News: Brand New in the studio Finch post new songs One Small Step For Landmines... Features: From The Editor's Floor: Metro... From The Editor's Floor:... Web Exclusive: A conversation... Reviews: Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

2000: DOIN’ WHAT WE HAD TO DO

Publisher/Executive Editor: Mike Shea
Associate Publisher: Norman Wonderly
Editor In Chief: Rob Cherry
Managing Editor/Music Reviews Editor: Dave Segal
Senior Editor: Jason Pettigrew
Associate Editor: Todd Hutlock
Art Director: Christopher Benton
Photo Editor/Production Manager: Norman Wonderly
Art/Web Design: Rob Ortenzi
Ad Sales: Dawn Marie Burns, Christian Webb, Howard Ross
Marketing Coordinator: Aaron Wilson
Subscriptions Manager: Angela Hetrick
Accounts Manager: Katherine Poecze

MIKE SHEA:
At the turn of the millennium, all the major music mags were off chasing the next big thing-’cause, let’s be honest, no one had a clue about what was going to stick. We didn’t want to have to chase; we wanted to do our own thing. Unfortunately, the magazine and music industries were both so screwed up, we couldn’t do that and stay in business. So we did what we had to do. Creed on the cover? Why the hell not. Slipknot? Sure, let’s go for it. As each month crept by, I cared less: My office was a mess; I neglected work; I became a jerk to work with; my panic attacks starting creeping back. I had friends that worked for insurance companies and brokerage firms, and for the first time ever, their jobs looked more interesting than what I was doing every day. Besides the work we did with Warped Tour again this year, the rest of 2000 is pretty much a blur to me. They say you have to hit rock bottom before you finally wake up, shake yourself off and start anew. For me, it was a three-fold combination of hitting rock bottom, getting pissed off and, a year later, experiencing 9/11.

#139/INSANE CLOWN POSSE/Artist Of The Year
Don’t laugh: What the readers that year-albeit a small but powerful ICP fanbase we’d adopted within the rural Midwest-wanted, they got. Simple enough. [MS]

#140/BLINK-182
By this time, the men of Blink were over being “the nude guys,” and they refused to take off their clothes for their first AP cover. The most politically incorrect moment in this cover story comes when Tom Delonge claims the Lego museum in San Diego has slave ships and Holocaust scenes created out of the snap-together toys, along with a photo of Mark Hoppus-numbering the total offensive exhibits to three. [JP]

#141/POWERMAN 5000
If we had a choice, the art department would always pull for a very “visual” and creative cover star, and a photographer to match. PM5K looked great, and Myriam Santos-Kayda did the shoot on a huge, expensive, sci-fi-movie backdrop she had her set-builder friend create. We hired an illustrator and designed the photos, illustrations and story in a comic-book format. [CB]

My first day at AP was like the first day of summer when you’re a kid. I had lived in Cleveland for only a few years and was already good friends with probably half the staff, so working with them was a lot like just hanging out with friends; we just had to be serious sometimes. Immediately following my start date, I went out on the Vans Warped Tour for two months and inherited the nickname “AP-Aaron.” Warped was crazy! Summer camp on wheels. I thought to myself, “What have I been doing all this time? This is the life!” Five years later, it’s still summer, and most of my colleagues in the industry still call me AP-Aaron. [AW]

#142/SLIPKNOT
I’m pretty sure we were the first major music magazine to put Des Moines’ Most Deranged on the cover. Seven pages on Kelis-three years before "Milkshake” ruled the earth-makes me cringe, however. Back then, we had a habit of being ahead on stuff I wouldn’t have on my stereo. I knew someday I’d look back on this, laugh nervously and quickly change the subject. [JP]

From a visual standpoint, Slipknot were a dream come true. I still don’t know how we ended up with the brown-masked vocalist on a brown background, though. [CB]

#143/GREEN DAY
Six years after Dookie, AP scored its first Green Day cover. Typically, we would lose out for first cover dibs to Spin, who had a long relationship with the band, and we would end up getting offered a tour-diary piece eight months after the band’s new record came out. How did we do it this time? We did the cover when they didn’t have a new record out. A-ha! [MS]

#144/CREED
Scraping the bottom of the credibility barrel once again in search of issue-shifting cover stars. Stomachaches and headaches all around. Kids whose fundamentalist parents didn’t allow them to listen to real rock were stoked, though. [RC]

Our 15th-anniversary issue and, I think, my 150th redesign. I bought new fonts for the redesign form an obscure Japanese typeface company. Among them was a typeface that included an inverted, “swastika”-style X. I noticed the similarity, I also knew it was a powerful, ancient symbol the Nazis had just co-opted. So I went with the X, thinking people wouldn’t even notice, but a few people really noticed, and we received some freaked-out letters over it. I never used that X again. Leave it to the Nazis to ruin a perfectly good graphic. [CB]

#145/DEFTONES
The so-called “nü-metal Radiohead,” still the group most likely to survive that whole regrettable movement, as long as singer Chino Moreno’s liver holds out. White Pony still rules. [RC]

In typically schizophrenic AP form, we did a Q&A with indie-pop princess Juliana Hatfield, and then slagged the two records she was schlepping in the reviews section. What I remember most about this issue is having to deal with a certain high-maintenance writer I wanted to beat about the face and shoulders with a frozen sturgeon. I’m getting mad typing this, and it was four years ago. [JP]

#146/LIMP BIZKIT
Searching for any angle whatsoever to make this story interesting, we somehow wrangled Ben Stiller to act as celebrity interviewer. Ben was a true champ. Fortunately, the brief Durst association hasn’t hurt his career. Fred, however, failing to recognize that his 15 minutes had all but expired, reportedly acted like a dick to al involved-except, of course, Stiller. Freddie was trying to weasel a walk-on in Zoolander. [RC]

Fred Durst made AP scribe Tom Lanham wait in a studio lobby for several hours before he would grant him an audience. Then, when Tom reported on Durst’s frat-boy antics (like making fun of gays), band, label and management were furious. [JP]

#147/PAPA ROACH
In the fall of 2000, Rage Against The Machine and the Beastie Boys (with special guests At The Drive-In) were embarking on a stadium tour, so both bands were going to grace this cover. Coming back from the photo shoot, Mike D had an accident on his bicycle, doing a number on his clavicle. The tour was canceled, and so was our cover. In recent printings of Webster’s Unabridged English Dictionary, this cover image of Papa Roach is in the margin next to the entry “mook.” Well, it should be... [JP]

#148/MARILYN MANSON
From an artistic perspective, this issue was one of my favorites. I felt really in stride with my designs. Plus, not only was the cover photo amazing, but the inside spread of Manson cutting off his own ear (à la Van Gogh) was equally awesome. [CB]

I remember one of the old sales reps at AP sent this cover-Manson poked in the eye with some kinda autopsy instrument-to an advertising agency in an attempt to grab some ads from Volkswagen or Nyquil or Trojan or whomever. The person as the agency wrote back, demanding to be removed from our mailing list. [JP]

#149/INSANE CLOWN POSSE (Four Covers)
Rob Cherry begged me to do this assignment because none of his freelancers would touch it. So let’s clear the air for once and for all: ICP fans are as dumb as a truckload of rebar. Having established that, I say without hesitation that Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope were some of the most gracious, friendly and candid people I have ever dealt with. As AP started dealing more with nü-metal douche bags with an enlarged sense of entitlement, I was actually reminiscing about how genuine the Clowns were by comparison. [JP] We did four separate cover shots of ICP that, when lined up correctly, “unmasked” the cult clowns. It was actually the band’s idea, and for their rabid fans, it really was a brilliant idea. [CB]

#150/TOOL/25 ANTICIPATED RECORDS OF 2001
Tool had a reputation for being difficult when it came to the press, but this cover story was the best experience I ever had both negotiating and implementing a story. I ended up working out the details directly with guitarist Adam Jones, who turned out to be a great guy. The band just wanted some creative leeway with the cover photo, and we were more than happy to oblige. If only more recording artists had such a strong vision and could work without the aid of insulating handlers. [RC]

Well, at this point I had been working at AP for a couple of months. Being a big Apple computer geek, I remember how amazed I was seeing everyone using these ancient Macintosh computers, but still stoked that they were Macs nonetheless. I was hired as a design and production assistant in the art department and to take over the website, the latter of which had me adopting the motto “fake it till ya make it,” since I had next to no web experience. Eventually, I became the company’s de facto computer guy. Also, at the time there were only two modems in the office-one on my computer for updating the website, and one for the front desk. Suffice it to say, surfing the web was not something people here really did. Contrast that to the present day, where the angry office villagers would have my head on a stake if their e-mails aren’t spewing in with the veracity of a fire hose on full blast. It was a simpler technological time back then. Much simpler. [RO]

NEXT ISSUE: Thinkin’ Of Closin’ Shop

(To read an extended version of this column, go to altpress.com.)