CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Publisher/Executive Editor: Mike Shea Associate Publishers: Norman Wonderly, Carla Nocera
Editor In Chief: Robert Cherry Managing Editor/Music Reviews Editor: Dave Segal
Senior Editor: Jason Pettigrew Assistant Editor: Aaron Burgess Art Director: Christopher Benton
Photo Editor/Production Manager: Norman Wonderly Advertising Director: Carla Nocera
Ad Sales: Dawn Marie Burns, Christian Webb Accounts Manager: Katherine Poecze
Senior Photographers: Heidi Locke, Marina Chavez, Joshua Kessler, Brad Miller, Magda

Competition is good--right?

1998 began what I refer to now as “The Lost Years.” There were a lot of great artists we would’ve liked to slap on AP’s front cover that year. Unfortunately, increasing sales pressure from retailers, along with a highly competitive (and getting worse by the month) atmosphere that had erupted between corporate mags like Rolling Stone and Spin, leaving bigger indie mags like us in the middle, was making it near impossible to keep what we felt was our credibility while being able to pay the bills and keep the lights on.

So, as alternative music was wavering and become less focused as a genre (was it really “alternative,” or was it just pop?), major music magazines were being forced to go after the hottest or newest thing, not only to remain “relevant” from a business standpoint, but also to stay on top of the next big thing-with grunge on the way out, every music magazine wanted to be able to say it could see what was coming next.

Practically every staff meeting, much less editorial meeting, we spent time strategizing our next moves against Stone and Spin in NYC. Being in Cleveland, I think, kept us a bit more objective and less stressed out over the drama that’d been playing out between Stone and Spin each issue, but we still got frustrated when we would get into a cover battle over a previously B-level band like, you know, the Verve.

Eventually, we started hearing that the editors of Stone and Spin were now telling publicists to keep us from having stories on certain artists (e.g., No Doubt, Marilyn Manson, or someone similarly well-known who could sell copies.) In one sense, it was flattering as hell: Here we were, this independent magazine in Cleveland, getting in the way of these big publishing companies in NYC. It was hilarious. And the thing that rocked the most? We won about half the battles we got into with these magazines. Now that was cool.
In general, 1998 was another one of those “maintaining” years for us at AP, but you could just feel it as the year went on that morale was eroding. We were starting to have to do things we didn’t want to do in order to survive, and we were growing less tolerant of it.


115: Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Bosstones were always very accommodating with our requests for visually stunning photo concepts, and singer Dickey Barrett was always quick with the entertaining quips and anecdotes. It makes sense that he went on to work as Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night announcer for a season. A second career as a character actor doesn’t seem out of reach. [RC]

116: Sugar Ray
Ah yes, the shark-jumping sellout issue. At least Mark McGrath was always self-deprecating and had an encyclopedic knowledge of rock that rivals Jason Pettigrew’s. And as a singer, he’d make a great Extra host. [RC]

I complained to no end about this one. However, it’s an essential issue for the Melvins interview, where many sacred cows (Kurt Cobain, the Seattle rock scene and girl bands, to name but three) got shredded and shipped to Burger King. [JP]

To set the record straight on this, Sugar Ray was a last-minute cover switch. We had planned the Scott Weiland cover to go here, but his record got pushed at the last minute, and we had to push his story to the next issue leaving us with needing someone, anyone to fill the space. We decided to follow the “gotta sell copies” philosophy, and our readers, wisely, smacked us down for doing so. [MS]

117: Scott Weiland
Weiland’s solo album-was supposed to mark a new beginning for the troubled Stone Temple Pilots vocalist. Sadly, he was already relapsing by the time of this interview. The album is still worth checking out, though. [RC]
What do hip-hop and Stone Temple Pilots have in common? I hate them both. Still, I can’t deny that Scotty The Human Pin Cushion put out a decent album. When we were told it was an “exclusive,” imagine how we felt when we saw him on the cover of Request the same month. [JP]

118: The Verve
In 1998, the Verve were the biggest band in England, and they’d gained a platinum-selling foothold in the States with the success of the single “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” In a typically contrary mood, singer Richard Ashcroft wasn’t granting interviews-except to AP and Stone. I spent an intense two hours with the man in a barren room backstage at the Brixton Academy. Ashcroft chain-smoked and spit out his philosophies about love, life, music and the soul-stealing industry with the passion of a young John Lennon. [RC]

I’m still prouder than ever of this issue, thanks to the massive “State Of Hardcore” special Ryan J. Downey, Norm Arenas and I were able to pull together in production. Nearly every band was skeptical at first (you try convincing ultra-underground acts like Los Crudos and Man Is The Bastard to do interviews for a magazine with glossy pages). In the end, we earned their respect and got them to participate, and if we turned even one Britpop fan on to Born Against that issue, the headaches were more than worth it. [AB]

I achieve my dream interview with krautrock gods, Can. The rest of my life is but an anticlimax. [DS]

119: Sarah McLachlan
The cover shot makes her look like she has Down Syndrome. I think whoever made the decision to do this cover in the first place was the real mongoloid. [JP]

This was not the cover photo we had hoped to get. Due to screw-ups somewhere along the line, we ended up having to do our shoot in Sarah’s hotel room, and the photographer shot her literally just lying on the floor. It’s a blurry photo, and I’ve always hated it. We were chasing the Lilith Fair bandwagon with this piece, like everyone else was at the time. [MS]

120: Tori Amos
Tori had recently fallen from favor as Stone’s steady cover girl, and we were only too happy to pick her up for a long string of cover stories. The rare artist who can shift units and put asses in seats without compromising her artistic vision. [RC]

Nü-metal coverage starts to pick up here, and my attitude toward my job gets to be really hateful. [JP]

Pettigrew reviews Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore, and it’s longer than most of the features the mag now runs. [DS]

121: RANCID
My fave AP cover is issue 79, with the profile of Tim Armstrong and his towering Mohawk. I so wanted to see a cover shot like that again for this issue, but instead, Tim put a bandana on his head. Fuckin’ hell... [MS]

122: Korn
I wanted the Bauhaus reunion on the cover so bad I growled and yammered on the floor like a bratty kid who didn’t want to grocery shop with his mom. Mike turned a fire hose on me and blasted me back into my office. [JP]

I must’ve aged five years just reading and editing this issue’s “Swing Revival” feature. If this wasn’t the low point of my eight-year stint at AP, it ranks near the top. [DS]

123: Squirrel Nut Zippers

If AP’s editors ever convene to vote on the cover that inspired the least amount of confidence and enthusiasm in the magazine’s history, this one would win, hands down. Okay, that Creed issue would come close... [DS]

Blame me, blame me, blame me. I thought the swing-craze fanatics would buy the issue. Half the office wanted Rob Zombie on the cover instead. This issue super-tanked for us. Shoulda went with Zombie. My bad. [MS]

124: Deftones
Of all the bands AP embraced on 1998’s covers, only two have stayed together and pushed themselves to keep standing the tests of time, trends, cred and culture-and, no, that Rage Against The Machine reunion is never gonna happen. [AB]

125: THE 90 GREATEST ALBUMS OF THE ’90S
This is the sort of issue rock critics dream about putting together. I remember long hours in Rob Cherry’s office, debating and laughing with (and learning a hell of a lot from) guys 10 years my senior, and in the end just being stoked they let me put the Monorchid’s debut at No. 89. [AB]

I could pick any random page from 1998 to illustrate the absurd range of AP’s review section, but I’ll choose page 134 of this issue. Here you will find African percussionist Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, gay punks Pansy Division, and underground space rockers Perplexa and SubArachnoid Space. Such eclecticism was the (dis)order of the day back then. I still get e-mails from readers and receive compliments from music fans I encounter praising my editorship of this large chunk of the mag. Makes ya feel as if your life has an iota of meaning after all. [DS]

126: MOST Anticipated of 1999/ Rage Against The Machine
Alternative music hadn’t yet sounded its death rattle, so our annual “Most Anticipated” special ended up looking way more eclectic than seems logical today. I swear to you, at the time, no one here blinked when we decided we’d be covering Ice Cube alongside the Cure, pages down from Limp Bizkit, and slightly to the left of the Wallflowers. Okay, maybe we blinked at that last one. [AB]

Thanks to Norman, these photos always look great (Dave Navarro and his skull X-ray was my fave), at times even better than the records they were heralding (see the Wallflowers). [JP]

 

Highlights:
Downsize it! We’d been debating the pros and cons of scaling down the magazine’s dimensions for months, if not years. (Like those old issues of Life magazine, AP used to be a lot wider and longer than it is today.) Some of us were afraid of backlash from readers, the industry or both. The backlash never came, and our competitors eventually followed suit. We added some new sections, overhauled the reviews section and ran color images throughout. Actually, it was the first issue we had color on every page. [CB]


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