Nicksy Once Monthly is about music, pop culture, and the Filipino perspective—or, at least, the perspective of a guy who sometimes calls himself Nicksy. That’s me, by the way.
Just once a month?
That’s the plan, but it ceased to be fact on the very first month.
On the second Friday of every month, I release a playlist of songs that I’ve been vibing to over the previous month. It’s a mix of new releases, hidden gems, overlooked stuff—as well a few thoughts about how they got there. So often it’s also about foreign radio, flying on airplanes, the perils of ultra-militant groupthink, pre-midlife crisis existentialism, loneliness… you get the idea.
On the fourth Friday of every month but December, I release an installment of my Plaka Notes series, which spotlights a new release from Philippine musicians. It’s an album review, but also, it isn’t.
In between I sometimes post other essays: song spotlights, pop culture deep dives, maybe an attempt to comment on what’s going on in my neck of the woods. You know, stuff like my Hyperfocus series, or my Song Trigger series, or my Dispatches from the 63 series.
And why Nicksy?
Okay, so, I don’t really use that name, and nobody (as far as I know) calls me that. It just rhymes with “once monthly”, so it stuck.
I’m really Niko Batallones, a guy based in Manila who’s always in front of his laptop and with his earphones on. I write a lot of things (and sometimes talk on television) for the day job, and I’m also the human of an apparently popular cat. But for the purposes of this project, I ran the earthings! music blog from 2012 to 2019. It was a writing experiment slash hobby that ended up being much bigger than anyone imagined.
I harbored dreams of working on radio, which is why I play my music like I’m on the radio. I think it’s fun. You may think it’s sad, but whatever. My Last.fm account is still updated regularly, in case you’d like to take a peek.
So what?
Well, first, thanks for being here! It means a lot that you cared to check out the project, let alone the about page.
If you like what you’ve seen so far, then why not subscribe? Hit the button below and you will start receiving my latest entries straight to your email. (You don’t need a Substack account to do so.)
Or, if you don’t feel like subscribing yet, you can just visit the website (or go find my links on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) and see everything.
Got a song recommendation? Drop me a line at nicksyoncemonthly@gmail.com, or get in touch via the socials.
View my archive of past playlists and essays here.
Nicksy Once Monthly strives to make sure all mentioned artists and personalities are referred to by the names and genders that they publicly prefer at the time of publication. Any cases of misgendering and deadnaming are not intentional and are not done in bad faith.
Nicksy Once Monthly is dedicated to the memory of Anna Esguerra. No matter who’s on your live music bucket list, please, please, please do not say you’ll sell your kidney for concert tickets.
The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author’s and do not represent the organizations he represents or works with.
