Prelude to a Lick

by Scott Hefflon
illustration by Kevin Banks

Strip down buck naked. Get rid of all those pre-fabricated expectations of what a music magazine is all about. This (hopefully) is not just another GenX jerk-off in search of a buck. People are always asking me what this magazine is all about. Well, you tell me. It seems everyone (contributors, “staffers,” advertisers and, of course, readers) want rules posted, responsibilities clearly delegated, assignments pre-defined, and focus stated in advance.

No.

Clear and simple, no.

That would imply dictating a formula and then blindly adhering to it. That is what we are not. If you can pinpoint something by determining what it isn’t, then there you go. Beneath the occasional, mistaken-for-apathetic “Yeah. Great. Put it in the mail,” click, responses (usually due to stressing over deadline or trying to sell a damn ad so I can pay for this beast), there is an awful lot of noble idealism. (Just ask me, I’ll admit my delusion.)

The practical application of artistic freedom as anything other than a misleading incentive is a tough call. You think I’m running this show, but Lollipop is just an excuse for a bunch of speeding kamikazes to shake out the contents of their brains on a piece of paper. I often give assignments, so what? It’s actually more like our “staff” writers do their music shopping here with the stipulation that they hand in something resembling a review within the rough time-frame of deadline (yeah, right!). They get in front of their keyboards, take a few seconds to exercise their fingers on the subject at hand, and pretty soon the random synaptical firings take over and, what the …?!&#?

You think you’re reading a music review, but what are you really reading? Where do your brains go when the lights go out? Where do your brains go when the music kicks in? I don’t know why any of our contributors think the way they do. That’s the thing I like most about this magazine, both publishing it and reading it. (Not to mention rereading it, editing it, chopping it, resplicing it, laying it out, proofing it… but I digress.) So what are you all thinking out there anyway?

And please, don’t call me Mr. Hefflon.