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By the spring of 1988, I had already started announcing on WAPS-FM in Akron that AP was returning that summer. I had contacted a lot of the original “staff” as soon as I realized the money would be there to get-and keep-us moving again. AP staffer Carl Bujorian’s initial contribution started the ball rolling, but it took a long, heartfelt conversation with my grandmother, who lived with my family at the time, to get real funding. Thank God she believed in me.
One $16,000 loan later, AP sprang back to life with issue 9 (Love & Rockets) and a new, newspaper-sized format. I wanted AP to be as big and as noticeable as possible. Plus, there was just so much information we wanted to get into each issue. The size immediately set us apart from all the other rock fanzines in the U.S. at that time, and AP quickly became a “must-have” for anyone who bought zines.
I had a new business partner, too-my close friend Bobby Crist. I realized after the first round of AP’s life that I had taken on way too much work and that I needed help. So we divided the tasks: Bobby would be in charge of production and design, and I would oversee everything else. Okay, okay-so now I was just doing 75 percent of everything, but it was still less than before. I guess I hadn’t learned to let go just yet.
After losing his roommate, editor in chief Dave Earle offered the front room of his two-bedroom apartment as AP’s first real office space. I eagerly jumped and pushed our way into it since I was so tired of living and working with AP back at my mom’s house. We kicked in our portion of rent and made a verbal agreement to be out of there in time for Dave to bring the girls back to his place at night.
Ah, the fun things we had to do just to produce an issue back then. No Internet; computer-graphics programs still in their infancy; fax machines just coming of age; no cell phones; and we had to drive everywhere to deliver disks to printers. But AP was growing,
getting a lot of buzz in the industry and around town, and we were excited about being a part of something fun and new.
Still, we had no idea how to run a business. The money we got from my grandmother was being spent way too quickly and carelessly. We were bad negotiators; I had a bleeding heart with no backbone; and, as the year went on, Bobby and I got into more disagreements. We were still young, in our early 20s and shedding our youth while trying to become business partners overnight. Bands go through this growth phase all the time, and, believe me, when they say it’s tough, they’re right.
Somehow, we got through it-probably because of all the publicity AP was getting in Cleveland. By year’s end, being an AP staffer actually started to mean something cool. We were the fanzine that was pulling together Cleveland’s underground scene instead of attacking it from our own little POV. So, whatever dark clouds were looming on the horizon (again) financially for us, we forgot about once we got into a concert and heard the band say, “Oh, yeah, AP! We’ve heard about you!” In our minds, we had arrived. We hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.
