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My radio career began in 1986, shortly after graduation from high school, on WUJC 88.7 FM, the campus radio station. While attending a job fair at the University, I met Eric Sosinski, who remains a close friend, to this day. He promised to put me on the air, if I signed up for college. I did. My Saturday night program, "Metalmorphosis," ran on WUJC for eight years.  I received the station's "Broadcaster Of The Year" award, in 191, and "Metalmorphosis" featured interviews from over 100 national recording artists, including Dream Theater, Ace Frehley, Rik Emmett, Bruce Dickinson, Overkill, Rob Halford, Anthrax, Fates Warning, and many additional national and local acts. See my Wiki page for links to them all. I also engineered and produced many live concerts and broadcast hundreds of in-studio performances, broadcasts of Cleveland Music Group Forums, and much, much more.

A live concert I produced, engineered, and broadcast in 1993, by Winter's Bane, is now available worldwide on Century Media Records.  Winter's Bane was a local band that featured Tim "Ripper" Owens, who later became the lead vocalist in Judas Priest.  

In May, 2008, Gator Country released "Live." I recorded the show, in 2007, at Classic Park, in Eastlake. Gator Country features founding members of Molly Hatchet and 1980's-era UFO guitarist Paul Chapman.

In 1989, I began writing for Scene Magazine.  I would end up writing for Scene from 1989-1994 and 1997-1998 (more on that later). During that time, I had hundreds of articles published, mainly on national recording artists and local bands. You can view many of these articles by clicking here.

In 1990, I took a position with the Cleveland branch of Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Records (WEA) and was employed there for four years, in various capacities, mostly in the Marketing Department.  In the continued decline of the record business, the Cleveland WEA branch is now closed (!) leaving a handful of employees to handle the work of all WEA's labels, from their homes! When I worked in the now defunct Cleveland office, there were 30+ people working there! 

After being on the air at WUJC for eight years, commercial stations began showing interest. Towards the end of 1993, I decided to make the jump to commercial radio.

In 1994, while still working at WEA, I began working on the air at WONE, a great station in Akron.

The end of 1994 found me relocating to Savannah, Georgia, to be close to my daughter, Rachel. I left WONE, Scene, and everything I had ever known, to trek across the country to Georgia.  I began working at WZAT 102.1 FM in Savannah. I became Music Director, Assistant Program Director, took over the morning show duties, and also brought life back to "Metalmorphosis," changing the show slightly and hosting it every Saturday night, for four hours.  I lived on the amazing Tybee Island.  I also began as a cast member of UNDERGROUND SAVANNAH, a cable access television show broadcast by Cablevision of Savannah.  Soon, I was an Associate Producer of the show and am proud of the wacky stuff we did there. Check the video page for some streaming video excerpts. I met, partied with, and hung out with hundreds of people in Savannah and Hilton Head and did some of the wildest live broadcasts in my career!! A few that come to mind are the 72 hour non-stop broadcast from Hilton Head, the most insane live remotes I have ever experienced, and sitting in a dingy hotel, somewhere in Columbia, South Carolina, at 3am, interviewing a ranting Dee Snider for the tv show.

The end of my first stay in Savannah found me on the air on a country station!  Listen to some of those audio clips for a good laugh!

My time in Savannah was interrupted during the winter of 1995 when I took a position for a radio network, in Vermont. I moved there for the winter of 1995-96 and was heard on over 100 radio stations and 15 television stations, spanning more than thirty states. I spent several months travelling the east coast, broadcasting from ski resorts and skiing the days away. I had a lot of fun during those three months, skiing at awesome places like Stratton Mountain, Killington, Smugglers Notch, Sunday River, and hundreds of other ski areas throughout the NE. I met some great people and really discovered the joy of skiing. Never being even remotely athletic, I took to skiing very easily and soon found myself bombing down slopes all over the east coast! After my contract there had expired, I returned to Tybee Island, this time to work for another rock station in the Savannah market, WIXV I-95, 95.5FM.

It was here, at I-95, that I had the scariest and most memorable experience of my broadcast career.  While working overnights at I-95 Hurricane Fran began to move towards the SE United States.  It's course seemed to bring it right to the border of Georgia and South Carolina (RIGHT WHERE I WAS AT!).  On September 5th, a mandatory evacuation order was executed for Savannah and Tybee Island.  Marshall law basically began and everyone was ordered to leave the area. The National Guard, armed and ready for looters, patrols the area.  You do not have to leave, but you must fill out a next of kin form if you decide to stay.  And, all the roads go in one direction.  Out.  Once you leave, you cannot return until the evacuation is lifted.  I stayed to work that night on the air. Why? I guess I am just a dumbass sometimes.  I was told I could leave at any time, if I felt unsafe. Living on Tybee Island, I was amazed at the power and energy swelling in the waves, early in the day. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.  Around 11pm, Tybee Island was a ghost town.  It was so errie to drive along the island and encounter no one except a few patrolling police and National Guardsmen.  By 2am, I was on the air and the weather was raging - I mean RAGING.  It was 500 times worse than any storm I had ever experienced.  Forcasters were saying the eye of the storm was going to hit land right between Savannah and Hilton Head, a mere 15 miles from where I was!!!  I remember watching a small tv in the studio of the station and shivering with fright. The first time I heard that announcement, and saw the plot of the eye landing right where I was at, my legs weakened.  How often do major hurricanes wreck the Atlantic coast?  Not very often. Now, I was right in the heart of it.  I have never seen rain so heavy.  Blankets and blankets of rain combined with wind, which would literally knock you over.  There was no way I could drive in this weather, and there I was, on a barrier island called Oatland Island, playing "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the scorpions and wishing I had a fresh pair of underwear.  My car was piled high with everything valuable to me, although once the storm really started raging, there was no way I could even stand outside, much less drive away to safety.  The phone service was gone and I was all alone. I could feel the weak old building swell against the torrents of rain and wind.  Flying debris was crashing off the big picture window in the studio and I could hear debris also hitting other areas of the building. I was ready to abandon the on-air studio and move to the center of the building as soon as that window broke.  It didn't. The building housing the I-95 studio was very old, poorly constructed, and basically falling apart. It is amazing it stood up to the storm.  I have never been so scared of nature in my life. My car was sitting on a dirt and gravel type of parking lot and was actually moved about twenty five feet sideways by the wind during the storm.

Somewhere between three and four in the morning, two hours before land, a plot of the storm's course on the weather channel showed a slight turn north.  The jet stream had caught it and Fran's course shifted, I believe touching ground at Cape Fear, North Carolina.  How the weak building that housed I-95 survived with virtually no damage is beyond me.  The other building on the property wasn't so lucky.  This building housed an old AM station that had not been on the air for many many years.  The remants of am radio equipment from the 1950's littered the room and the building had not been used since the station was on the air, except for a private place for the staff to catch a quick buzz!  This building, although still standing after the hurricane, did suffer some structural damage from the storm and I think they eventually tore it down. After getting off the air at 6am, the evacuation was lifted and I returned to Tybee Island to put my place back together.  I remember looking at the clock later that day.  It was a little past noon , my heart was still racing, and I still felt the extreme rush of adrenaline I felt in the studio at 2am.  It was the one and only time in my life I felt that there was a good chance that I might die.

I would stay in Savannah for five more months.

I returned to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame City in March of 1997.

Shortly after returning to the area, I began working for WNCX 98.5 FM in Cleveland.  I also began writing again for Scene Magazine, in April of 1997, but ended my stay at Scene after new owners took over in 1998, changing the format and firing almost everyone on staff.

While on the air at WNCX, I had some of the biggest ratings gains in the station's history. I took the ratings for my shift from a 2.9 to a 10.7 in one year!! After my huge gain in the ratings, I was offered a five year contract at fast food wages!!!   I was insulted by the offer, so on July 17 of 2000, after a month of false-promises and doubletalk, the contract did not change, I would not sign, and I was released from WNCX.

 Click Here for a story, published in The Cleveland Free Times, about my departure from WNCX.

Around the time I left WNCX, I began doing some broadcasts for a non-profit station in Akron, WCRS.  I hosted a Saturday night program called "Saturday Night Frights." I also have been appeared in many WCRS radio dramas and have had a lot of fun exploring this lost form of radio. Several of my audio books were broadcast there.

Metalmorphosis returned to Cleveland radio on the recently renamed WJCU, during the summer of 2001 and the reaction was amazing! I will always have a soft spot for the studio where I experienced some of my best radio memories.

In 2002 I opened G4orce Studios and began recording bands and exploring concert photography. A live show I recorded with UFO bassist Pete Way was released in Europe as ALIVE IN CLEVEALND and I have also recorded national recording artists such as Seven Witches and Tim Ripper Owens. Click here to listen to many audio recording samples. I have photographed national recordig atists such as Collective Soul, Ratt, Quiet Riot, Pete Way, Trouble, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Overkill, and many others. I also worked for two years as the photographer for the Kent State Gymnastics team. I also do sports photography at vaious martial arts events. See the photo archives of this website for more information.

In 2003, I began working on the air at WRQK, Rock 107, in Canton, Ohio. I soon took over the 7pm-midnight slot and was rated #1 the entire time i was on the air there. I also hosted a two hour weekly local music program, heard Sunday night's from 10pm-midnight called "Local Licks." I broadcast over 100 in studio interviews, acoustic jams, and complete live concerts. See the radio section of my site for more information and to download audio. Full length radio concerts, recorded by my studio G4orce, can be heard at the following locations:

Audio samples of live and studio recordings can be found here

I was recenely released from WRQK when new owners took over. The day after I was released,
the ratings from the Fall 2006 book were released.

I was rated #1 in the station's target audience of males 18-49 and also rated #1 with males 18-34.

I was rated #2 (or tied for #2) with persons 18-34, persons 18-49, persons 25-49, males 25-49 and men 12-24.

I was rated #4 with males 35-64 and with women 18-49.

I got along well with everyone at Rock 107, loved working there, and had great interaction with my audience.

My program "Local Licks" was a huge boost to the local music scene and my metal program "The Basement" was one of a kind in the area.

I recorded and broadcast over 50 local concert recordings, something unheard of.

I interviewed national recording artists such as Def Leppard's Phil Collen, Judas Priest's Rob Halford, Collective Soul's Dean Roland, Queensryche's Geoff Tate, and many others.

I was released the very same day WRQK was taken over by new owners. I was rated #1the next day.

Make Sense?

I can now be heard doing prank calls and goofing around on the "DeLuca In The Morning Show," on the top-rated WDJQ, in Alliance/Canton, Ohio.

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 © 1986-2008 Joe Kleon/Metalmorphosis Productions
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