THE ADAM WOODS INSIDE TRACK FIXXTOUR REPORT Time flies when you have fun. Its been a while my fish net friends. I’ve been busy beyond the virtual world - some of us may even have touched during this last FIXXtour - YUK! We started in Florida. Rehearsed for a couple of days in Miami and generated some new material before the first show at Button South in Hallendale. The less than capacity crowd were with us all the way and it was a baptism with no drowning. Next day we hit the road in our super R.V., which has all the benefits of a tour bus without the excess. Thoughts of Waltons on holiday cross my mind. Frightening! The only real threat is a flu-type bug which has Cy by the throat and Chris and myself by the nose. The 25th in Orlando at the House of Blues. The venue is on the Disney lot. Disney employees say they ‘work for the rat’ and, in a way, so do we. For a band, H.O.B. is a great chain of venues with top sound systems, experienced technical crews and five star dressing room facilities……..How is it for you dears? Meanwhile the Miami Dolphins remind us of Cleveland and the reception we had there earlier this year as we struggle to make a forlorn gig at Shades in Orange Park into a great-to-be-here event during one of the wettest storms I’ve ever etc.…… To those of you who made the show, I have to say "You Made the Show". Finally in Florida: Frankies Patio in Tampa, where the only problem we have is the flu-thing. Nice gig, good crew and time and space to meet loads of people and catch the opinions of the aficionados. So, the Waltons entertain in the R.V., in the street, before the overnight drive to Atlanta, Georgia. The Variety Playhouse turned into some sort of big family re-union. Met some of you guys afterwards and had some great food from a Lebanese Café next door to the gig and felt the flu-thing start to tumble. Big drive next, to Houston, Texas, to play City Streets, a big outdoor Halloween gig. A mixed bag with English, Hung Chin and the Spin Doctors. I enjoy watching them. They’re a cool band. We are cool too. The acoustics of an outdoor gig always seem to make sense. Big breath.........and Relax. Is Bob Popular? Bob Popular. It’s like a bar. It is a bar. It has lots of >small rooms. It has holes in the walls. It has a few bars. It has T.V. screens over the bars showing a band playing in a small room. It’s theFIXX…..over the bar. In one of the rooms there is a stage facing a wall with holes in. There is the band playing to the few people who can fit in the room. Next door, in another room, out of sight, is the soundman trying to mix. Weird, but wonderful and I’d go myself if I lived with y’all in Austin, Texas. Next day I have some time so I visit the Continental Club. Very cool - highly recommended. And............Relax. Dallas next. The Blue Planet. The new material now beginning to connect like the (how shall I say?) more "familiar" stuff. Time to go further down the road to Creation. It’s a bit of a disco Planet but great atmosphere and good social afterwards when we discover what fate befell the stage we had built for the Phantoms tour which had been left in Dallas since I don’t know when. Nice one Showco! Next, Corpus Christie. But first, on the way there, we stop at a Pawn Store and I buy an old ‘70’s Ludwig snare drum for $80. The best snare I’ve ever owned as I later discover when I set it up. I’ve rented different drums at every gig so I’ve played loads of snare drums this last year. This is the dog’s bollocks and tonight we need every bit of help we can get to overcome some boringly inadequate technical shit. We win the struggle and we feel good. So we party in some guy’s garage until his dad wakes up and sends us home! We have a seriously good gig the next night at the White Rabbit in San Antonio. Afterwards the Waltons entertain in the R.V., camped out back of the club. Then on to Beaumont, Texas, to the splendour of Rocky Octane, a purpose built gig with laundry facilities! At last we can get close to each other again. We work hard to generate an atmosphere during the gig and are rewarded handsomely by the enthusiastic, but compact, crowd. We leave Texas the next day and head North to Fayetteville in Arkansas where the weather is cold but the people are warm. The Dickson Street Ballroom ("obvious joke", we cried) turned out to be downright cool and the street offered a speciality condom store and a nicely preppy second-hand bookstore where we picked up some more David Lodge. We drive through some seriously serious scenery as we journey through the cold - snug in our Waltonian R.V. making cups of tea on our way to Des Moines, Idaho. Supertoad is the gig. It’s a bit like a departure lounge but we do our best and everyone there helps along. Who is the guy with the drinks? Does he know who he is? Anyway, thanks if you were there. Onwards and onwards to Omaha, Nebraska, and The Shadow, which turns out to be a pretty cool club: some pretty acceptable techno for the pulse factor and some tasty lights and multi-screen T.V. technology. Plenty of headroom and a chill-out dressing room. Did that radio D.J. really propose from the stage in public? At sound check we come up with another tune to add to the bag that we intend to record in Nashville the following week. Rik records the sound checks so we can follow the progress. Next day we head warmth to Kansas City, Missouri, and The Hurricane. It’s a funky bar and we play yesterday’s soundcheck song and any others we can think of and, because it’s a bar, we end up squiffy………..oh, the price one pays! Then Guitars & Cadillacs in Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s also a boxing venue. We play on a shelf that’s about 20 feet in the air over the bar. Feels really disconnected. Next time we’ll play on the floor. We get up and leave early the next day as we want to make Nashville as soon as poss; we’re going to spend the next three days recording before playing Music City Mix Factory on the Friday. Everything is nice at Woodlands (thanks guys) and we find the acoustics at the gig very difficult. But we battle on and are rewarded. Next is last. Birmingham, Alabama, is the last show at 5 Points South Music Hall where we have a blast. All’s well that ends well and we do our best to drink the R.V. dry. Soon dawn arrives and its packing time and off to Atlanta airport and home. Thank you for being there. Madman