Three Years and We Still Suck
Issues 20-26
By The Editors of Lollipop
Issue 20: Have I Told You Lately That I’m Larvae?
“You say tomato. I say fuck off.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“Whoever came up with the now-mandatory slogan “Support Your Local Scene,” didn’t set the parameters very well… If you suck, it doesn’t matter where you suck, what matters is that you suck… Sure a little more hippy-peace-and-love-smile-on-your brother bullshit would make the world a happier place, but I’ve never been able to buy into that, so I don’t hold it against others who can’t either. What offends me is the disregard for common courtesy shown by the same pathetic chumps who are ‘asking’ for support. It rubs on my nerves like an insulting pan handler.”
Scott Hefflon, Support Your Local Scene, My Ass!
“Okay, stay calm. Don’t panic. The word has come down from the powers that be at the four networks… there are no more stand-up comedians left to give sitcoms to.”
William Ham, Mediacrity
“From a sitting position, you could have taken a great ad photo for Klansmen Jeans featuring a cast of thousands. If marijuana is supposed to make people creative, why were we all wearing the same pants? I suppose it’s not Mass Cann’s fault that white kids and Black kids don’t listen to the same music anymore. Damn. Did we forget to do minority outreach again?”
Kerry Joyce, Reefer Blandness
“When I say they rock, I mean they fuckin’ rock! When I put Temperance on my walkman, when I’m riding my BMX on my paper route, it makes me feel totally free, man. Like I could totally put a rock through my neighbor’s window and nobody would ever know. They’d probably call the police or something but by then I’d be long gone. They’d never fuckin’ catch me. You think you can put me in jail and make me conform to society’s standards. But by the time the cops got there I’d be in moshing heaven, blasting fucking Snapcase in my room, and pissing off my mom. Well fuck her too. Temperance fuckin’ rocks.”
B. Aaronson, Temperance
“The next band whose sleeve says “play loud” gets garroted with their own G-strings.”
Nik Rainey, Grither
“‘My God,’ I thought, ‘I like this Boy George song… I gave Adam Ant a good review last month… I AM OFFICIALLY THE UNCOOLEST MAN ON THE PLANET!’… Welcome back, you crazy bitch.”
Chris Adams, Boy George
“The Blowfish decided to finally turn on Hootie and start eating him alive halfway through a stadium gig. The bland, torturous pop music of Semisonic is the sound Hootie makes as he struggles to keep singing and pretend that nothing’s happening. You’re not fooling anyone, Hootie! We can see those chunks of flesh flying off you with our own eyes.”
Joshua Brown, Semisonic
“Ahh, the sweet sound of rage.”
Scott Hefflon, Channel Zero
Issue 21: Idiot Savant-garde or Pilgrim’s Progress
“I have attached a 20 meganoun word bomb to Lollipop’s word processors. If you don’t publish this piece, I will set it off. Metaphors will be mixed beyond repair, infinitives split asunder, participles will be dangling over the streets of Boston. The newsprint will run with the adverbs of the non-believers. The choice is yours. Have a nice day.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“Editor/publisher/legend in his own mind extraordinaire, Scott Hefflon, fell off his high horse after the Anon CD release party last month, after making a typically forgettable sloppy splash. Well, it wasn’t exactly a horse; it was more like a 5-year-old Hyundai, and it wasn’t exactly his. It was mine. And he didn’t exactly fall off of it, it sort of fell off the road and into a divider on Storrow Drive. And it wasn’t exactly high, although I suspect, he was. And now it’s pay back time.”
Kerry Joyce, Prelude to a Lick: the Revenge
“God I miss the commies. I miss everything about them. I miss the nuclear sword of Damocles, dangling from the slenderest of threads. I miss the domino theory. I miss the Falcon and the Snowman. I miss Tom Clancy. And I especially miss all the tin horn Third World dictators we propped up to save the world from Soviet expansionism. Ever since the Berlin Wall came down, life just hasn’t been the same.”
Kerry Joyce, Radio Ga-Ga
“Poole was supposed to play first, but their van broke down in Manhattan. Which is really too bad because I would’ve loved to review them. But that’s ok, AT&T had free frisbees.”
Elissa Dennis, Way More Weekend College Fest
“…It still kicks the shit out of anything put out this year on this side of Estonia… Fuck it. I’m learning Japanese and moving to Osaka.”
Karl Geising, Super Junky Monkey
“They did and excellent job with the tension/release thing – NOISE, NOISE NOISE, melody, NOISE, melody. . . Mixed in with the noise (let’s face it, SOMETHING needs to get mixed in with the noise…)”
Sheril Stanford, Pie
Issue 22: Free-dom is Slavery
“I’ve been working like a dog of late, which is to stay I’ve been sticking my head out of car windows quite a bit and have to wear a plastic cone around my head to keep from gnawing on my leg.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“I guess [having a small penis] is like when you run outta silverware ’cause you haven’t done dishes in a couple weeks. You have to eat your Corn Flakes with one of the teeny spoons in the back. It works and all, it just takes a while.”
Anonymous Staffer, Party Spew
“Imagine you are one of the lobbyists playing poker in Senator Alfonse D’Amato’s office at a few hundred dollars per hand. You would have to be an idiot to win. You’d also have to be an idiot if you lost every hand. That would make the real game painfully obvious. It takes a pro to look Senator D’Amato straight in the eye, with the face of the patsy you pretend that you are and say: ‘That’s it. I’m going home. You’re too good for me, Al. Were you bluffing on that last hand? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. And Al, thanks for your help on screwing the spotted owl. It means a lot to the folks who climb 1,000 year old trees with a chainsaw for a living.'”
Kerry Joyce, Ghost Busters
“There’s nothing sadder than a dead cult (and I’m not talking Branch Davidians here), and [David Lynch’s] Fire Walk With Me does nothing to resurrect it. It’s a shapeless amorphous mess, with loads of typically obtuse symbolism (Rhesus monkey? Creamed corn? Oh yeah, I get it.)”
William Ham, Cine Trash
“Long Island’s Garden Variety are the musical equivalent of viewing a paisley shirt through foggy glasses. Or maybe a see-through dress on someone you weren’t hoping to see naked.”
Joshua Brown, Garden Variety
“I seem to be blessed/cursed to get most of the post-cheese metal that comes into what passes for Lollipop Corporate Headquarters… After winning a “Best-Out-Of-A-Few-Million” thumb wrestling match with the Editor (boy, does he hate to lose!), I have the “privilege” of frothing about post-’80s glam/cheese/ metal/cock rock. I’ve also learned that having opposable thumbs is definitely a perk and deserves all the evolutionary hype it gets.”
Chaz Thorndike, Saigon Kick
Issue 23: Unfree At Last – or – Buddy, Can You Spare Two Bucks?
“You think you can live on the edge? The edge has been erased by the delete button from an IBM clone hotwired to Bill Gates’ asshole.”
Kerry Joyce, Thus Spake the Prophet Mitchell to the Inhabitants of Allston/Brighton
“Saddy nite the rental people came and took away the television… He took his shotgun painted the barrel blue, and began firing through his windows at every television blinking in mockery from neighboring apartments. Glass shattered on the street, TV tubes exploded in bright shards of purple and puce. Sirens sounded in the distance. Quentin blew on the barrel of his gun and opened a can of beans. Books, he thought as the cops beat him down the stairs. That was it…”
John Kilkelly, Untitled
“Well, Jack and his Liquor Cabinet jumped on the lo-fi train, but it’s unclear as to whether they meant to or just read the schedule wrong.”
M.I. McDonald, Logan and Liquor Cabinet
“…look buddy, I don’t care if your dick turns green and falls off, let’s have a good song for once.”
Joshua Brown, All About Chad
“If their first studio effort wasn’t enough to turn your ears inside out and gush buckets of blood…”
Paul Lee, Nailbomb
“Dylan cannot sing. No surprise.”
Celeste Haven, Bob Dylan
Issue 24: Your Karma Hit My Dogma
“So now it’s March. My birthday is in March. I turn 27. Great people die at 27. I’m fully expecting to live past 27, well past 27, into the glory years when I’m old, decrepit, and haven’t produced anything meaningful in a very long time… I’ll definitely be one of those crotchety old men you want to beat over the head with your youthful idealism and unlimited libido.”
Scott Hefflon, Prelude to a Lick
“Krassmont’s inner editor jump-cut him to the interior of an office just as shiny as the lobby. A gray-haired, paternal-looking man sat at the biggest, most gorgeous desk Krassmont had ever seen. It cooed to him. ‘Geor-orrrrge. Polish me. Break out the Old English, George, you know how that makes me feeeel.'”
William Ham, Krassmont’s Calling
“If I hear one more born-again poser trying to tell me about how cool Christian Industrial Death Metal is, I’m going to nail somebody’s living carcass to a tree.”
Kerry Joyce, A Living Hell
“‘As a matter of fact,’ I said matter-of-factly, ‘I’ve been contributing to New England’s finest music and entertainment magazine. They haven’t taken any of my stuff, though, so I guess I’ll be writing for Lollipop for a while longer.'”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“Polonsky puts words next to words and notes next to notes in an entertaining way, and to hell with you all. I like it.”
Sheril Stanford, Johnny Polonsky
“It’s pretty obvious a lot of money was blown on this disc (don’t we have the damn technology to add some extra guitar tracks to Meet the Beatles? We could do away with thousands of shitty bands in one fell swoop.)”
Jon Sarre, Limblifter
“May cause excitability, especially in children.”
J. Lianna Ness, Seven Year Bitch
“But, of course, the big question remains: Aimee Mann and Julian Sands have never been photographed together. Why? Dammit, why?”
Ryk McIntyre, Aimee Mann
“Who knew that a harpsichord would make a girl like me want to have sex?”
Cunt Rock Girl, Tori Amos
“I also have a filing cabinet, and may soon invest in a vacuum; I am no longer punk.”
Austin Nash, Fun Lovin’ Criminals
“…trying to describe the Bentmen’s live show is like trying to explain an orgasm to a virgin.”
Valerie Smith, Bentmen
Issue 25: Discharge of the Spite Brigade
“Welcome to the Revolution. May I take your order please?”
Scott Hefflon, Prelude To A Lick
“It was the year when the computer programmers did to the artist what the atomic physicists had done to the footsoldiers, what 19th century philosophers had done to saviors of the soul: rendered their sacrifice obsolete. It was an electronic storming of the Bastille by the pocket protector brigade.”
Kerry Joyce, Death Race 2000
“Mr. Lennon, you’re one of the most successful pop performers of the century, and you’ve been dead for, I dunno, 15 years or something. How does it feel?
Well, you know we all shine on and all that roobish but it gets to be a bit of a drag, you know. EVERYBODY shining on all at once and that. I mean, it doesn’t have to be me that’s shining the brightest, but if somebody, anybody would, it’d liven up the place some. It’s worse than bloody Hamburg.”
Kerry Joyce and William Ham,Tomorrow Never Cares, An exclusive interview with John Lennon
“This here is a realist prison facility. If I see any o’ you usin’ allegory, you spend a night in the box. If I hear ’bout any o’ you maggots attempting a Wildean comedy of manners, you spend a night in the box. And if I, or one of my stereotypically weasely underlings, find any o’ you tryin’ to pull some kinda epic novel exploring the essential amorality of humankind in a Godless universe with a touch of absurdist meta-satire a la Ionesco… well, then you go into the remainder bin. Any o’ you prose-slingin’ pockfaces got a problem with that?”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“…weaving a delicate tapestry of sound worthy of GG’s loveliest musings (who can forget walking down an ivy-covered path, hand-in-hand with your loved one, the aching melody of “Eat My Fuc” whistling through the wind?).”
Nik Rainey, Murder Junkies
“Call it ‘Nails Lite (Sounds Great, Less Depressing).'”
Sheril Stanford, Stabbing Westward
“What about magazine writers who give you bad reviews?
Dave: We glue their eyes shut.
Joey: We pull their ears over their mouths and tie ’em in knots.”
Joshua Brown, Supernova interview
Issue 26: And Now For Someone Completely Indifferent
“Let’s move on to greener pastures, shall we?”
Scott Hefflon, Prelude to a Lick
“Nobody can tell me that Bob Dole doesn’t know how to party. Bob Dole is the original party beast. You know it, I know it, the dudes in Grand Funk Railroad know it.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“‘You’ve read Chekov?’ I remember asking as I tried to remember where my wallet was.”
John Kilkelly, Pawtucket 11 p.m.
“The frightening truth is that the people running this country are exactly who they appear to be. The damn fools who run around shaking hands and making inane statements every election year, just so they can get their mitts on the levers of government and tell other people what they can and cannot do for a time, and maybe get their name affixed to a building, bridge, or tunnel someday, if it’s not affixed to a grand jury subpoena first.”
Kerry Joyce, The End of History
“The Internet, for those of you unfamiliar with this wonder of modern technology, is very slow TV.”
John Shaw, Rip The Net
“Swarmy, new wave Limey synth pop”
John Sarre, The Fixx
“Let’s see… in the religion of ’90s rock, we can pretty much agree that Cobain is the Christ (even if he did drive the nails in himself). Put him there and other modern rock figures fall into place beneath him: Corgan, Reznor and Vedder as the disciples spreading the gospels of dissipation and self-loathing, Neil Young as Lazarus, Courtney Love as Mary Magdalene… not too hard if you think about it. (I’d call Perry Farrell John the Baptist, not only because he’s the most responsible for anointing alt-rock with the waters of commercial potential, but because I’d really like to see his pasty head on a platter.)”
Nik Rainey, Stone Temple Pilots
“Even though it’s one of the most reviled occupations in the arts world (running a close second to kiddie pornographer, I guess), I’ve always wanted to be a rock critic…”
Jon Sarre, Kiss
“Wooo-eeee! Grab the laughing gas and my NASA Bermuda shorts- I’m off to venus in a cosmic Woody with my favorite Finnish wave crashers… This stuff is nuclear, it’s like holy water on my stick.”
Mark Phinney, Laika and the Cosmonauts
“So, what has Integrity been doing since their last album? Oh, the usual: Practicing, changing drummers, playing shows, and conceptualizing the divine destruction of humankind.”
Tim Creter, Integrity
“They graced the stage with their blood, leaving behind the sweet stench of alcohol and a pile of broken mic stands.”
Mark Phinney, The Tunnel Rats
