Fix Speed Of Twisted Thought CD

The Fix: Steve, Jeff, Craig, Mike.
Of the many reissues and career overviews of seminal yet fairly obscure first-wave hardcore punk bands released in the early 2000s, perhaps the most interesting of the lot is Touch & Go's Fix retrospective, AT THE SPEED OF TWISTED THOUGHT. The Detroit quartet called it quits in 1982 after releasing a mere two seven-inches, just as the scene was gaining an identity. While there's a tendency amongst the music cognoscenti to overstate the fleeting impact of short-lived, esoteric bands, the 24 tracks here (made up of the two singles and several live tracks) prove the absolute necessity of this excellent reissue. As brutally forceful and immediate as any classic hardcore act before or after them, what makes the Fix stand out is a stunning musicianship and cohesiveness nearly unheard of in the movement. In the case of the Fix, one should certainly believe the hype.
Wow, think hardcore punk in 1980 as it was in the days of California or England, pre-Henry Rollins Black Flag or those yobs from Stoke-on-Trent in the U.K., or even Dischord in Washington, D.C. This was Lansing, MI, heart of the rust belt and as rusty and messed up as Detroit. The Fix, a paint-peeling aggro quartet, were tearing up basements, restaurants, and even frat parties with their brand of light-speed uncontrolled aggression and no-future (after all, they lived in the center of it) simplicity. They were howling to the all-but-deaf masses (remember that where the Fix came from, rock bands were doing Journey, Styx, and Bob Seger covers in bars to get the cash from drunken college kids). There were a few dozen in Lansing who got the message -- Tesco Vee was one of them and had the cojones and craziness to put them out on his fledgling Touch & Go label, the logical outgrowth of his and Dave Stimson's cool-ass D.I.Y. punk rag. And now, 26 years later when the pair -- and the cats in this band -- are middle-age codgers, Corey Rusk, who inherited the Touch & Go label and made it the standard for indie labels since that time, issues both singles (the Vengeance 7" and Jan's Room EP), a compilation cut, outtakes from the Jan's Room sessions, and a live tape of unknown origin on one shiny little silver platter. Yeah! It's for those who were there, those who wish they were, and those who only read about this mysterious punk rock band that helped to define the Midwest's hardcore scene. This is proof that the legend more than lives up to its whispered-in-revered-tones hype. Guitarist Craig Calvert (who shattered all the original racial stereotypes of punk), "singer" Steve Miller, drummer Jeff Wellman, and bassist Mike Achtenberg were it. There are 24 unruly, unbridled, completely savage cuts on this slab, all of them worth your left arm if hardcore -- the real thing -- is it. There aren't words to describe the sheer savage wail and whomp of this baby -- just slap it on and get your butt kicked as you scratch your head and wonder what happened to it all and how all these later kids can call themselves punk bands. In the words of the old Touch & Go mag chart, this stuff is "the goods." ~ Thom Jurek