Lollipop Magazine

Dio – Angry Machines – Review

June 15, 1996

Despite tackling such topic as isolation, divorce, paranoia, and insanity, Dio still sounds like he’s singing “Look out! The sky is falling down!”

Fred Schneider – At the Paradise – Review

June 1, 1996

Schneider’s new project is everything good: Punky, surfy, snarly, edgy, aggressive ripping stuff – injected with a serious sense of fun. It’s not the B-52’s.

X-Members – Down With The Average Joe – Review

June 1, 1996

This is so-so So Cal skate thrash which attempts to pull off a genuine early ’80s hardcore blur, but ends up sounding like a sped-up version of the Offspring.

Velocity Girl – Gilded Stars and Jealous Hearts – Review

June 1, 1996

Each release has been a higher plateau of heart-string plucking, rockin’ sentimentality that gets more difficult to compare with anyone’s sound but their own.

Vampiros Lesbos – Sexadelic Dance Party – Review

June 1, 1996

A ’70s porn funk groove, with sitar, theremin, 13-part resurrection-harp, and a chorus with so much reverb, it sounds like it was recorded in Carlsbad Caverns.

Ultra Lounge – Review

June 1, 1996

We wind down, slip off our shoes, and loosen our ties with Howard Roberts’ “Girl Talk,” and Julie London gets us ready for bed with her very sexy “Go Slow.”

Tube: Atlantic Surf Essentials – Review

June 1, 1996

For a pasty-skinned boy like me, this cosmic go-getter sound is the closest I can get to hitting the waves at Laguna Beach, and I’m getting retarded over it.

The Loungecore Experience – Review

June 1, 1996

These five discs focus more on a rock context, more of a guitar, bass drums, synth/theremin combo.

Buddha Knievil – Freak Magnet / Buddha Knievil split – Review

June 1, 1996

I’d like to tell you what the 33 1/3 side sounds like, but my copy has a huge scratch on it and skips so much that it’s rendered unlistenable.

School House Rock Rocks – Review

June 1, 1996

They gloss over the spoken parts in favor of the melody. But the spoken parts gave the songs their character, and a lot of these bands don’t have any.

Zumpano – Look What the Rookie Did – Review

June 1, 1996

Zumpano make no bones about what they’re doing, as they sound straight out of the time that brought us sing-along tunes by the Beatles and the Dave Clark 5.

Natural Born Techno 3 – Review

June 1, 1996

Natural Born Techno 3 is an example of what non-punter think of when s/he hears the word “techno,” i.e. press a button and let the machine do its thang.

Three Years and We Still Suck – part 3 of 3 – Column

June 1, 1996

Three Year Anniversary, Favorite Excerpts part 3 of 3, issues 20 thru 26.

Multiple Insertions (CD-ROM) – Review

June 1, 1996

Based on general workability, image quality, speed and creativity, Multiple Insertions is the best CD ROM I’ve ever worked with.

Ramona Silver – at CBGBs – Review

June 1, 1996

The energy coming off stage was intense for an early show. Her non-image quality combined with a girlish appearance made for an emphatic visual experience.

Industrial Fucking Strength – Review

June 1, 1996

Distorted kick-drums, hyper-charged breakbeats, aggressive samples and mega-fast tempos, it’s comparable to speed metal in its intensity, rage, and aggression.

Complications – Review

June 1, 1996

It’s rather strange when you get a compilation and it all sounds like the same band.

Axehandle Punk Compilation – Review

June 1, 1996

For their fourth release, Axhandle releases a broad-ranging compilation of punk from coast to coast and Canada.

Thee Speaking Canaries – Songs For the Terrestrially Challenged – Review

June 1, 1996

Eight-foot waves of guitar strings crash onto a beach of spontaneous drumbeats. Somewhere underwater is a guy singing like the vocalist for The Damned.

Tidal Waves – with Bald Guys, The Fliptones, Ray Corvair Trio at the Rat – Review

June 1, 1996

The night was billed as a “Groovy Surfabilly Schmooze Night,” therefore I proceeded to do just that.

A Passion of Covers – Review

June 1, 1996

I’m surprised that it’s taken so long for like-minded gloom-mongers to pay homage to the Godfathers of Goth with a tribute album, but it’s here.

The Fliptones – with Bald Guys, Tidal Waves, the Ray Corvair Trio at the Rat – Review

June 1, 1996

I was shitfaced by the time The Fliptones left the beach-combed stage. I was on a Southern Comfort kick that night, and I just went with it.

Ambient Extractions – Vol. 2 – Review

June 1, 1996

Blissed-out soundscapes are offered by 4AD artists His Name Is Alive, Single Cell Orchestra, and C&S’s own Transambient Communications.

V.3 – Photograph Burns – Review

June 1, 1996

Liberal splashes of china white on art metal walls bleeding south into the singed edges of amber waves over fuzzy fields hiding silos and secret laboratories.

Three Years and We Still Suck – part 2 of 3 – Column

June 1, 1996

Three Year Anniversary, Favorite Excerpts part 2 of 3, issues 12 thru 19.