Dive in

I love dive bars. I've spent a significant proportion of my adult life in dive bars. And it never did me any harm. (Don't @ me.) Someone else who has a penchant for all things dive is No Badger Required. Our paths have never crossed, yet I feel is if I should be inviting them to BlogCon26; where, I'd like to think, we would meet in a Leeds dive bar of their choice (of which there are many). Hmm, let me mull that one over.

In the meantime, today's musical show & tell is nicked wholesale from NBR's Dive Bar Anthems playlist - now my Dive Bar Anthems playlist. Here's the studio version. However, this is a frantic, not to mention frenetic, no holds barred live version. Enjoy.

Parquet Courts - Live Football (2018)

XVI

At the start of 2010 I was looking to find a home for a thousand word piece on Ronnie Lane I'd recently written. Record Collector had commissioned me three months earlier but in the interrvening period the magazine had had a shake up at the top and the new editor no longer wanted it. Bastards. I rang round other mags/periodicals but nobody was biting. Fuck it, I thought, I'll put it out myself. So after a couple of conversations with my good friend Mondo (you can still find him & Piley at Ship Full of Bombs with their splendid radio show/podcast Podrophenia), he persuaded me to become a blogger.

I tought myself basic html coding and designed a website/blog under the banner 'Even Monkeys Fall Out of Trees' and on 15 February I went live. With no preamble I dropped the Ronnie Lane article into a world where everyone, it seemed to me, was blogging. Sixteen years later and I'm still here. 'Even Monkeys...' begat 'Are We There Yet?' and before I knew it I'd made countless friends and contacts (virtual and F2F) and, I've got to say, I continue to find it both a thriving and all welcoming community. As you can probably tell, I still love writing my blog and reading others'. And I'll tell them that when I see many of them them In Leeds at BlogCon26 later in the year. 

Leeds 5

Following our inaugural Bloggers Convention in Edinburgh way back in 2022, we've now had further hugely successful meet-ups in York ('23), Newcastle ('24) & Bristol ('25). And in June BlogCon26 will be pitching its caravan in Leeds! From an exotic shortlist of potential destinations that included both Amsterdam and Dublin, our democratic voting right was exercised and, long story short, we've turned our back on the EU (not for the first time; 52/48 anyone?) and gone for 'one of our own'. No matter. A grand time will be had by all, I'm sure. And anyway, after a couple of drinks it won't really matter if you're in Dam Square or Millennium Square. (That's what I'll keep telling myself, when I'm nursing my warm pint of Tetleys.) More updates to follow, I'm sure.