Sharing The Love

Backstory for what I’ve been doing this week.

From being deafened by the Red Rivals, to discovering Lincoln LeFevre, to spectacular classical composed piano playing from Phillip Glass, to rocking out with The Break and Grinderman, I think I’ve just had a week that can’t be beaten.

I haven’t researched any of the bands before I saw them, which meant that nearly every band has surprised me in some way. I wanted to go into every performance with an open mind, and I’ve managed that all right.

Mona Foma continues and last night was The Break and Grinderman.

It was. Well. I don’t think there are enough adjectives to describe how amazing it was.

The Break – Ex-Midnight Oil, minus Peter Garrett and plus Brian Ritchie was heaps beachier than I expected, but psychedelic surf music is what they do and the crowd wasn’t disappointed. They were brilliant and I’m fairly sure Brian Ritchie just brought yellow pants back into fashion.

Nick Cave with Grinderman was the headline event and you could feel it in the room as the start time got closer. I pushed my way to the front and somehow, eventually, ended up 2 rows from the front, albeit to the side rather a lot.

His stage presence is phenomenal, my GOD that man has some energy. He fed off the crowd and the crowd, in return, fed off him.

We haven’t seem much interaction with the crowd so far and really, it’s been the only thing missing. Nick Cave stood on the barriers, using the fans hands to steady himself. He leapt, he danced, he sung. It was, so so brilliant. Absolutely unmissable.

If you’re a fan of Cave and you get a chance to see Grinderman, DO IT. You won’t regret it for a moment.

I did have a small awkward moment during the encore performances, with a group of older middle aged women, stroking my hair and telling me how beautiful I was. Okay, they were very drunk, but still. Weird.

And my award for tweets that probably shouldn’t have been read aloud on the Radio goes to this one:

It was true though. No wonder the women were all screaming during the songs.

Or maybe it had something to do with the buttons Cave was undoing the hotter he got. Either either.

Big shout out to his roadies, who were complete professionals. A can of beer was thrown and Cave flicked it away with his hand, spilling beer everywhere. The roadies and their energy had it cleaned up before most people had realised what had gone on. The darted all around the stage, retrieving thrown microphones and percussion instruments. They also did a great job of dealing with the one very drunk guy who jumped on stage and played air guitar along with the band. He was allowed a minute or two and then whipped backstage and then back out into the crowd with a small shove.

It was an absolutely spectacular night, even if my hearing hasn’t quite recovered this morning.

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So once a month, I share the love and point you to a blog you should be reading. If you want to join in, write a blog post about why you love someone else’s blog and leave your link in the comments.

This month, I’m pointing you towards ABDPBT.

Anna is snarky. Very snarky, in fact, in some mummyblogger circles, she is one of the most disliked women on the Internet.

I think her blog is fantastic however and her take on mummyblogging is what we need to see more of. Snark and honest truth, rather than the culture of silence and refusal to talk about white elephants.

Anna blogs about the business of mummyblogging, including doing things like making us think about trust capital and our actual worth. Every post that makes me question what I do and how I do it, is in my mind, priceless.

Her blog is set up with 4 distinct categories – I receive all of them in my reader and enjoy all four. There is ABDPBT, Commodity Fetishism, Personal Finance and Tech – each one deals with something different and while personal finance has never been my favourite thing, her posts there on the business of mummyblogging are always something I look forward to.

I’ve found most aspects of Anna’s blog incredibly worthwhile, especially as we’re running the AusBlogCon next year, her sharp honest breakdowns of the US conferences have given Brenda and I things to discuss and also things that we hope to avoid happening to us.

Anna might not be your thing and that’s fine. But I think honesty is always going to be something we need to read more of, even if some mummybloggers find that honesty incredibly hard to swallow.

I recommend her blog to every mummyblogger. Reading ABDPBT lets me know which things I need to be avoiding doing and lets me learn from the mistakes of other mummybloggers – especially as the US is a few years ahead of the Australian blogosphere.

And you know if you end up on Anna’s shit list, not only have you fucked up big time, but that you’ve made it big in the mummyblogging world. Her shit list is NOT something we should aspire to be on.

Read her.

Image is taken from Anna’s header.

Other people playing along:

Frogpondsrock

Fiona suggests Blag Hag

Wanderlust

Toni suggests Mid 30s Life

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A long time ago when I first started blogging, things felt different. I found a few blogs I liked and from there, clicked through their blogrolls, subscribing to blogs along the way.

Slowly I gathered around me a group of women who commented here, who loved on me and who were generally amazing all around. I did the same thing for them. As well as that, we shared our traffic and our readers and slowly slowly, we formed a ‘group’.

I look back over my blog for the last 3 years and while I’ve still got a blogroll, I rarely link to other bloggers just to share the love. I don’t write a quick post to say ‘I found an amazing blog and you should read them too’ anymore. And looking around, not many people do anymore. Of course we all still link, but posts dedicated to sharing the love? I’m not seeing them as often.

And really, I miss them. Because while I loved getting linked and an influx of different traffic, it was even nicer to click to a friends blog and find her recommending a new read and finding amazing blogs this way. I’ve also noticed a downfall in blogrolls lately, not so much on the newer blogs, but on slightly older ones – ones who have been accused of favouritism by having a blogroll. I miss blogrolls.

I asked on twitter a few days ago for recommendations for blogs and while I got some great new blogs to add to my reader, I was also underwhelmed by the response. Surely we’ve all got an absolute favourite that we’d like to share?

So. I thought about it and I’d like to instigate a thing, wherein I write a post once a month, telling you about a blog I’m reading and why I love them.

Ideally, I’d love if other people would join in and write about their favourite blog too and then we’d all link up – but I’m not sure it would turn out like that.

The idea is simply, sharing the love. Letting your readers know about someone they should be reading too, if they aren’t already. I think finding new-to-me blogs this way will be easier and more fun too.

So, first blog for me:

Failure to Nap.

Statia has been blogging for a very long time, nearly 10 years and a few different domain changes type long. A looong time. There are 8 years worth of archives on Failure to Nap, so if you’re after some decent blog reading…

I found her blog via Shannon, a little while ago (I forget how long) and subscribed immediately. She’s funny and she’s real and she says fuck a lot. What more can I want?

Even more, now that we’re dealing with the whole aspergers thing, it’s been lovely to bug the shit out of her, asking questions about her son and how she copes with various behaviours. Statia’s run the gauntlet of infertility to fall and stay pregnant with her son, and then was surprised to find herself pregnant the natural way soon after with her daughter, who is now a full blown TODDLER.

Plus, anyone who allows me to get a good bitch about blogging out of my system is a winner, in my opinion. She’s one of four women I can bitch to, without worrying about what they’ll think – probably because we think similar things.

So, anyway, you should read her because she’s awesome.

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If you’re playing along with share the love, add your link in the comments and I’ll link you up here. No, we don’t have a button, but if someone is offering? I’ll be in that. The idea will be to link to a blog you love monthly and tell your readers why they should subscribe.

Also, picture was shamlessly stolen from Statia’s header. I think she’ll forgive me. I hope so.

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Others sharing the love:
Frogpondsrock
…from Toushka
Our Park Life
Kebeni
Drovers Run
Picklebums
BabbleOn
This Mid 30’s Life
College and a Novel
Gluten Free Soy Free
Drifting Through Life
Play, Eat, Learn, Live
In Search Of
Ramblings of a Broken Hearted Mummy
Mm is for me
The Tensile Times

Leave a link to your post detailing a blog you love in the comments and I’ll add it here for you.

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