Josh Fix

MySpace (listen to "Don't Call Me in the Morning," "Jethro")
Official site

Hometown: San Francisco
Next local show: 3/22, Red Devil Lounge
Upcoming release: Free At Last, 2007

I had to do a double-take to make sure I wasn't listening to some lost Queen tracks instead of the full-length debut of 29-year-old San Francisco musician Josh Fix. No kidding. His production values are top-notch, his vocals and instrumental parts fully realized, and his songwriting consistently glorious -- replete with melodies, harmonies, hooks, and all the pleasures of grandiose '70s pop-rock. But unlike Freddie Mercury, Fix never goes over the top -- though he has retained the soaring background chorus vocals. (more >>)

By keeping his tunes rooted in Elton John-esque turns at a Hammond B3 and an antique Emerson upright piano, and by being blessed with a vocal range that doesn't dare reach Mercury's heights, Fix has fixed the bombastic '70s style for the more jilted '00s. That's not to say he doesn't have a ton of fun with it. Just check out the piano ballad "Rock and Roll Slut," track five on Free At Last: "I've been going with a rock and roll slut / At least that's what she calls herself, I know she's not / She's so good she won't even complain / When I come home late smelling like a drain."

This record captures the ideal balance of camp and rock. With few missteps, Fix deftly revives an era that he wasn't around to experience, yet knows just where it went right. Free At Last will be released this summer, and since Fix got hooked up with a pretty sweet distribution deal, the record will be available just about everywhere ("iTunes, Best Buy, the whole shebang, except of course Tower Records, hehe," he wrote in an email).

HE IS THE CHAMPION:
-In 2004, Fix released a seven-track EP called Steinway the Hard Way. It met with rave reviews tagging him a piano rock revivalist.
-Fix has received coverage in the New York Daily News, the Portland Press Herald, KTVU Channel Two news, the Boston Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and others.
-Through a hot demo that made its way into some pretty famous hands, Fix has made fans of Lenny Kravitz, Eddie Van Halen, Toto, and the Who (for whom Fix's previous band the Furious Force opened at a gig in Los Angeles after Adam Duritz of scheduled act the Counting Crows lost his voice).