Staff Picks: AP on why 2013 is going to rule
2012 was a pretty good year. The world didn’t end (at least not yet), and Rush finally made it into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Along the way, a bunch of other stuff happened—music-related and otherwise. But what fun is looking back? Here at AP, we’d much rather look ahead to the upcoming year, and 2013 will be a big one for the magazine. (In JUNE, we’ll publish our 300th issue.) From new music to more pizza, here’s what the AP staff are excited for in 2013.
Christopher Benton, Creative Director
1. I'm not a big movie guy, and I'm not a big Ryan Gosling fan. I mean, he seems like a fine actor and his abs are great and all, but his band, Dead Man's Bones spook-tacular first release became one of my favorite records of the past five years. The self-titled album came out in October of 2009, and I've played it on a loop each Halloween season since—and often throughout the year. I don't know if it's in the works, but I would love for him to throw down a DMB sophomore release (and tour behind it). Maybe this Halloween?
2. I may have been at AP a tad bit longer than you've been reading, but around the early/mid-2000s was a weird and wild time in AP's growth. It was not unusual for us to cover all kinds of entertainers, not just rockers. We covered and discovered up-and-comers like Zach Galifianakis (AP 221), before he was anyone. Around the time of split-cover stories on Thursday/Thrice we actually got access to stars like Joseph Gordon-Levitt (AP 178), Jessica Biel (AP 184), Elijah Wood (AP 186) and scores more before they got “mega!” With the introduction of some new young staffers here, I'm stoked to hear rumblings around the AP Compound of interest in expanding back into some entertainment/lifestyle coverage. Music will always be our No. 1 obsession, but it's not the only thing we geek on!
3. Anchorman 2, Ironman 3, Hangover 3, Star Trek Into Darkness and Thor. It's looking like a man, man, man's world! At least it'll keep them out of your hair for a few hours.
Leah Blowes, Traffic Coordinator
1. The movie A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III. Any combination of Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray warms my little black (and ironic) hipster heart.
2. The Wonder Years’ new album, because they’re the Wonder Years.
3. The final eight episodes of Breaking Bad. I’m dying to find out what Hank does after finding the Walt Whitman book.
4. Season three of Shameless. It's been so long since season two, I can't even remember what happened anymore.
Nichole Fazekas, Marketing Coordinator
1. New albums from Sharks and Frank Turner.
2. Riot Fest 2013 because the 2012 Riot Fest was the best festival I've ever been to!
3. More progressive movement for gay rights. (I'm a huge supporter!)
4. My sister's wedding. (Mainly because I'm sick of talking/hearing about it.)
5. A whole new year of concerts to attend.
6. AP's 300th issue! We have a lot in store for this.
Billy Graves, Production Assistant
1. I'm excited to go to the Fest for the first time.
2. I'm excited to graduate college and eventually move to Cleveland.
3. I’m excited for This Is Hardcore Fest and Warped Tour.
Scott Heisel, Managing Editor
1. CM Punk remaining the WWE champion for an entire calendar year.
2. On that note, attending my first-ever WrestleMania (alongside Soupy from the Wonder Years, natch) and hopefully making CM Punk my best friend while there.
3. A new Weezer album, pretty please? Even if it sucks, I still want to hear it. I mean, shit, I bought Raditude on vinyl. RADITUDE. I'm the ultimate Weezer apologist.
4. My first wedding anniversary. Being married rules, you guys.
5. The 300th issue of AP—now that's something you can hang your hat on.
6. Knowing that I'm going to hear music that will blow me away by bands that I don't even know about yet. That's the kind of stuff that really gets me jazzed on life.
Cynthia Luna, Office Assistant
1. I'm looking forward to seeing how long it takes for Taylor Swift and Harry Styles from One Direction to break up. Her next album should be real good. (In all seriousness Red is great.)
2. I'm looking forward to more pizza in my life.
3. I'm looking forward to any movie Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in.
Dawn Marshman, Marketing Director
1. Finally getting air-conditioning in my office.
2. The Cleveland Browns making the playoffs. (Maybe, that should go on the wish list…)
3. All the babies my lady friends are having.
4. Reading Festival–hoping to make it!
5. Star Trek Into Darkness
6. The new Sharks record.
Brittany Moseley, Associate Editor
1. The 10th anniversary of Say Anything’s …Is A Real Boy. At their Columbus, Ohio, show in October, Max promised they would do a tour and play the album in its entirety. I’m holding him to it.
2. Captain America is filming in Cleveland. I always love to see cool things happening in my city. Plus, the thought of running into Chris Evans at the grocery store or Starbucks is pretty appealing, too.
3. I can’t wait to finally see Texas Is The Reason in concert. I was eight when they released Do You Know Who You Are?. By the time I was old enough to appreciate them, they had already broken up. So basically, I’m living out my inner ’90s-emo-kid fantasy.
4. Celebrating my one-year AP anniversary in June. (Here’s hoping they keep me around until then and don’t kick me out for playing Alanis Morissette’s entire catalog extremely loud.)
Nicole Muscaro, Marketing Assistant
I'm excited for my vacation to Disney World; the new Frank Turner album; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Great Gatsby on the big screen; season four of Arrested Development; a new year of more concerts and seeing Les Misérables onstage.
Rob Ortenzi, Director Of New Media
1. Other than the fiscal cliff, I'm really looking forward to a potentially amazing (and heavily geeky) movie-filled 2013: Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, Man Of Steel, Thor: The Dark World, Oblivion, World War Z and The Lone Ranger. The new Star Trek movie looks like the cooler, darker second part of the trilogy, much like The Empire Strikes Back was to the original Star Wars trilogy.
2. I'm also looking forward to seeing Firefly back on TV, but that's a dream I wish for every year. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the full-length Blu-ray release of the web-delivered series, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, a prequel to the original Battlestar Galactica SyFy reboot. Ironically, it didn't air on SyFy, much in the same way that MTV doesn't air music videos.
3. As for tech stuff, I'm looking forward to the Pebble watch, which is an e-paper watch that works with your iPhone or Android. It's the perfect synergy of my wristwatch and Apple fetish all rolled up into one, even bigger fetish.
Jason Pettigrew, Editor In Chief
1. Cold Cave 4.0—Wesley Eisold rebooted Cold Cave into a world-class A-team of post-punk players (Hunter Burgan, London May, Dave Stone and Cody Votolato). The promise of a record from this lineup is the kind of life-affirming gesture that should make suicide hotlines unnecessary.
2. The Butler—Forest Whittaker plays a servant at the White House who has kept his job for three decades and eight administrations. If you're not stoked to see diehard leftie John Cusack portraying Richard Nixon, I can't help you.
3. Danny The Street—The debut album? EP? 7-inch? Hologram? As long as it’s not a comic book.
4. Steak Mtn—Chris Norris is one of the underground's best visual artists/designers/conceptualists. My bones just know he's got some great stuff happening next year.
5. Rough Trade America – The U.K.'s best record store lands in Brooklyn, New York, this spring. This is better than sex.
Samantha Ruff, Junior Account Executive
1. More of Lindsay Lohan's shenanigans. (Jail, perhaps?)
2. Fleetwood Mac’s reunion tour. (See you in Chicago!)
3. Super Bowl XLVII commercials and Beyoncé.
4. A new Chippendales calendar for my office.
5. The live-blogging of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2013.
6. The future of Kimye. (That’s Kanye + Kim Kardashian for the uninitiated.) What will 2013 bring? Marriage? A baby?
7. More Pitbull and Flo Rida collaborations.
8. Tegan And Sara's new record, Heartthrob.
9. The series finale of Breaking Bad.
Joe Scarpelli, General Manager
1. I am looking forward to the world continuing to operate as usual after the Mayan calendar predicted our awful demise by either a massive natural event or a serious asteroid shower. (Think Armageddon minus Bruce Willis or Deep Impact with less Elijah Wood.)
2. On that note, I am also looking forward to how the sun's radiation bursts (occurring in July of 2013) are going to effect our power grids. (Think pre-cellphones/internet/Wi-Fi. What are we going to do?)
3. I am looking forward to Apple coming out with yet another iPhone that will replace my already old and outdated iPhone. (Thanks, Apple.)
4. Finally, I’m looking forward to all the exciting changes and projects AP will be working on in the upcoming year! Stay tuned.
Mike Shea, CEO & Founder
1. The new Superman movie franchise launch.
2. Every single one of the records in the Most Anticipated issue.
3. Travel plans to the U.K. and hopefully getting back to Brazil.
4. A new AP.
5. Most importantly, finding a balance.
Krysten Sulin, Junior Account Executive
1. I'm looking forward to new music from A Rocket To The Moon, twenty | one | pilots, Jimmy Eat World and Lady Gaga. (Would it be too hopeful to include Justin Timberlake in there, too?)
2. The series finale of The Office (in a bittersweet way) and the return of Pretty Little Liars in January. (I still think Aria and Ezra are part of the A-Team and no one can convince me otherwise.)
3. The release of OPI's 2013 Spring/Summer Euro Central Collection. My must-have shade: Can’t Find My Czechbook.
4. fun. taking home at least one Grammy award (even though I don't think they'll beat out Carly Rae Jepsen for Song Of The Year).
5. Seeing all of my favorite celebrity couples make it or break it. I'm keeping a close eye on Kimye, Haylor and Britwick.
Shannon Sullivan, Art Associate
1. I am excited about 3D movies never being made again. Really have my fingers crossed on this one.
2. I'm excited to see more people become atheist. In 2013, I hope to see religion continue to move out of politics, medicine, science and especially music. Hank Hill once said, “Can't you see you're not making Christianity any better, you're just making rock ’n’ roll worse.” So just replace “Christianity” with any religion and “rock ’n’ roll” with any activity, and he's still pretty much right.
Cassie Whitt, Website Content Administrator
1. The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys comic book. Long before it was a My Chemical Romance album, The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys existed as a comic book concept by co-writers Gerard Way and Shaun Simon. An album, many changes and illustration magic by Becky Cloonan later, Killjoys is ready to be unleashed onto the world starting with a taste on Free Comic Book Day (May 4, 2013), followed by issue one in June. I’m more than excited to see what the comic has become and to continue the Killjoys story in print form.
2. The remaining two installments of My Chemical Romance’s Conventional Weapons series. MCR began releasing their 2009 “scrapped album,” Conventional Weapons, two songs at a time in October and will finish the series in February. Number Four, which comes out in January, features “Kiss The Ring,” my favorite song the band debuted at one of their two fan-famous shows at the Roxy in 2009. I cannot wait for a studio version to replace the jank bootleg rip on my iPod. The song that accompanies it on Number Four is called “Make Room!!!!” Four exclamation points. I have big expectations.
3. Coming to work. Seriously. I’m excited to wake up and come to this place every day. I’m so proud and excited that I get to start my 2013 with such amazing humans.
4. Not sleeping on a couch (possibly). I've been dwelling in a living room and from my suitcase since June. Perhaps I'll end up with an apartment that allows me to have a room of my own next year!
5. Hanging out with my bird, Doctor Zeropercent.
Deanna Zamudio, Art Associate
In the year 2000 (and 13), I am looking forward to… FLYING CARS! Seriously, where are all the flying cars?
