Beginnings
The first issue of Alternative Press was simply a photocopied fanzine, distributed at concerts in Cleveland beginning in June 1985 by AP's founder, Mike Shea, who disliked the music then broadcast on radio stations and believed that bands playing underground music should be given more media coverage "all in the same spot", he said.
Shea began working on his first issue in his mom's house in Aurora, Ohio. Shea and a friend, Jimmy Kosicki, targeted the Cleveland neighborhood of Coventry. "I took my high school newspaper from Aurora High that looked nice and clean and offset print. I'd walk into these flower shops and Hallmark shops, and I'd say 'We're going to put out and entertainment publication, and it's going to be for kids and only $25.' And they'd look at my high school newspaper and say, 'It's really professional...' That's how we got enough money to make the first issue."
Financial problems plagued AP in its early years. Of the fledgling magazine's struggles in 1986, Shea said: "After the last few punk concerts we promoted that year failed to make any money to help finance the magazine, I had to start begging my mom for money to keep AP going: $1,500 here, $2,500 there. My mom was super-supportive of the whole endeavor, and she seemed to enjoy having a bunch of punkers over at all hours of the night putting together issues on her dining-room table and getting spray mount all over her nice tablecloths and on the carpeting, which resulted in our socks getting pulled off as we walked over it." However, by the end of 1986, publication had ceased due to its financial problems, not resuming until the spring of 1988.
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