THE WINTER OLYMPICS

NEW YEAR’S REVOLUTION

Hi there, hope you had a peaceful and happy Christmas.

I don’t care what you say. New Year is amazing: Bad ideas, good intentions, broken promises and boring, boring ‘best-of’ lists. In short, it’s our time. Which is why, this December the 31st we’ll be celebrating with our last show of the year/first show of 2012 at the brilliant Brixton Windmill. It would be excellent if you joined us.

Tickets are available here for six quid (plus a pound BF). I’d definitely recommend buying now, as they’re likely to be more on the door, and as soon as people realise that seven quid is the deal of the century for an all-night New Year’s mega-rave in London, they’ll all go, and then what will you have left? Jam night with Jools, that’s what. 

Avoid Hootenanny hell and buy your tickets here

Tell us that you’re coming on the Facebook event page

Now, far be it from us to cobble together a list of things that you sort of remember and pass it off as a good time but ‘tis the season to be dishing out ‘best of 2011 gongs’ so here’s our 2p worth. No, I know you couldn’t wait. 

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR (In no particular order of excellence)

Boston Spaceships - Let it Beard, The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck, Mastodon - The Hunter, Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts, Art Brut - Brilliant! Tragic!, Tim Hecker - Ravedeath 1972, Katy B - On a Mission, The Computers - This is the Computers, The Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part 2, Wild Flag - Wild Flag, The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient, The Antlers - Burst Apart, Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania, Led Zeppelin - Four Symbols, Van Halen - Van Halen…

FILM OF THE YEAR

Thor - Emminently enjoyable, better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be fantasy romp with my Natalie Portman in it. Equal parts Lord of the Rings and Crocodile Dundee. Amazing.

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR

Your Highness - Utterly unlikeable much-worse-than-you-could-even-imagine fantasy romp with my Natalie Portman in It. Equal parts CGI suckfest and depressing gay-panic ‘gags’. Outrageous. And not in the way it thinks it is. 

GIG OF THE YEAR

SILFEST - AUGUST 2011 - getting healed in a field at the home of the International Pesticide Application Research Centre; the only rock festival in the country that has its own nuclear reactor. In the middle of a throng of impossibly attractive young scientists taking off their glasses and letting down their collective hair, The Winter Olympics did a little research of their own. Chiefly trying to determine which is louder: the people on the left, or the people on the right? (Our findings will be published later this year). A properly brilliant time and also home to the Accidentally doomed chat up line of the year:

AWO: Thanks for having us. I’d love a tour of your reactor.

Impossibly hot young scientist: I’ll bet you would granddad

WORST GIG OF THE YEAR

GINGLIK - JANUARY 2011 - Bands! if you are going to fall out, fist fight and lose a band member, make sure you do it at a charity show in a dis-used toilet on a freezing Tuesday night. If you can augment the evening with more dry ice than Robert Smith’s fridge-freezer and a string of strong jazz-funk supports, so much the more miserable.

FAN OF THE YEAR

We are, it goes without saying, eternally thankful for everyone’s support every day. Doing this would be rubbish without you lot. I think we all know, though, that some fans are even better than others. Man of the year? The first time fan who collared me at the Church of Merch, explained how much he liked the show, asked what our name was and wondered if we had any records out.

“Sure,” I replied, “this is our new single”.

“Oh no, I don’t want that.”

“Why not?” I frowned

“I prefer the early stuff.”

+100 indie points

WORST FAN OF THE YEAR

A big sort-of thank you to the man in Birmingham who chanted “JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS” through our set, before drawing amazing portraits of us and biting Simon on the hand at the end. Passion people, it’s all about passion.

THINGS TO DO IN 2012

1) CRUSH The Brixton Windmill New Year’s Eve/Day all night killer party. Buy your tickets here

2) UNLEASH the patiently-awaited and honestly astonishing album PROFIT AND LOSS.

3) Release own fragrance. No, not like that.

4) ‘Inspired by The Winter Olympics’ fashion range. Pehaps.

5) MASSIVE WORLD TOUR - booking now (please get in touch) 

6) SCANDALOUS tell-all autobiography - working titles: All Downhill From Here, Every Luger Wins, Now is the Winter of our Disco Tents…

7) Protracted legal battle with the International Olympics Committee over the use of our name. Nine long years and now you notice?!?!

8) Kidnap/kill Wenlock/Mandeville

9) Hotly-anticipated appearance on forthcoming Channel 5 reality show “The Plane” alongside a disgraced politician that nobody knew, a blonde girl from Hollyoaks and Duncan from Blue (I’m not making this one up by the way - look)

10) Get excited!

Thanks again for all your amazing support and for sticking with us in 2011. Why not join us again for the new OLYMPIC year? This one’s going to be great, I promise.

A big, big love

Andrew Winter Olympics x