QTheMusic.com

We have been asked to do a tour diary for Q Magazine (writes Jack Goldstein). As a band, Fixers are always taking photos and filming cool stuff while we travel so we figured we should have an abundance of hot shit to pad it out with. Traveling around in a van is a relatively new thing for us, we have only been doing it for a year now and it's pretty difficult to maintain any form of coherent or regimented exercise whilst on tour. You literally sit in a van, stop at a petrol station and buy some peanuts and then sit in a van again. It has great perks though too. For instance, I get to read, listen to music, do cross-stitch and watch films like Bangkok Dangerous. Total fucking rock 'n roll warfare, like five potted Sago Palms photosynthesising in hell...

24 September: Molotov/ Hamburg, Germany
Our first ever international show! What better way than to break us in with a trip to Hamburg's Reeperbahn. The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg's St Pauli area, its a hot hive of red light sex clubs, loud bars, discotheques and, quite oddly, an amazing Madame Tussauds knock off which is filled with poorly sculptured celebrities but rules nonetheless! It takes us eight our hours to get there and we drive through France, Belgium and Holland. We all try German sausages, apart from Michael and Dave who are vegetarian. Jason gets chased down the street for taking a photo in a red light district. I went to bed early so I could wake up and take advantage of the amazing breakfast buffet at our hotel. They had rollmops herrings with pickled onions in them - I ate about five.Fantastisch! Also, we hate the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but who doesn't?

Fixers - Schwimmhaus Johannesburg (Demo Version) from fixers on Vimeo.

20 October: SWN Festival, Cardiff

We are on our way to play Swn Festival in Cardiff, this will be our first UK show since we recorded our album and the first trying out some new material. Before we leave Oxford we manage to crash and the car is wrecked. We cram ourselves into another vehicle and get on our way.
I stopped by the most amazing health food store in central Cardiff and got some great herbal teas and some coco nibs to snack on but they taste gross so I throw them away. The show is great, Huw Stephens attends with the festival organiser, John Rostron. We have our first ever heckler tonight. He's in the crowd before we begin playing but I somehow manage to single handily destroy him and he watches a few songs, claps and leaves. It's a cool show to kick off the UK tour.

27 October: The Registry, Portsmouth
Jeez, a pretty cool show but not much to report. I did start watching Twin Peaks today, Roo lent me the boxset and I'm on mission to complete them before the tour is out. I also got given some cross stitch by my sister as I have been interested in it for a while, never tried it and figured I'd have plenty of time in the back of the van to work some magic - whoever said punk was dead?

28 October: 60 Million Postcards, Bournemouth
As soon as we get to Bournemouth I remember that I have been here before and that there is a totally tacky/amazing tropical cocktail place on the beach front that has a large model of a wave with a surf board in front that you can lie on and have your photo taken in - they also do one hell of a virgin piña colada. I do an interview before we play, Dawson goes to meet some friends who are studying in Bournemouth and we relax before the show.
The show is amazing, we are basically nose to nose with the crowd and the promoter Katie is lovely. We accidentally break the porcelain cat teapot she provides for us and she lets us keep it. Totally fucking badass!

29 October: Freeze Festival, London
Whoa, Battersea Power Station is next level - we have always wanted to get this close, its a shame the festival isn't actually held within the station itself but I'm guessing that could be dangerous! Freeze Festival is strange, lots of snowboarding jackets and weird Bono-esque sunglasses but the show is lots of fun and we have a cool crowd.

1 November: Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London
"Our London headline show, I always worry about these shows. I have a pretty good burger in a place next door and an even better peanut butter milkshake. I'm not in love with the venue, it seems kind of soulless - like The Black Lodge but nowhere near as cool (Twin Peaks is beginning to take over my life by this point!). The show doesn't feel great, especially compared to Bournemouth.

4 November: Les Inrocks, Paris
Paris is beautiful, I came here once when I was in secondary school and had a bad experience involving a bad restaurant and a cat that had been run over. This time though, I'm in love with the place - I want to live here someday. The supermarket opposite the venue has everything and I spend nearly an hour just walking around it.
However, there is only one thing on my mind - ham and cheese baguettes. I saw an interview with Tom Cruise where he professed that once you are in France it is important you have a ham and cheese baguette. Soooo, we stop as soon as we get to Calais and I have my first. Its pretty incredible, I don't usually eat bread and I can't remember the last time I had a baguette! By the time we arrive in Paris I am on my third baguette.
The venue was lovely, Laura Marling was playing upstairs with James Blake. We were downstairs with Mona and Viva Brother, both of which personify everything that is repulsive about contemporary popular music, in my opinion. As an almost morbid obsession, we watch a bit of Viva Brother and then head out into the night. The rider is amazing, lots of fresh baguettes, ham, cheese, etc - basically we helped ourselves to way to many baguettes. The audience were so responsive, polite and engaging. After the show we went up to the Sacre Coeur, sat on the step and overlooked the entire city. It was so beautiful."

11 November: The Ashmolean Museum Of Art & Archaeology, Oxford
A sold out homecoming show with our friend Orlando aka Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.
The venue is beautiful, although quite restricting whilst you're playing. We have a lot of equipment and I was stuck in front of a large pillar, cutting me off from half of the crowd. For this reason, I found the show quite hard and couldn't relax the entire time we were onstage. We did get given some great falafel, salad and dips along with a couple of bottles of good wine which we saved to drink in Amsterdam the day after.
TEED's set was intense, it was a shame we couldn't hang afterwards as we had to sleep so we could leave for Holland bright and early in the morning.

12 November: The Paradiso, Amsterdam
WHOOOOOOA! Where do I start with this show? Our hotel was on the river and the venue was directly opposite it, The Paradiso is a legendary venue. I remember watching footage of Todd Rundgren on YouTube doing his entire A Wizard, A True Star show there a few years ago and it looked incredible. Everyone at London Calling was so hospitable and friendly which was something you don't really encounter in the UK, especially at hectic festivals. Me and Roo do an interview before hand, the guy interviewing asks us who we think would play us in a film about ourselves which is pretty tough question to answer. The interviewer looks like Donald Sutherland but tells us that his friends think he looks like Gary Busey, he then mentions that Roo should be played by Keaunu Reeves (go figure!) and that I should be played by Val Kilmer, which would be pretty cool.
Tonight's show is being recorded for video and audio so I brush my teeth up good and white before we go onstage. The audience are perfect, they are dancing and having fun and the room is packed out. Its so hot on stage, which I always love because there is nothing worse than coming off stage and feeling like you haven't played a show. Unfortunately, Dawson's guitar amp blows before the last song and we have to cut the set short but it doesn't matter to much, its still one of the coolest shows we have ever done.
Its weird, juxtaposing this show with last nights show. Who would have thought we could have come all this way and done a great show to a really receptive and engaging audience.
Azealia Banks is on straight after us so we stick around to catch her. Her show was great, I rip a Com Truise poster of a wall and sit downstairs waiting for everyone so we can leave. Whilst I'm waiting I spot Azealia right in front of me. I contemplate going and seeing what she's like. Now, at this point it is worth noting that I was sat down with my legs crossed. I'm a pretty tall guy, with pretty long spindly legs and sometimes its kind of hard to gage how much uncrossing room I require when uncrossing my legs. Anyhow, in this case it was more than I had premed and the result was me kicking Azealia in the back rather hard. She looked annoyed but I brushed it off, apologised and figured I best just leave the venue. We went into Amsterdam and hung out at the best bar ever. It was whiskey bar, they must have had over seven hundred different malts - I had a few glasses of some crazy strong Japanese stuff and crashed out. I got to bed around five in the morning as I had planned to take advantage of the breakfast buffet again. Everybody else pulled an all-nighter, missing out on the breakfast.
Their loss.
Jack Goldstein

For more on the band head to Fixerstheband.com.

4:29 PM | 22/11/2011