Number 9. Bucharest, Romania

Friday morning bleary eyed but bushy tailed the OL Wreckin' Crew head off to sample the delights of Bucharest. Pints in Heathrow and 3 hours later we touch down and are met at the airport by Catinca our lovely escort (her words) for the weekend plus Emil our driver. We cruise into Bucharest. It's quite charming except they don't like video cameras very much. After checking in, the best two (Icerink & Bigshow) ignore personal hygiene issues and hit the bar, first round quarter of a million...Rockafella, Baby! Then we all split to get some vittles and decide to hit a local fast food joint which serves beer. Satisfied, we hook up with Cat and her lovely mate Alex. They take us to a pub/disco called Planters and it's factory grade euro cheese house all nite, so being thee party crew we rock the dance floor. As usual Mr Jagermeister pays a visit and pretty soon Bigshow is in bother. While vigorously grooving he bumps into this lady, and with a face like thunder she points at her cheek. Now, being unaware of Romanian custom, he reckons he should give her a peck on the cheek to apologize. This however means nothing of the sort and she cuffs him! Much hilarity and an explanation from Cat saves him from further aggro.

Later we head back to the Five Star Hotel (check us by the way) for a nightcap and gradually members of our party head home or go to bed. Boma seemed pretty reluctant to sleep in his actual bed preferring amongst other bizarre locations a 5 th floor window sill. Some time during this narcoleptic adventure he became detatched from his beloved Sgt Rock baseball hat. Only the best two (see above) were still awake. While having deep and meaningful discourse on the merits of Sylvester Stallone's masterpiece 'First Blood'. Some of the Freestylers posse arrive (The Freestylers are playing on the same bill), greetings and introductions are given and made and then as if by magic Bigshow's in bother again. Gay wrestling the drummer from the Freestylers to the floor and shouting "Sasquatch!". It's time for bed!

Saturday afternoon and Payback bumps into Boma, Pylon and Icerink in the lobby, Bigshow is still copping zzzzs. Cat arrives and organizes us to go to the soundcheck. Lots of flags outside the venue, although Payback informs us they were incorrectly spaced. Near here is where Icerink gets his latest bout of hazing. He gets mercilessly stoned! (check the photo page- those aren't birds). Then we realize one of our bags hasn't arrived so Cat sorts it, taxi to the airport and the rogue luggage is retrieved. We then prepare for the show by going to a Romanian restaurant called 'La Mama' and have a feast, Icerink is feeling very off colour and has to watch with envy as everyone chows down, out to the venue an exhibition center hosting a joint British/Romanian dance festival called ROMEXPO. The Gig rocked, the crowd of two and a half thousand were a little bit away from us though because we had 8 breakdancers giving it in front of us!

We head back into town and Boma, Bigshow and Payback hit the sack leaving the new best two and new OL friend Cat to keep the torch burnin'. Back down to Planter's to meet Alex and Gabriella, Pylon bails out after two Jack 'n' Cokes leaving Icerink to be given an impromptu lesson in sexy tequila drinking and a informative tour of Bucharest. Cat and Alex take Icerink (who now feels much better thanks to Cat's healing hands) past this massive, and I mean massive, building called the People's Palace which was built by Ceausescu and holds many ghosts from pre-revolution Romania, then it's off to another restaurant called Zet for some Ciorba da Vacuta (beef broth) which was really cool and the food was delicious. Here Icerink is in the same building as a genuine Romanian superstar called Adrian the Wonder Child, who sings folk based music, Icerink however is in stitches singing "Champion the Wonder Horse" and pointing at him until Cat pointed out the large Romanian mafia type guys surrounding him. The morning is greeted by iced tea and cigarettes and sadly OL have to split leaving behind new friends and fond memories of a really cool city with some of the nicest folk we've had the pleasure to meet.

We will hopefully make it back soon and rock Bucharest, Baby.   

In conclusion. Bucharest - a city of contrasts.

Icerink

Number 8. Russia

“you must be friendly”-Olympic Lifts DJ Twins in Russia

Thursday morning and the new “best two” bigshow and DJ payback, make a rendez-vous at Belfast city airport for what is the bands first trip to Russia-we’re both fairly excited, and at heathrow approach terminal 2 and our “Aeroflot” desk, clutching our freshly hand-written tickets for Moscow. Joking aside, Aeroflot is Russia’s main state airline, and as such we reckon the plane we took over to Moscow was from the 70’s,in a  kinda  “less is more” stylee. Nonetheless we’re enjoying our first Russian beer at 10,000 feet and soon the lights of Moscow are visible below. As we touch down the whole interior of the plane starts violently shaking- “ha ha ha …aeroflot!” says the Russian gent to my left . We’re slightly less amused, but as we slow down and come to what can only be described as a shuddering halt, we’ve arrived.

Kirill, our tour manager is there to meet us at the arrivals gate. Over the next 5 days this guy and Igor, his boss, would become  legends in our eyes for their limitless hospitality, kindness, and as  purveyors of curious liquids. Dump the bags at the hotel, and we’re off to dinner at a swanky downtown bar, scene of a previous Le Hammond Inferno show. Yuri, our booking agent from Germany has advised us that when in Russia you gotta go beer-vodka-beer-vodka all the way. So we do. More people arrive including  another Igor, henceforth known as “big Igor” to avoid confusion….we all proceed to get a little drunk…….

5 Hours later its 7am and we have to get our flight to ekaterinburg for our first DJ show- this is a problem as both of us are more hungover that words can describe- it will be 1 am before we drink again, such was our reaction to last nights festivities (although bigshow puts it down to “nah…it was a bad pint”). At the airport we meet the supporting cast for our DJ shows- ZigZag (one of the first dance djs and promoters in Russia), MC Sam (there to help with promotoion for our sponsors), Coistos (who played trumpet along with some of Zigzag’s music, he spoke little English, so naturally the first thing bigshow said to him was “your names like Ally McCoist…you know “Coisty”…Scottish…football….”) and finally the aforementioned Igor. Got it?

So after some food its off to the venue-upon arrival there is a 20 foot (this is no exaggeration) banner hanging outside, announcing “Olympic lifts djs” with the OL rings-cool as! the venue, as bigshow points out, is kinds TOTP circa 1982, all polished metal, UV lights, and a stage resplendent with a host of dancers who, over the course of the night change outfits approximately 25 times, with costumes ranging from “the matrix” to “hiawian beach party”. After some tunes from Zigzag, its time  for MC Sam to do his thing-this involves him miming along to Will Smith’s “men in black” and hosting some party games with prizes from “realitytvshow”. He’s great. Then we’ re on- fuelled by Vodka, and Russia’s own awnser to Red Bull-“Battery” (it’s a can that looks like a Duracell battery, and keeps me awake for 2 hours when I get back to the hotel……) The party’s great, afterwards there’s more partying for bigshow (they go to a club, then through that club's kitchen and inexplicably into another totally different club) Bedtime at 7am then…..

Saturday and we’re off to Samara with Ural airlines….sounds like a pro choice we think…….okay then we get to the airport- the check in desk looks like a bookies-there’s a 16 year old in a fake reebok top, smoking, who turns out to be our flight attendant. Cool! Then we CARRY our bags (all of them) out to the aircraft and literally HAND THEM UP to the baggage handler in the bowels of the plane….hang on…he looks familiar…oh its our flight attendant kid again, hi!  Bigshow checks the plane and notices that the propeller engines on either wing are TOTALLY different, and inside its like a 1960’s National Express coach. There is NO pre flight safety announcement (the hostess is sitting opposite me looking totally bored and with a bad case of the munchies besides), everyones  talking on their phones, and ,hang on!no really! we’re off! Actually once we get going its not so bad, we have some amazing views over the Russian landscape, and then we touch down in Samara.

Tonights party is being held outside, in the courtyard of a leisure complex (cinema, bars, bowling, quite normal for Russian venues). We KILL the party- we’ re meant to play for two hours, and end up doing 3  ½, ending as the sun’s coming up…..just a perfect night! Stumbling outside, I remember something tonights promoter told us on the journey to the club- Samara was at the forefront of the Russian end of the space race, and as such security was so tight that in the old days foreigners were not allowed inside the city limits for fear of stealing vital secrets- what reminds me of this is the HUGE FUCK OFF SPACE ROCKET PARKED OPPOSITE THE VENUE!!!!!!It’s a great photo opportunity for us, and our new friends, and then its back to our super plush hotel, not to sleep (sadly! why is it the case for us that the best and coolest places we stay end up being the places we don’t even get a chance to sleep in!!!???), but to shower and head to the Airport, and a normal plane back to Moscow.

By the time we get into the hotel its 11am Sunday morning, so sleep is very much needed. At 5pm, and much refreshed we head out with Igor and Kirill to Red Square, which is as amazing as you’d think, and then its off to the country- turns out that Big Igor is staying in the house of XXXXXXX, a Russian oligarch who made his dough in the airline business- what a pad!!!! Situated about half an hour from the centre of Moscow, its just down the road from  Boris “pass the voddy” Yeltsin’s retirement castle, and is what can only be described as a “compound”, with big walls, security dude with dog at the gate, and a raised covered patio at the back where we all chill, eating some INCREDIBLE Russian food (the best is a sort of meat ravioli meets Dim Sum dish, taken with cream, it’s the absolute BOMB) Bigshow drinks a discraceful amount of honey/chilli flavoured Polish vodka, and we meet a friend of big Igor’s, who is a String Theorist (sort of Quantum physics/universe/philosophy/head melting discipline) He lectures all over the world, from the middle east to cork, is just frighteningly clever, and ends up swimming, pissed, in the river that’s but a stone’s through from the pad. In his undies. At midnight.  As the third bottle of vodka is cracked open, its time to retire to bed.

Monday lunchtime, and as it’s the last day Kirill takes us round some sights, shops and cafes  of Moscow (including the cafe owned by the best, and most famous club in Moscow, “propaganda”) - we stock up on Russian Dolls and 1980 Russian made Adidas trainers. Bigshow buys a “KGB-STILL WATCHING YOU” t-shirt, we meet one of Russia’s top clothes designers in her studio, and payback has Borsch soup (beetroot soup-no, hang on, its great, no, really, !)Then, with Igor, its time to go to the airport, and our flight home.

Russia-you rule. Kirill, Igor, Big Igor, Zig Zag, Sam,”Coisty”, the promoters and people of Samara, and Ekaterinburg-Prost!

Payback

Number 7. New York, USA.

part one-where payback arrives, doesnt sleep, and has a lot of fun. Its Friday and whilst the worst 4 (boma, pylon, bigshot and the icerink) are on a plane to Atlanta the payback is jetting to the NYC in a solo stylee to DJ with Ursula 1000 in a pre-Athfest warm up extravaganza....kinda (hi). Having been up since 2am friday morning UK time, by the time the red-eye lands i'm feeling fairly wack (and wacked) but also ill (in the good way) and sick (also in the good way), so as i step out into the 95° heat, and onto my shuttle into the city, the feeling of being back in NYC chases the blues away.Arriving at the hostel I am meant to be staying at for the night (and that the OL massif will be staying at for the following week) there are some concerns as the receptionist hands me my key and says "okay go and have a look at your room, and come back down and let me know if you still want to stay here...", but hey, the Whitehouse Hotel (as it's called) is fine, apart from the bastard who stole my toothbrush-dude what is up with THAT??? After a refreshing Brooklyn Beer, its off to meet Erica, who runs "rock star helper", if the Rock Suitcase™ is OL's 6th member, she over the course of the week, came pretty close to being our 7th. We got her number as a great person in NYC from Phil of the Lo Fi's, and as we have cheesebugers at Piano's Bar below Houston, we get to grips with the forthcoming assault on New York that we and her have planned. Fully refreshed, its then a short ride to APT in the meat-packing district, where I'm playing with Ursula 1000. By the time I'm on (1am) I've been up for appx 33 hours, but all goes well, and I stumble into bed at 5, after getting Alex (Ursula)'s wife to PROMISE she will call me at 10 am to get me up for my flight to Atlanta for AthFest. Great night though - thanks Alex!

part two-what time is love?OL VS NYC VS GBV VS GVSB, which should start with some background info, that being....no-one slept on Saturday night, our flight left Atlanta at 6.30am Sunday morning, and everyone's wrecked. So as we get in the taxi from La Guardia to Manhattan, the bigshow in paticular starts freakin out-he is one of 3 OL members who are New York virgins. As it is criminally early, by the time we roll up to the hostel, its barely even open, let alone ready for us to check in.This proves FATAL. Straight to the nearest cafe, where at 10.30 am we are the first customers, and the first embibers of beer based beverages. Should have checked the prices.....4 hours and $120 later, its time to check in again.....nope "rooms not ready", but there is a bar next door showing the football, and doing 2 for one on beer. Sheize. Icerink, as well as being drunk, is finding it fairly hard to deal with the concept that we are staying almost opposite CBGBs. By 6pm EVERYONE has gone mad through sleep deprevation, and between furious scribbling on bar mats (of a nature that will NEVER be repeated) it really is time to check in- we agree to get 2 hours sleep and meet later on to go out........

part three-alot of sleep, the gig, heavy metal kareoke, leeds. So no-one made it up until appx. 15 hours later, Monday morning, and suddenly a sober OL can really start to deal with the idea of 5 days in the big apple. Monday morning is spent in the most boring band-like way possible-buying leads, power convertors, and a midi keyboard then its off to soundcheck, after failing to find the England football game (that is not strictly speaking true, we did find a bar charging $20!!!! to watch it...man, forget you) So the gig was awsome!!! and there was an international audience of friends and chums in attendance including Rigsy's fine ladyfriend from Belfast, also from Belfast were Roisin, Damien and Ryan; Shaun "you wont find anyone more Leeds FC than me apart from Andy LoFi" Arnold with Al Gal (another ex pat)'s wife Christie, Tim (how bizzarre is this- he saw our first ever gig in Germany for Bungalow and he is an Editor at Playboy-dude!) Katya (doing an internship at the Knitting Factory, Space Kelly lady) as well as some label dudes and of course the Erica. Props to the door man ("this aaint what i do....i play drums")-yeah, sure you do. After some grub (bisghow aimed to spend the whole US triphaving breakfast for every meal, and almost succeded), Icerink and Payback returned for the Heavy Metal Karoeke (icerink was GUTTED they wouldnt let him sing "search and destroy", payback sang him the EMF cover version to try and cheer him up, didnt work) and the night ended with nightcaps and conversations about how much the strokes sucked at a free show they had been playing the previous saturday (aparently Jay-Z rocked though, the rap game really DOES need him....)

Part 4-atrocity. Tuesday.....football (probably, a part of every day seemed to involve a match), a concert in the evening featuring our fellow residents at the Whitehouse "the sluts of trust" (they are from Glasgow, are on Chemikal underground, and after the first song they played Icerink asked whether they were Hoops of Gers...hoops as it turns out) Icerink also LOVED the first support "Some Action" (literally Iggy backed by The Ramones....very NYC) For bigshow the night ended with a stolen bottle of Hennesey, a park, and a fight (bigshow 1-New York 0) for the rest in ended up in a bar called "happy endings"-and guess what YOU COULD SMOKE!!!! Now with the exception of the Pylon, there's nothing that OL like more with a pint of mild, than a woodbine-however this aint allowed in the NYC, except at this bar. The bar was filled with EVERY BAND IN NEW YORK as well as ALOT OF FASHIONISTA ASS-HOLES however the dj DID play Guided By Voices (as resquested by the Boma, well duh) Saw the Brooklyn bridge at 3 am-looked BOSS!!!

Part 4-subsection 1-television-drug of a nation. Fearless TV - the show. Wednesday saw OL's first live TV performance- well recorded live (we are truely one-take wonders) and to be broadcast on Warners (if memory serves) in September, Olympic lifts , as usual, had the BEST time - 4 songs bucked, alot of free beer drunk (the in-house guys could not believe it - they were saying "most bands come in here, have one beer and dont even finish it.....and you guys want more......?") and a very pleasent glass of absinth to toast the occasion. The rest of the night was spent in the company of Carter, friend of Erica and general fantastic person, on his rooftop garden in the village drinking suds and watching the sun go down.

Part Onion. The Onion is a satirical magazine in New York - imagine 15 Michael Moores as writers and you're kind of getting there. They had a book launch on the Thursday night, in their offices in Soho. OL heard there might be some free beer, so after watching England go out to Portugal in Bar Slainte (thanks for the free drinks and snacks!) we thought "sounds like our kind of party......" 40 Beers and 7 bottles of wine later......look, it was another late night, we ended up at Carter's (again, on the roof...) Bigshow climbed a water tower...OL have truely bucked the concept of the NYC night out.

Part Chimp. Friday-home. Some of us got a boat round the island (best two) some losers arrived 5 mins after it had departed (losers). And then home on the plane-delayed flights lost baggage, and a couple of drinks later it was all over.

Thanks to everyone, but mostly to Erica.

Things bigshow lost in America-
His bag
His dignity
His phone (twice)
His hair (most of it)

Payback

Number 6. Georgia, USA

My Kinda Town. Athens, Georgia. USA. June 2004
So Olympic Lifts head to the US of A for a second trip. This time we're here for over a week! Will USA survive? Only time will tell. Most of our time over here will be spent in Da Big Apple (stories of which are above) but first stop is much further south. The Deep South you might say. The Empire State of the South in fact. AKA The Peach State. AKA Georgia. And more specifically a city called Athens.

Olympic Lifts have been invited to play at AthFest by it's main man Troy. (Yes, that's Troy….from Athens. You just can't beat that.) Troy had caught Olympic Lifts at South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas in 2003 (including one of our legendary busking shows with the Rock Suitcase™).

"Please come and play at my festival in Athens next year" he said with great wisdom.
"Yes Troy, yes we will" said Olympic Lifts.

So, another long flight, no sleep, 3 movies and we're Stateside once more. Outrageous wait at immigration, but finally we make it to US soil and meet Ed our…..wait for it…..LIMO DRIVER! (and total dude). We've waited for this for a long time but finally, our first limo! (still got the helicopter dream left to realise). Ed seems to know the score and our first stop is an off licence. Boy are we enjoying this. Moments like this make all the hard work worth while (What??!, we DO work hard!). Lots of photos get taken which I'm sure are littering the photo page. Talk about arriving in style! Pity we weren't just arriving in time to step onstage. That would be so MONEY.

So we get to the hotel and get refreshed which includes standing over the AC machine to relieve the BallAids (downstairs sweatiness) that afflicted us all the moment we stepped outside the airport. Then it's off downtown. We'd set off from Belfast at about 3am, so, with the time difference 'n' all, it's now mid/late afternoon. We're off to check out the festival, the town and the people. None of these disappoint.

Only a couple of blocks and we're there. Where it's all happening. There's the main stage (mental note - rock that thing tomorrow). There's Troy, "Hi Troy". And there's Camper Van Beethoven! No really! So we 'take skinheads bowling' with them for a while then we head off to check out some other bands in club venues. It becomes clear pretty much right away that the people here are very friendly.

"This place is extremely cool," we're all thinking "while at the same time being extremely hot".

As is to be expected on our first night on tour (as well as most others) we don't shy away from the odd drink or nine which makes some of the evening a little haaaazy. I know we were in the Caledonian Club, saw a band called The Close, then apparently we went to see Moonshake in the 40 Watt Club though I have only photographic evidence to go on here. Next thing I remember is trying to find a sandwich with Icerink at God knows what time followed by some propping up of the hotel bar. During all of which I was only kept awake if there were ladies to talk to or if there was mention of the (terrible) idea of going for a swim.

Then morning. A quality breakfast (I made my own waffles!) and we're out on the town. It's early(ish). The streets are empty. Athens is fantastic! Apparently there has been a law passed preventing big corporate chains opening up places in the downtown part of Athens. So it gives off a totally charming local feel. Lots of tree-lined streets of small, independent shops, bars, cafes etc. We've had a tip-off though, which takes us a little out of town. It seems there's this Mexican place that shows all the Euro 2004 matches and we have a couple of games to catch. So off we go - on foot. "Just out of town" they said. But we forgot: No one walks anywhere over here. So we keep walking and walking. Serious heat. BallAids-a-gogo. It is, of course, a brilliant walk with some extremely good Americana photo opportunities (for example). But oh! the heat. So we stop off for juice in some kind of hippy type health food store. These guys, for some reason, are, rather unsettlingly, playing a tape of Christmas music! In June! On and on. Further and further. Hotter and hotter. Across the railroad track. Then, finally, there it is. Just opposite the chicken factory, the Mexican place!

"No we're not showing the game" says the guy's blank expression."What the hell are you doing here" says his silence.

I swear, if there had been music playing, it would have stopped. Everyone looking at us like we're from another universe.

So we back out and go next door to the off licence - just to order a cab back into town you understand! No booze - we have TWO shows to play today…well maybe a quick one for the road. Cab turns up…journey time back to town….10 minutes!

Everyone in town is really helpful trying to find us somewhere to watch the game, but it's taking too long and time is running out. Eventually though, we find out about an Italian place showing ALL the games! And its location? Just about the closest place there is to our hotel.

So we watch the game, make some new friends; watch the second game, make even more friends. (all these friends come and watch us play later and then party) and the whole time we are trying to keep the boozing to a minimum. Which we manage - just.

Then we go to the main stage and play our first ever outdoor concert! Sounds simple, but we have some technical difficulties. Luckily we manage to sort them out before showtime, so we're able to relax and concentrate on rocking the shit. Which we do. Lots of fun. The audience seem very happy with the OL show. Then we come off stage and a guy says:
(nb. This bit just sounds made up, like a scene from a Rodney Dangerfield movie, but it's actually what happened. NO SHIT!)
"I have someone here who would like to meet you - this is the Mayor of Athens"
So we shake her hand and she thanks us for coming to play a show in her town. Sweet! Then her husband comes over with a keg of beer and a pump and the party begins. Which may explain the following…..

These 'My Kinda Town' stories usually involve some record shopping (at least when it's me writing them) and Athens is no exception. Athens truly did have an outstanding record shop. It's just that I don't quite know when to include it in the story so I'll just stick it in here. Icerink had spotted this shop at some point, but hadn't got to check it out. It was called Wuxtry records (www.wuxtryrecords.com) and it was awesome. I bought 6 or 7 classic LPs for 40 bucks! I think I was a bit drunk so it must have been between the two gigs and before we got food which would explain my confusion about when it happened. It was a lot of fun later in the tour to open the bag of records and discover that I can still manage to buy quality stuff (and at bargain prices) when I'm half cut.

After the Mayor's husband's homebrew and a fun TV interview by myself and Bigshow for something called 'How We Rolling' or 'How We Roll' or something, we find ourselves (I think) uptown, in a club called Wild Wing where we're to play our second of 2 shows in a day. (Another 1st for Olympic Lifts). Wild Wing is a huge, open plan diner with a stage at one end and is full of people who want to eat, drink and watch live bands. It looks like we're going to have a lot of fun here. We fill up with BIG food which quells our impending tipsiness long enough to play what may be an even better show than earlier. And then our work for the day is done and we let go and party with our many new friends.

Sadly this can't go on forever and at around 3am Dr. D our 2nd limo driver (also a total dude) arrives to take us to the airport. It would be safe to say that Olympic Lifts well and truly rocked this place, but it's time to head for NYC so we have to say goodbye to Athens, Georgia.

But we will return; it really is my kinda town.

Boma

Number 5. Lisbon, Portugal.

Day 1. OL splits into two factions. Superstar DJ twins Bigshow and Payback depart for Barcelona to DJ at the BAM festival. Boma, Pylon and Icerink set off for a lazy drinking day in Lisbon. In Barcelona the twins play an icredible set but are pelted with bottles as they don't leave the stage quick enough. Meanwhile in Lisbon, 'The Best Three' are tearing Boma away from hookers.

Day 2. TBT explore Lisbon, encountering the noisest cafe inthe world and the fish markets which suprisingly stink of fish. Icerink becomes convinced that the Portugese for thankyou is " YACUNTYA". No one smacks him. OL are reunited at the venue, an art gallery type affair catalyst art thing blah. Over drinks Mark announces he is to propose to his lady.

The gig rocks, Icerink briefly falls for some Spanish girl, and he and Boma go out clubbing arriving back just in time for the taxi to the airport.

Day 3. Bigshow and Payback fuck off back to Barcelona while TBT get a plane to Ibiza to see brandon block. Twatfaced.

Pylon

Number 4. Genk, Belgium.

Make no mistake Belgium is the home of music. OL were picked up at the airport by Ludwig, in his van. He was very composed. fuck. Hereafter the Belgium experience decended into a haze which receeded briefly for an awesome show. When faced with free Jupiler beer lunch boxes, given away with sixpacks, you will always say,"yes, these are entirely necessary, I will need these for my children one day." We collected 8 and binned all 8. OL hope you have learned from this.

Having checked into the hotel, we wandered into town where Jonathan decided to ditch us and go in search of a hair cut. He managed to find a hair cutting, piano playing swinger type guy who luckly returned our intrepid MC without involving him in any Belgian waffle threesome type events.

To the show, which was held in a former school, now transformed into an art collective thing, with installations including 'live knitting' and a tethered mini going around in circles. Bigshow was convinced it was rollercoaster of sorts but was refused permission to 'ride' it. It's fucking art man.

The gig was particularly significant as it was our new bass weapon Icerink's first. He admitted that before going onstage he was "shitting himself." Luckily he stayed clenched throughout and played a blinder. The other acts included the Puppetmasterz and a local Prince/Beck 6 keyboard weilding pervert guy, in cuban heels called stijn. He berated the 'sex zombies, in the house" and wanted to "licky licky licky" someone.

Gig bucked, met lovely people, got fucked up. That is all except more lunch boxes on the way home. I think our soundman Simon picked them out of the bin to sell to children in Ipswich. Daft Jake.

Pylon

Number 3. Slubice, Poland.

Slightly different situation than usual, this one. Olympic Lifts had decamped to Berlin on the invitation of Goldman's Bar. They wanted a special event for the Weekend of Love Parade, the annual dance music street festival. Goldman's Bar is in the basement of the Circus Hostel near Alexanderplatz where OL had stayed during a tour previously. On that ocassion we had a day off and spent the first evening propping up the bar before crawling, along with new best friends, the barstaff, to any bar in the locality that was still open. It was some night.

Next morning (well, maybe a little later), having forgotten some of the previous evenings conversations, Olympic Lifts were a little surprised to find posters all over the hostel's reception:

Tonight: Goldman's Bar; Olympic Lifts DJ set.

Now, never ones to renege on a drunken boast, we obliged. And whaddaya know, we rocked the house. A fantastic evening, followed by another trawl around the later opening joints, this time with the barstaff and lots of new friends.
As a result of all this Goldman's Bar requested our DJing services for the Love Parade weekend. An invitation we were happy to take up. Berlin though, despite being a terrific place, is not the subject of this story. But I'll get there...

We were to DJ for a residency of four nights and, in order to add some variety (and to allow ourselves some 'refreshment' time) we invited some special guests. Thursday we had the wonderful Le Hammond Inferno, Friday - everyone's favourite Bungalow ladykiller Julian, Saturday we had to fend for ourselves and Sunday we had the pleasure of the company of one Trevor Wilson and here's where the story really begins.

Trevor, an ex pat with an unhealthy cricket obcession, has lived in Berlin for about 20 years or maybe even more. He used to be a DJ on a radio station called Fritz which is how we first met him some years ago. He eventually parted company with Fritz under circumstances which, for legal reasons, I'm guessing I shouldn't go into here. Anyway he's a dude and we like him and his soon to be wife, Annette, loads. So when they called to see if we wanted to do anything during the daytime on the Sunday before DJing we agreed. Exactly what we would do was unclear then - details were to be decided closer to the time.

"Hello, Trevor here, let's go to Poland for lunch"

And that was that. Sunday morning (and I mean in the a.m.) Olympic lifts were up and heading for a train station. Some of us had barely got to bed (and would bearly get to it again for the rest of the trip. Me mostly) but we were up and ready to rock, sort of. So we met up with Trev and Annette, and were introduced to Stefan, Trevor's new partner in crime (legitimate business actually). They make beer together, the best business in the world; if it doesn't work out you end up with a house full of beer. It's a situation no lose. The beer I've tasted was Blitzkrieg Bock which,as you can probably guess is a Ramones themed beer with the word bock (strong german style of type of style of beer) replacing the word Bop, in a delicious pun.
On this occasion instead of beer Trevor brought us some nice biscuits he had baked himself and presents which, if anyone else got one, I can't remember, so blown away was I with mine. It was a luminescent orange Jagermeister (Europas Grosser Krauterlikor) hat with a massively wide brim. It was magnificent. Even if I looked like a twat in it and it was probably meant for wearing while watching that game cricket.

So we got on the mad localized type train for a while, which was made of wood and Trevor wanted to go on again sometime but bring powertools so he could dismantle an entire carriage. Then we had a little wait just enough time for that medicinal first beer of the day which some of us were nearly not ready for, but managed. That hurdle cleared, we boarded what was I believe a first for all of Olympic Lifts, a double decker train! We spent most of this journey dodging or trying to befriend the conductors so we could sit in first class and the smoking section. Trevor only wanted powertools to remove the fancy monitor telling us which station was next. This train was significantly more hi-tec than the previous one.

Soon we arrived at Frankfurt (Oder) not to be confused with Frankfurt in the South West of Germany especially if you want to get a plane from there. This Frankfurt is on the German/Polish border, and we came on the right day:
There was some kind of town centenary or other going on which was mental. Mad steam engines, tractors, laderhosen, oompah bands, the works, but what I'll mostly remember is the mullets. Fan-bloody-tastic. And this is just the town we had to go through to get to the one we were visiting. The border essentially split this town in two, the border being the river (Oder I guess). So we made our way through the celebrations and headed for the border crossing on the bridge. And then there we were...in Poland. Slubice was a little bit different from Frankfurt across the river. Particularly since that street fair thing was going on. Here the streets were practically empty. We headed in the direction that seemed to be downtown, but it wasn't exactly clear where that was. We changed our minds about the way we should head and I don't think we ever really worked it out. So we wandered for a while. The sign posts were hilarious. Adverts too. Eventually we spotted a sign saying, and I shit you not, The Belfast Bar. Now normally Olympic Lifts aren't the sort of band that go far away and end up going to the friggin' Irish Bar. The point of doing that has always baffled us, unless it's the only place to catch the football. But for God's sake we're from Belfast and here we are in Poland...etc...etc blah, so we had a pint.
Then we wandered around aimlessly again 'til we had to eat and settled on a place that I think was selling Egyptian food of all things. Egyptian food? So we checked out the menu. "But these can't be prices in euros that would just be crazy. Must be zloty or whatever 'currency' they have here." But in Euros they were. Cheapest food ever. Sadly it was the slowest food ever too. We had to nip out for crisps from the shop while we waited (stupid flavours not quite hedgehog but near enough). Plenty of beer though. We were in that place (well, outside) for hours. Then we headed for the supermarket to get some daft booze (cherry stuff, something like that, I don't know honey maybe) and Bigshow finally found the Vogue cigarettes he'd been looking for all over Europe. By the time we'd done that, we were almost late for DJing and had to grab insane driving taxis back to the train station.

On the train on the way back, we tallied up the money and who owed who what. So a round trip on the train (over an hour each way), dinner and more booze than I can even begin to consider counting, we spent less than £20 each. And since I'm a real tightwad, that makes it...my kinda town. Weyhay.

Boma.

Number 2. Augsburg, near Munich, Germany.

This is one I'd properly recommend in a true holiday program style. I suppose that since we just got back from a tour playing loads of places in Europe there should be plenty of material for My Kind of Town but you'd be surprised. Maybe when the haze over our memories becomes less dense then, who knows what might come back to us. In the meantime though there is another problem… We were massively spoilt on our first proper European tour (with Ugly Duckling last year) having the luxury of a sleeper bus - Play gig, drink beer, find bus, drink beer & party, fall asleep, wake up, Hey! New town!

This time we did things the real way; in our own sad van (sorry I mean wonderful, we love you, thank you for not breaking down, van. That's right, I just apologised to a van in case it logged on to our website). So instead of having a day to explore every town we played in, we usually arrived an hour late for soundcheck - Play gig, drink beer, find hotel, drink beer, fall asleep, wake up, Hey! Drive for hours!
This particular day though would be a welcome relief from that routine. It was Monday so we'd had an early(ish) night the night before and checkout from the hotel was dead early too. Also the drive was only about 40 minutes from Munich to Augsburg. We arrived about a year early for soundcheck and had the day free. And what a brilliant town to have a day to ourselves. We had a pretty good drive-thru on the way to Pavian, the venue for the evening, then we headed back into town on foot. The weather was fantastic and we all had mile wide smiles. Augsburg gave us our first sniff of a record shop on the 2nd leg of the tour and we went a bit ballistic. We spent about double our fee for the show on vinyl. The shops were crazily inexpensive as well so we ended up with an extra metric tonne of weight in our no doubt ecstatic van. Having satisfied our record buying needs for another little while, we were able, at last, to do stuff normal people do. We had coffee next to what seemed like a mini system of canals. We went for walks and got lost in a picturesque maze of backstreets. We enjoyed a glass of beer in the wonderful piazza with the trams rolling by and people milling around with the sun on their faces (notice how drinking is given an air of acceptability more befitting of our pleasant surroundings by use of the phrase 'glass of beer').

We all arrived back at Pavian with even bigger smiles on our faces  which only added to the excellent evening we then had. Good food, a fun interview, a brilliant show to a great audience and then celebrating with the owner for his birthday until later than we should have, knowing full well that the next day’s journey wasn't a short one at all.
boma.
 
Number1: Didcot, near Oxford, England.

As I suspect may be the case with many of the forthcoming episodes of this feature, this town was visited by us on tour. More specifically our UK tour of Jan/Feb 2003. We spent the night in Oxford with a friend who had kindly agreed to put us up (put up with us) when really he should have blankly refused:

Reasons; He was doing his finals and lived in halls where he wasn’t allowed guests and had very little space.
Results; He got pissed and got no work done. We got squashed and had to get up very early before the cleaners came round. Of course, beggars can’t...you know...

Anyway, with our sights set blurrily on Southampton and our next (no doubt triumphant) show, we headed off into the blindingly low winter sun.

Normally on tour this band gradually surfaces around noon and prioriy number two (after cleanliness- though not always!) is food. However this day we were up before most people go to work and seemingly before most cafes open. So we decided to hit the road and see if we could locate some grub along the way.

Now breakfast on tour is an extremely crucial meal at the best of times but on this occasion, at Oh My God O’Clock, it became a life or death matter. As a result, we couldn’t hold out very long and took a chance on practically the first place we came upon. Didcot. It had boldish type on the map so it had to have a cafe.
But it had so much more.

Now don’t get me wrong. These aren’t going to be travel reports. We’re not going to actually recommend visiting any of Olympic Lifts kind of town. We are well aware that, what constitutes entertainment to 5 hungover goons stumbling out of a van too early in the a.m., isn’t likely to provide holidaymakers with quite the same joy. It will become obvious how easily entertained we are when this convoluted, Ronnie Corbett style, tale ends with nothing actually having happened. Wait and see. We just thought it would be a reasonable tribute to a couple of pleasantly spent hours in someone elses town to write a few words about it.

So, as always- it doesn’t seem to matter about the size of the location- we got lost on our way to the centre. We even took a turn (sorry- I took a turn) onto a road to nowhere that was at most 10 yards long. It was a strange thing which we should have got a photo of, but we didn’t know about this feature at the time. When we did get there we toured the strip to check out what was on offer. We located our cafe- right up one end- then went back to the carpark. It wasn’t all a wonderful dream; Didcot and OL didn’t really get off on the best foot. We didn’t feel as welcome in the cafe as we might have hoped for. Our order of 5 full breakfasts seemed to be greeted as an unpleasant burden rather than welcome early morning business. Still the food itself was exactly what the (imaginary) Olympic Lifts on-the-road nutritionist ordered. Suitably nourished and gened up by newspapers about (non band-on-tour) reality we were ready to sample the delights of Didcot, especially if the glut of charity shops we’d spotted on our earlier drive through were now open.

I think it would be fair to say that no matter how rich and famous Olympic Lifts become, they will always be tempted by the charity shop or thrift shop or whatever they are called wherever we happen to be. Now, early in a tour, we are likely to be on the look out for clothes. Either we have realised, whilst packing at the last minute, that we own absolutely no clothes and don’t want to smell too soon on the tour, or since leaving we haved realised how much stuff we have forgotten to bring. One way or another we tend to rely on the charity shops in Scottish ports to dress ourselves. Nearly a full week in though and the charity shops of Didcot were about to have a fully fledged attack on their vinyl bins. This is a pre-meditated and choreographed assault. There is an unspoken first-come, first-served policy at work. Everyone wants to be the one to find the gem amongst the sludge. The James Brown among the Bobby Brown. The Sly among the Sky. The Beefheart among the Bee Gees. We all know we’re not going to find any Beefheart here or in any charity shop but there’s always this unfathomable hope that some classic will turn up in such an unlikely location for 50p. So in this spirit, there is usually a race to be first to locate the vinyl. If we didn’t all like so many different types of music, with so many overlaps in taste, there would be less of a problem. Still we don’t get in fights, with LPs getting ruined being tugged at either end by two would-be buyers.
It’s a gentlemanly pursuit.

Over the course of the vast amount of charity shops Didcot seemed to have on offer I don’t think I got in first one single time,but I did come away with a couple of 12s (Jack’n’Chill- The House that Jack Built and Taylor Dayne- Tell it to my Heart. Not quite James Brown I know, but I was happy nonetheless). I also picked up a football video- 101 Great Goals- and a great two cassette collection of tacky driving music. Fantastic. By the way the football video mysteriously vanished somewhere towards the end of the tour. I was very dissappointed.

And that’s basically it. There was other stuff about Didcot that was great as well, believe me, but at that particular time, in the state we were in, what we needed was a big filling breakfast at the right price and some frivolous, mindless shopping that wouldn’t break the bank either. And these were ably provided.
When we got back to the van we had accidently outstayed our parking sticker by about 200%. That’s when we realised it was our kind of town.
Boma.