the grand vacuum boots lollies interview takes place in kate’s flat...kate’s painting lollies tee shirts in preparation for their barfly debut, jane is playing with the teenie beanie babies i sat through two cheeseburger happy meals in one day to get. i have prepared a question.

perhaps the greatest gift the lollies have is that i know one question will be all they’ll need to fill several pages. jane figures out how to switch on my taper, so we begin.

rachel: right ok, you’ve both got to say, if the other one was a tv game show, what would be the grand prize?

kate and jane:.... (hysterical laughter...)

j: i don’t understand that!

r: ok, so if kate was a game show...

j: uhuh...

r: what would be the grand prize?

k: a bottle of absinthe!

r: no! you’re not allowed to answer!

k: a lot of alcohol!

j: are you saying, what would kate win?

r: noooooo!

k: no, if i were a game, what would i be, the prize...

r: steps got it! they asked steps this in smash hits, and they understood!

j: wait, you’re saying steps are smarter than me?

r: steps are smarter than the lollies!

j: ok, um, um, yeah...i’m making her answer first!

k: if jane were a game show, the prize would be...um...probably about forty thousand different copies of blagged records, and guest passes, five different copies of the same album, from the record company, with different sleeves...

j: see i don’t think kate’s prize would be a bottle of absinthe, i think it would be a massive guitar pedal board with all the pedals peter dandy warhol owns plus more!

k: my dying aspiration in life is to have more pedals than peter!

j: more pedals!

k: hey that was a fun question actually...

(kate now invents a game where instead of slagging off other bands in interviews, they pretend never to have heard of them...)

j: who? lolly? who’s she?

r: so if lolly covers hey mickey, right, then does that mean that the lollies will cover the spanish version?

j: can i just say that lolly doing a cover version of hey mickey is just...(overcome with emotion) WRONG somehow!

r: is it sacred?

j: it’s sacred!

r: but have you heard toni basil’s 12" dance version? it’s not sacred once you’ve heard that.

j: i used to go over to my friends house after school when i was about 14, and we would like, pretend we were toni basil and do air guitar band type things to hey mickey...

k: i don’t know, it just appals me when people do these sort of updated versions of classics and they don’t bring anything to it, they just update it in a ‘90s version’...can’t our generation come up with anything of it’s own?

j: (giggling)

k: of course yes, it’s nice of me to say that when we’re a complete 1960s rip off band!

j: but at least we’re singing about things that people in the 60s wouldn’t have sung about...

k: yeah, people in the 60s wouldn’t have sung about like, girls deciding to be lesbians as a fashion statement...

j: or marriages of convenience or things like that...

k: so we’re bringing something new to the whole thing...the shangri las never would have sung about shopping centres...

j: and there aren’t many distortion pedals on a shangri las album!

k: ...but no, lolly should just die!

r: how old is she?

k: she’s 27

j & r: (general sounds of shock and horror)

j: is she really?!

r: noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

...we’ll have to have a second instalment of this...there are hours more, dealing with pregnant rock stars, cicero, numerology, resurrecting high finnish, starting an all girl swedish death metal band called holmstrom, the study of lollyology, sleater kinney vs all saints, strip clubs, skanky ho fringe flashing clubs, drive through car washes, why your shoes should match your guitar - preferably in purple glittery paisley...

*angel