for Fools Of The World, but make them payable to 77's LTD. The address to send all this stuff to is: P.O. Box 1441, Citrus Heights, CA 95611

Safe As Milk CD's

For those of you who have ordered the unabridged Safe As Milk CD, please be patient......we sold out and it is out of print, but we are re- releasing it real soon!!!

Picture from tom tom Blues

Bruce        Mark         Mike

Goings On In 1995

As you may know by now, "The A-Train" Aaron Smith and David Leonhardt left The 77's late in 1994 in pursuit of more profitable ventures, in which we wish them all the best. Their departure left the band without a world class drummer and great musician/ songwriter that Aaron and David were respectively.

Not being one to slack off for too long, Mike archived and released the box set 1 2 3 which consists of the "7's" first three albums, and then went in search of a drummer. The search ended close to home when long time friend Bruce Spencer (formerly of Vector and The Charlie Peacock Group) joined the band, and The 77's became a power trio for the first time in the band's history.

Off they went on tour all over the country during the spring and summer in support of 1 2 3, receiving a great response and experiencing a new found enjoyment playing as a three-piece. The guys then went right into the studio and recorded their newest album/CD tom tom Blues.......... among other things such as working on Love Coma's new album, and stuff too weird to get into here.... next newsletter..... promise.

the 77'S

Now And The Future

Right now the band is busy recording Mike's third solo album titled Michael Roe: The Boat Ashore which will prove to be an instant classic. Mike is collaborating with Bruce on most of the tracks, and it is something very beautiful and extremely cool. Look for it to be out early this summer.

So far this year, The Seventy Sevens have been focusing on playing more shows in their hometown of Sacramento, California. They have also been doing some shows as "Safe As Milk" adding another class-A guitar player in Michael Gregory, creative tom tom Blues percussionist Cary Avery and local ace saxophonist Pete Lehman. This is a line up that really pulls out the best in everybody.......look for a live "mail order only" release of this group later this year.

You tell us...........

We want this to be your newsletter, so please, if you have any suggestions on what we can do to make this the coolest fan rag around, tell us!

Biographical info? Band trivia? Concert schedules? Simply let us know. You will get some sort of response quickly via "snail mail" or e-mail because.......

The 77's Raid The "Net"!!

For you cyber-nuts out there, be sure to check out the 77's home page at: http://web77.biola.edu/~steve/77s/

You can download all kinds of sound files, GIFS, JPEGS, etc. from here. Also keep an eye on this page and this newsletter for dates that you can "chat" with the band live. Be sure to tell us on the questionnaire if you have AOL, CompuServe, or regular access to the Internet capable of IRC chat.....we'll find out where we should go to first.

Leave e-mail to us at the home page or to: don@77s.com.

So until next time....