The Fix

by Steve LeggettOne of the earliest of the Midwest's hardcore bands, Lansing, MI's the Fix played ferocious music at a recklessly fast speed, literally burning through the arc of a band from birth to crash in just 22 months. Consisting of guitarist Craig Calvert, singer Steve Miller, drummer Jeff Wellman, and bassist Mike Achtenberg, the Fix conceptually began after Steve and Mike caught sets by the Stranglers and the Ramones within a few weeks of each other at Dooley's in Lansing. The actual band officially formed in 1980 with the arrival of Calvert and Wellman. The Fix's furious shows made them favorites on the D.I.Y. hardcore circuit, and they caught the attention of Touch and Go's Tesco Vee, who issued a Fix 7" early in 1981, Vengeance/In This Town, and a second 7", Jan's Rooms, at the end of the year. The violently fast hurricane that was the Fix finally played itself out, however, in San Francisco on New Year's Day 1982, when the band decided to call it quits. At the Speed of Twisted Thought..., a full-length CD made up of the band's singles, demos, and a generous set of live tracks (making it essentially the complete recorded legacy of the Fix), was issued in 2006 by Touch and Go Records.