#187 02/2004
#188 03/2004
#189 04/2004
#190 05/2004
#191 06/2004
#192 07/2004
#193 08/2004
#194 09/2004
#195 10/2004
#196 11/2004
#197 12/2004
President/Founder: Mike Shea
Publisher: Norman Wonderly
General Manager: Katherine Poecze
Editorial Director: Aaron Burgess
Editor In Chief: Jason Pettigrew
Managing Editor: Leslie Simon
Music Editor: Jonah Bayer
Associate Editor: Scott Heisel
Art Director: Christopher Benton
Art/Web Design: Rob Ortenzi
Art/Production Assistant: Ted Barnes
Ad Sales: Dawn Marie Burns, Howard Ross, Jason Ley
Marketing Director: Aaron Wilson
Subscriptions Manager: Angela Hetrick
Front Office: Eddie Fleischer
MIKE SHEA:
It’s strange not having to struggle.
Really. After 19 years of going up and down, and taking two steps forward and then being pushed one or three steps back, I think we were all feeling a bit weirded out coming into work and not finding some fire blazing on our desk, or in our voicemail or inbox. I know Norman, Katherine and I were still really apprehensive as we waited for the other shoe to drop each day. Even though the first shoe hadn’t dropped in the past year and a half.
When you’re doing something you’re meant to do, everything seems to come with a lot of ease. Even the hard projects are easier to get through. Aaron Wilson was running around like crazy all year between our massive work with the Warped Tour and the countless other tours we got behind, like Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and others. Despite the long hours he put in and some of the bull that accompanied it, it was obvious he was totally digging his job.
Even though everything was busy as hell here, it was a good kind of busy. We were growing and changing so fast, we were all trying to keep up with all of the new opportunities that were flying at us each day. One of them was the chance to grab Punknews.org editor Scott Heisel and bring him over to AP-Land to take over our news section. This guy knows too much, I swear. If I need someone to find out some really obscure gossip that’s going around about some third-tier band, Scott knows where to go. Walter Winchell would be proud.
For me, well, I also needed to adapt to the changing atmosphere at AP. I really needed to be focusing on other projects that we had all been wanting to do for forever; yet I couldn’t do those and be publisher at the same time. Norman had been with us for over 15 of our 19 years, and he was ready to step up to the plate. We had been talking about promoting him to publisher off and on for a couple of years, but various roadblocks kept getting in the way; one of them my hesitation in letting go of a position I had held since Day One at AP back in 1985. A couple of long talks with myself during long road trips later, Norman became publisher in July. He deserved it, and a year later, I have no regrets whatsoever.
I have to admit, it was a bit strange to come into work and not have to deal with some of the things I had been used to before. It took a few months before I was able to keep my nose focused on my new projects and not get in Norman’s way. Eventually I chilled out and let go. It’s funny, because usually, I am a pretty strong advocate for change, but it kinda freaked me out. I guess I’m human, after all.
SCOTT HEISEL/ASSOCIATE EDITOR:
No joke: When I ventured out to Cleveland for my job interview, my biggest concern was what should I wear? I was convinced AP was a T-shirt-and-jeans type of operation, but my mom threatened to disown me if I didn’t wear a suit. We compromised with a polo shirt and khakis (I still wore white socks, though); and, of course, I was the most overdressed person in the entire office. When Mike told me, “We tried wearing shirts and ties once, like, 10 years ago-for about a week,” I knew this was my dream job. Solidifying my belief even more, on my first day of work, I showed up at 10 a.m. sharp-only to find the entire office deserted, and all the lights off. Right as panic began to set in (“Was there an emergency meeting called somewhere and I forgot to check my e-mail this weekend?” I worried), Aaron Burgess came ambling around the corner-cup of coffee in hand-around 10:15, surprised to see me. “Oh, hey,” he said. “No one really gets here right at 10; we all just kind of roll in whenever.” It was at that point that I knew I would be very, very happy here.
JONAH BAYER/MUSIC EDITOR:
For AP 189, I wrote a cover story on NOFX, one of my favorite bands when I was growing up. With the impending presidential election looming, the band decided to break their seven-year silence; and suddenly, the same kid who spent his adolescence listening to “Liza & Louise” and “Don’t Call Me White” was sitting in Fat Mike’s office, asking all the questions my 15-year-old self would’ve killed to know the answers to. In the end, angry subscribers’ parents didn’t understand the Dixie Chicks parody we tried on the cover, and the issue didn’t sell quite as well as we had expected (four naked, 40-something guys probably also had something to do with it), but for me, it was just another example of the amazing events I experienced during my second year at AP. Okay, maybe it wasn’t as amazing as having a bench-press workout session on that summer’s Warped Tour with Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows, or traveling down to Florida with my band, the Lovekill, to play the Fest in Gainesville, and discovering amazing bands AP would eventually cover, like Voice In The Wire, Smoke Or Fire and Rehasher. But each of these moments-combined with countless late nights at the office editing, debating and, of course, instigating-helped shape one helluva year.
LESLIE SIMON/MANAGING EDITOR:
I’m not going to lie: I thought my first appearance on Fuse was going to make me a star. I’d be recognized in malls, asked for autographs while I was eating at Subway and offered a development deal for my own show about rock stars and their allergies. Sadly, none of that was meant to be. After boning up on movie plots, actor stats and all-around juicy gossip only found on “Page Six,” I found my 15 minutes actually clocking in at around 23 seconds. And my face was shiny. And the lighting was really dark. And you could hardly even tell it was me. Albeit humbling, being a fuzzy blob on the network’s “Amplified Guide To Summer” was a great experience, because it made me appreciate all the hard work our “Close-Up” actors and actresses go through to make a name for themselves. For every role in The Aviator, there’s a role in Hellraiser IV: Bloodline. Everyone knows AP has a legacy for picking the next big thing in music, but we’ve also got a pretty friggin’ good track record when it comes to film: Jesse Bradford, Bijou Philips, Emile Hirsch, Shannon Elizabeth. Not bad, huh? Just wait, ’cause you ain’t seen nothing yet.
TED BARNES/ART ASSISTANT:
I didn‘t go to a very prestigious design college, and as I neared graduation, I feared I would be doomed to years of designing adult ads for the local free papers (where I had a part-time position). I wish there was a really cool story about how I got hired (maybe involving an airplane and an inflatable raft), but there‘s not. There was a design/production position open at AP. I applied, and I miraculously got the job, in spite of my oversized suit-Men‘s Wearhouse, be damned! Working with Christopher Benton and Rob Ortenzi to redesign the magazine and the website has been great. 2004 was a great year for the magazine, and it seems to get bigger every issue, which sometimes makes for a lot of late nights, but it‘s nothing short of stellar to help create a new face or an image for some of my favorite artists.
