Nicksy Once Monthly is on Substack Notes (and almost everywhere else you might be in)
I know I said I'm only doing this once a month, but I am also on Twitter, and Facebook, and now, Substack Notes...
This is a weird time to be starting a new writing project.
When I started my old music blog, earthings!, back in 2012, things were much simpler. You started a blog. You promoted it on social media channels in the faint hope of getting traction. You tried to capture lightning by featuring the right people at the right time. Not that I succeeded in all of that with the old blog, but at least the mechanics worked.
Now, it’s much more difficult. You have a more fragmented audience—although anyone creating content has been in the midst of this for years now. You also have more platforms keen to act as gatekeepers. I mean, are you reading this from a tweet I posted? If so, congratulations: you are one of the very few. This is the world we more explicitly live in now: rich brats getting to dictate where we get to share our thoughts.
So here’s what I’ll do. Substack—the platform Nicksy Once Monthly is in—recently launched their Substack Notes feature, and though it also feels like gatekeepers choosing who gets seen, I might as well hang out there. For now I think I’ll be using it to somewhat let you peek into the playlist-making process. Yes, it’s not that special, but sometimes I drop songs in the final releases, but they’re still worth sharing.
That said, the first one I posted had nothing to do with it.
So, how do I get to them?
You can go to substack.com/notes on your browser, or if you have the Substack app, you can hit on the Notes tab, as the folks at Substack lovingly marked here.
If you’re a Nicksy Once Monthly subscriber through the Substack network, you should automatically see my notes (and respond to them, and pass them around—like notes!). If you’re subscribing via email, well, you can still see them here. And you can always check this FAQ if you have more questions.
But what if I’m not on Substack?
Well, even if it isn’t proving to be rewarding so far, I’m sticking (for now) with my other social media channels. Have to be everywhere, after all… but not all at once.
I’m on Facebook, where I post annotations to (some of) the songs I include in my monthly playlists, as well as some songs I am getting into at the moment, and my apparently now usual “this weekend’s listening” posts.
I’m also on Twitter, still, where I will do snap judgments of things happening in music, and much more, besides.
Yes, this is supposed to be a creative project and something not as stressful as the old music blog, but I do need my affirmation, to be honest, so I will be everywhere you probably are, still. “Best practice”, as the folks in my day job always say. And wouldn’t it be great if we could say what we want to say (within logical, ethical and legal constraints) without worrying about not being heard?
All right, that’s it for my housekeeping. The latest playlist is here. If you like what I do, I’d really appreciate you talking this project up to the people you hold dearest. Also, there should be a bunch of posts next month, so if they decide to give this a try, there’s more to see.
Yeah, “once monthly” my bum.
Okay, tell me about the photo.
If you’ve read my entry on the Mamamoo concert in Manila, you may remember that I got a bunch of stickers from fellow MooMoos while on queue. This is just some of them. I got (some of) them from @faeruumi and @mixingradish and @meanjaaa_ on Twitter. The miscut ones, in particular, came from this Vietnamese fan who gave us stickers while we waited for Dale to send off the girls at the end of a very long night. I should always ask for names.
If you’re the one who did the jeepney sign art, let me know! If there’s anything I learned from a few months in the art con circuit, it’s that social media handles are important.