nicherautomatic!

these kids will always be more fashionable than i, hence i’m writing about what i listen to rather than what i wear…despite being part of a clothing line.

dinner hits after the opening of aura. after chaos…chinese food. sounds like a plan.

from the mosh pit to the posh meet.

wanderland mode. despite knowing just the singles of the foreign bands present, it was definitely one of the best gigs this year. the vibe, the set up and the feel of the festival was just charming. plus, i discovered tully on tully!

but my favorite sets were up dharma down and neon trees. UDD was spot on, while neon trees was on fire. loved how they did their kaskade collab, sans the dj.

good kick off, wanderland. now let’s do 2014.

this has got to be the most drama dance party i’ve been to. like seriously. there was a whole lot of drama over tickets, over heat, over egos…

in fact,there’s even a drama of me giving someone the cold shoulder when in fact i greeted him. gawd avicii…why you so kagulo!

anyhoots, coming from the heels of the very GV jason mraz the night before, avivi was its total opposite. but i guess nothing a few (few…lies!) bottles of tanduay can fix. 

upon tim’s opening of “i can be the one”, the drama just dissolved. throw in florence and the machine, calvin and his hits in the mix….yep dissolved. the fanfare was just as explosive. lights, confetti, fire and camera flashes. good job.

all in all, it turned out to be fun. alls well that ends well after all.

i’m no fashion blogger/writer so it’s amusing whenever i get invited to retail brand events. anyway, ben sherman happened. sib and i hit that joint for alak and music. plus the ex-bensherman brand bosses were there so why not say hello since it’s been aaaaaaaaages since we had alak together.

the british appeal in the new magnolia branch is as fresh as ever. the shirt bar is something i’d definitely go for. the button downs, i’d tap that. spiffy and polished. sex.

so if you’re in the area, say hello. and don’t forget to instagram that place.

BRASH, BOLD AND BRUISED

P!nk has got to be one of the most underrated pop female voices out there. Despite churning out hit after hit after hit, she never seems to get to the same pedestal as her cohorts Katy Perry or Britney or Xtina. This conundrum has never been solved. Debates on her showmanship, musicality or marketing were pointed out why she’s not as big as she could be. But if you think about it, the 30 something year old singer thrives on this understatement, almost frolicking on this indescribable mystique. Suffice to say, this debacle on her pop stature does not seem to unnerve her as she once again unleashes the kind of pop she’s known for – headstrong, empowering and excitingly brash. And this P!nk sound is once again realized in her latest album, “The Truth About Love”.

Going for a more rock sound, P!nk seems to have found her element in this genre. Concentrating more on getting a band rather than getting a choreographer, P!nk comes up with a strong and punchy album. Imagine taking her previous singles “Just Like a Pill” and “Who Knew”, mash them together add more of her appealing bad girl attitude – that’s exactly how most ‘The Truth about Love” feels like. And it’s definitely pleasant. But for those looking for something sweeter, you’ll still find a taste of pop-dance here and there alongside elements of indie pop (the single “Blow Me One Last Kiss” had a riff reminiscent of Two Door Cinema Club), post-punk (through the collab with Fun.’s Nate Ruess), pseudo-blues (her swagger in “How Come You’re Not Here” is a testament to that), surf pop (Lily Allen lends her sunny voice in the track “True Love”) and hiphop (Eminem appears in the album).

Still, hands down, the strongest suite of the album is P!nk’s lyricism. Vibrant, bold and well-realized, P!nk writes with bloody honesty and refuses to hold bloodied punches. And her earnest singing compliments the lines beautifully, especially in her ballads. Her bruised vulnerability further intensifies the delivery, especially in the closing song “The Great Escape”. She sings with grit and throws the required emotion of the song with much fervor.  And these are best exemplified in tracks such as “Are We All We Are”, “Beam Me Up” and “Where Did The Beat Go?”.

In general, “The Truth About Love” is a pretty competent and solid album. It may not shoot P!nk in the level of her pop-mates. But at the end of the day, who cares? As long as she comes up with strong releases like these, this imagined competition among her peers are irrelevant. Let her do talk about fights and brawls versus unicorns and rainbows. Let her write about a battered love over a knight in shining armor. After all, her songwriting is beyond black and white. And that about P!nk, is truth.

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Originally appeared on PULP April 2013 issue.

hello. we are nick automatic. and we are on the new issue of BLUPRINT magazine…the one with the top 20 designers under 40 headline. grab it if you see it.

as usual, i’m not on it. hahaha. but i don’t mind. after all, i’m a back stage person, remember. i love the banter between the panel discussion type article. jp cuison, dan matutina and aj dimarucot critiqued nicolo’s work and i love how some aspects of it weren’t all about art. it talked about artist representation, entrepreneurship and other stuff where in my part of the brand comes in. kilig core.

this may opened awesomely for nick automatic. next stop…sydney.

i like havaianas. i really do. i like what it stands for and i like the people behind the brand. that is me talking as niche. not as niche, a pr person working with havaianas. and yey for the launch that happened last april 30. yey for the massive attendance. yey for a very zero hassle event. yey to all the bloggers we invited, and the press that went. funny, in the previous years i just attend as a guest. now i attended as PR. hope to do it again for 2014.

what i find funnier though, is how my pair ended up so basic. looking at how bloggers and celebs made their pair, mine looked uncreative. i blame haste. i just needed a pair that i can use that night, fast. i never had the intention of embellishing it with pins or going for a very loud color. purely utilitarian, it’s like “wow nag-make your own pa ako”. haha. if i had to re-do mine, i’d go wilder. but still, i like the one i got. very finding nemo.

glub. glub. glub.

first time to be absent for the summer slam. and god knows i would have loved to see coheed and cambria again. but work calls, hence i found myself in solstice. but work in a huge party is not really work. it’s like extra hard partying - from inflating havaianas balloons to running after the axe astronaut.

as for the solstice, that’s probably the most good looking mosh pit i’ve been to. it’s national pwede day! i swear, the amount of pwedes were astonishing. sando-ed boy here, expat teenage cutie there, celeb boy crush here, random kyot stranger there. sure there were crazy amount of pwede girls too, but i wasn’t paying attention.

all in all, if i didn’t have a 5am calltime at the fort after, i could have stayed until the last act. but work calls once again, hence i went home around 1, rested a bit, took a shower, changed clothes and found myself running after the astronaut at the natgeo run.