one year, fifty columns

in september 2012 XLR8R asked nick to write a weekly advice column. at the time he was 27, between projects, deep in the new york DJ + production circuit, and a few years away from the cubic zirconia + relationships LP era. he'd already been making records for ten years but was still figuring out how to be a working producer who could pay rent and tour and still finish records.

the column ran every thursday for 50 weeks. readers emailed questions to doctornick@xlr8r.com. nick wrote the answers quickly — often at 5am after a gig — and they were published the same week. it's genuinely in-voice writing because it had to be: there wasn't time to polish it into a book.

the questions ranged across everything. how to choose a drum machine. whether to use multiple aliases. how to deal with the shitty band next door at your studio. how to date someone while you're touring. when to quit your day job. whether RBMA is worth applying to. how to master your own tracks. how to deal with a creative rut. how to throw a party in a smaller city. how to break into a new scene. how to know when your album is done.

he answered all of them in his actual voice — slangy, direct, full of real stories from his own career. he didn't pretend to know more than he did. when the answer was "hire someone better than you," he said that. when it was "just start making the shit and stop waiting," he said that.

the column ended in september 2013 with col 50 — "the doctor recommends more bits of gear and discusses whether new york is dead." in the final column nick wrote: "writing this column for a year has been one of the more humbling and rewarding things i've done." then he went back to making records full time.

this archive on thespacepit is a curated mirror. the canonical source is XLR8R — every column page links back to the original. but the columns themselves are also part of nick's world, part of how he thinks, and a year-long field guide for any producer figuring out the same things. so they live here too.