Welcome to a new experience that is the Almighty Fred Newsletter.  You through the fortune, or misfortune, of knowing either Aaron, Adam, Dustin, Jerry, or even Phil have been placed on the mailing list for this, the official Almighty Fred Newsletter.  If for some reason you wish to unsubscribe, just write to [email protected] and leave us a nice little letter explaining in a minimum of 500 words why you don't want to be on our maiiling list and then we'll take care of you.

In this issue we discuss:

** The Birth of The Almighty Fred
** New Album in post production.
** Upper Holsopple Tour Dates Cancelled
**Almighty Haiku Contest Anounced

THE BIRTH OF THE ALMIGHTY FRED (or:  Laboring Pains)

Many have asked us how the band got together and usually we say it was fate, when in reality it was boredom and some goofiness instilled from the song "Cemetary Polka" by Tom Waits.  Back in 1974 the band met for the first time.  This is impossible, you may note, since the oldest member of the band was born in 1978. It is important to remember that in previous lives the members of The Almighty Fred worked together in a fish processing plant in Central America.  Jerry (who was then known as Rolando Rococo) and Adam (Gomez Pueblo)  wore funny hair nets, Dustin (Guadalupe Chiste) distributed rubber gloves to incoming employees, Aaron (Esteban Bajones) was working in the area with the big hook and Phil (Phil Kanzleiter) was a fish.  The guys used to meet in the workroom, often exchanging dirty jokes they had heard, or plans on what they should do with Phil since he was starting to smell pretty bad.  The love of music between them was very obvious and a steel drum band, then headed by Jon Mack Printz, was formed.  They worked for lousy pay during by day and  toured extensively by night.  Seeing as how they were breaking into the scene, an accident had to come about (because that's how it always happens in music) and one day the fish plant was bombed by terrorists from The People's Republic of Uruguay (a now defunct group of crazed nationalists dead set against the exploitation of the Central American fish industry).  All perished in the ensuing shrapnel and fire excpet for Jon, but his father beat him badly when he got home that night, mainly due to his grades.

Death.  Reincarnation.  Cut to December 1997.

A rather cold and wet night it was on December 24th.  Adam and Aaron had gone to Dustin's as per the usual Christmas ritual visiting, and Jerry and Phil stopped by.  Jerry whipped out the accoustic guitar, Aaron turned on the mike and grabbed a bass, Dustin took his seat at the keyboard, Adam played Police Quest I, and Phil had to go home for curfew.  The immortal words, "I'll sing and play for 8 counts, you guys play for 8 counts and then repeat the whole mess" were heard and the Almighty Fred was born again.

THE ALMIGHTY FRED IS:
Aaron Datsko  --  Ugly
Adam Datsko  --  Lead Computer Boy
Dustin Rainey  --  Keyboard guy
Jerry Sheehan  --  The Official Jerry of NASCAR
Phil Kanzleiter  --  That Guy

**  New Album To Hit The Streets Soon (or: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Aaron's Keyboard But Were just Too Damn Lazy to Ask)

The new album from The Almighty Fred is near completion and will soon be in the final mixing stage very soon.  We'll let you all know the release date (or the first day you can ask us for a copy) .   Look for all new songs including "Freeform Love Song #5", "Dr. K. vs. Johnny 5", "Crew Snew", "Newspaper Delivery 4 A.M.", and a tribute to Wesley Willis, complete with a cheesy country western background.  Look for a complete chronology of the recording process in the next issue!

**  Holsopple Tour Dates Cancelled (or:  The only thing that hurts worse is smacking it on the sink)

The TAF shows slated for the Holsopple are have been cancelled, mainly due to lack of revenue and lack of interest.  When asked about the show cancellation, a spokesperson for the band only commented, "It's Holsopple."  New tour dates will be posted as they booked.

ALMIGHTY CONTEST ANNOUNCED  (or: We needed filler)

So I'm sitting at my computer, in my Almighty mood, and I thought that a contest would be kinda fun.

"But what could we do for a contest that would be fun to judge?" I asked myself.

I said to myself "Self, (as I now refer to myself in writing) Self, " I says, "what does everyone in the world love and I would enjoy judging  It's simple...and so we announce:

THE ALMIGHTY HAIKU CONTEST.

The rules are simple.   All you need to do to enter is to send a haiku to [email protected]

For those of you who have forgotten what the haiku is, it's a Japanese form of poetry that is 3 lines long and has 5 syllables in the first and third lines, and 7 syllables in the middle line.  for example, we take this award winning haiku from JR Brinkman:

Marshall Urban rocks
Theory class is really dull
Processed meat kicks ass

(ok so it's not really award winning and in fact we couldn't remember the original version so we made this one up but what do you want it's an EXAMPLE for cryin' out  loud!)

Haiku is traditonally centered in nature (as shown by this paraphrase of a Scott Heffner haiku):

Sitting by the lake
The water is so serene
Oops I just fell in

We don't care if it's about nature but if you can talk about Phil we'll give it special consideration.

The winner gets, aw hell I don't know, we'll make a copy of the debut tape and have Dustin's dad sign it.

We just want to see Haiku.

That's all for now.  Till the next newsletter....

Aaron Datsko
Editor in Chief of The Almighty Newsletter.