He was vice president of education and public programs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum from 2000-2003. [114] BuzzardFest II was held the very next fall (September 1995) again at Blossom and featured performances from the Goo Goo Dolls, Alanis Morissette, Jewel, as well as the Dance Hall Crashers, Eleven, Green Apple Quick Step, Prick and Sons of Elvis. Other shows, like The Buzzard Morning Show with Rick and Megalis (Rick Eberhart, Tom Megalis) and WMMS Mornings with Sean, Cristi, and Hunter (Sean Kelly, Cristi Cantle, Hunter Scott), came and went in quick succession. Matt remains one of the most popular air personalities from WMMS fifty year history. [28][29][30] Owned by iHeartMedia, and broadcasting a mix of active rock and hot talk, WMMS is currently the flagship station for Rover's Morning Glory, the FM flagship for the Cavaliers AudioVerse and Cleveland Guardians Radio Network, the Cleveland affiliate for The House of Hair with Dee Snider and the home of radio personality Alan Cox. Soon after, the station revered back to the Progressive Rock format to battle WNCR of Nationwide Communications, itself filling the void created by the brief absence of WMMS on the album rock scene. [57], Following a legal dispute with a competing station owner over non-compete clauses in their contracts, former Top 40 WIXY personalities Dick "the Wilde Childe" Kemp and Lou "King" Kirby were signed by MetroMedia for the top 40 format. Kid Leo Interviews Van Halen April 20, 1980. Named herself "The Screaming Queen Bitch." (Photo by Gus Chain, The Plain Dealer), The affable Spero was born into rock 'n' roll. [142], On April 3, 2009, The Maxwell Show went on the air claiming that Metallicain Cleveland for the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony the very next daywas playing a free show in the WMMS parking lot later that evening. It's about an ex-Marine who is a hitman in the Midwest on March 25th. Rumor has it that WMMS had ballots printed so the public could fill them out at various events. As WMMS-FM/100.7 program director from 1973-86, Gorman led the Buzzard troops on a campaign of conquest that transformed an unknown, FM upstart into a rock 'n' roll powerhouse. The station continued to decline during the ownership transition from Malrite to Shamrock; then Shamrock sold both WMMS and WHK to OmniAmerica, a broadcasting company run by former Malrite executives Carl Hirsch and Dean Thacker, which already owned oldies station WMJI. Candlebox headlined the 2 stage show at Blossom Music Center on May 18, 1996. The Alan Cox Show Corey Rotic 100.7 WMMS Podcasts See All The Alan Cox Show Rover's Morning Glory The Week in Cox The Bill Squire Show Latest Stories Local News VIDEO: Cleveland Police Give Details of What Lead to Fatal Crash Mar 03, 2023 Music News Why March 5th Matters In Rock History Mar 03, 2023 Music News Spero would go on to become one of Cleveland's early progressive-rock DJs, working first at WNCR and then at WMMS. Morning Show, Promotions Director KGGI. Jeff & Flash were also credited as being major contributors in bringing the Rock Hall to Cleveland, by heavily promoting on-air a USA Today reader poll to decide which city should get it.[82]. He later took his groundbreaking progressive rock show to WNCR FM/95.5, working alongside pioneering Cleveland rock deejays Billy Bass and David Spero. Radio Personality Mike Gallagher Has Died - Newsradio WTAM 1100 Of special note was the early support of Bruce Springsteen by Kid Leo and others, prior to the release of the Born to Run album. As WMMS celebrates the anniversary, both on-air and online, using archival audio, memorabilia and station-related artifacts to offer a cross-section of the station's diverse history and the. At the same time, the music communicates frustration and a constant longing to escape. On March 30, 1946,[50] radio station WHK owned at that time by United Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of Forest City Publishing, itself the parent company of The Plain Dealer launched an experimental FM station under the callsign W8XUB at 107.1 megahertz (MHz). Date Unknown, William Lionel Freeman, better known by the name of his long time overnight show, "The BLF Bash" began his radio career in Fargo and later landed on the east coast in Boston. Under Malrite ownership, WMMS would become an album-oriented rock (AOR) powerhouse, much in the same vein as its former MetroMedia progressive rock siblings. With news still in her blood, she returned to KSL-TV in 2013 where she rejoined the station's award-winning investigate team. At Bat only for streaming", "iHeart does not stream Indians games. He can still be heard on the radio, too. [144] Rover's contract with CBS was set to expire, but it was an affiliate contract inherited from the Free FM stintCBS transferred him back to WKRK-FM after WCKG cancelled itand not a talent contract, thus he was not subject to a non-compete clause. The WMMS Mushroom Logo can be seen a few times throughout the movie - During a backstage scene at the Music Hall right before Stillwater takes the stage and when groupie Penny Lane played by Kate Hudson is dancing alone in the empty venue - you can see a banner with the Mushroom Logo and the slogan Where The Music Means Something. The short-lived music magazine featured a diverse mix of interviews, opinion pieces, album reviews, Buzzard playlists, concert listings and photos from station events. [104] John Gorman was named Program Director of the Year (Rock) in 1995. Past affiliates at WMMS include WAMX/Huntington, WMFS-FM/Memphis, WNDE/Indianapolis, WXEG/Dayton, WRXS/Columbus, and the now defunct Extreme Talk. Being one of the highest-rated radio stations in the country, he became the afternoon drive DJ in 1974, all the way until December of 1988 - which he then decided to part pays with Cleveland. [103] Despite signs of success, the stations were sold again in 1996: WMMS went to Nationwide Communications,[105] while WHK went to Salem Communications. [51] Like most early FM stations, WHK-FM mostly simulcast the Top 40 programming of its AM sister station. Later, he worked as Senior Marketing and Sales Strategist for Telos Alliance, a local technology firm that designs and manufactures audio equipment. In the '90s, it re-focused on alternative rock programming, and in later years, moved into an active rock program with popular talk programs like "Rover's Morning Glory. The very first logo to ever be created for WMMS was a red and white rainbow. Seth "the Barbarian" Williams took the overnight shift when Pennington moved to evenings in 2001. They brought pleasure to the average Clevelanders workday with segments like Token Jokes of the Morning, Spousal Arousal and Blow Something Up. The company will move its regional office, including nine stations, downtown from the suburbs. [151] In addition to the live broadcast, the show is available on demand through iHeartRadio; and can be downloaded as a podcast through iTunes. [90] Stern had arrived on the Cleveland airwaves less than two years earlier, and in that time took his syndicated program on rival WNCX from an Arbitron ranking of thirteen to number one. Joining the Chicago native are Cleveland area comedians Bill Squire and Mary Santora, and former intern-turned-phone-screener Cody (Poundcake) Brown. [141] Maxwell was known for having feuds with other radio personalities during the show's time at WMMS, including Rover of Rover's Morning Glory and fellow WTAM afternoon host Mike Trivisonno; by 2009, Maxwell had become the number one afternoon program in several key demographics. Dean DePiero, then mayor of Parma, criticized the song and its accompanying YouTube video: "It's pretty sick. WMMS News anchor, Mike Olszewski paints a picture of the scene on that dreadful day. She was on-air from 1993-1997, and had a popular 7-midnight show. "The station, like any radio station, it really reflects the people who are running it and the ownership of the station. Perlich moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and became a radio legend in that town, too, working at KMET and later KFAC and KCSN, where he hosted acclaimed interview shows. [71], From the onset, Helton's streamlined artwork resulted in an aggressive, yet family-friendly symbol for the station, one that continues to endure more than 40 years later. 100.7 WMMS - Cleveland's Rock Station Goldfinger, The Refreshments, Triple Fast Action and others played the second stage at the top of the hill. Kinzbach left the station in 1994. Goldberg is at right in the photo above, with Jeff Kinzbach in the WMMS studio. [98][101] Gorman brought back the original Buzzard design, now drawn by David Helton's successor Brian Chalmers. Among the more significant moves taken by WMMS was the formatting of the morning zoo concept created by Z100's Scott Shannon onto the show Jeff & Flash (Jeff Kinzbach and Ed Ferenc) were already hosting. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Billy Bass. [52] On November 13, 1947, the new FM station transitioned from experimental to commercial status; increased its power; and changed its callsign to WHKX. Springsteen and the band hit the stage full throttle, opening appropriately with a cover of "Summertime Blues," with Springsteen promising, "I'm a gonna raise a fuss/ I'm a gonna raise a holler.". The people who put it together aren't even smart enough to know where our city boundaries are." WMMS did remote interviews at KSU all morning which included an interview from 1972 presidential candidate, Senator George McGovern, KSU student and gunshot survivor, Dean Kahler, other May 4th wounded who survived, Governor Dick Celeste, current students and others. WMMS, WTAM and the other iHeart stations in Cleveland will get a new home this year. He also did a nightly oldies show there from 1988-2001. [102], While the change in programming alienated many longtime listeners, many of whom switched to WNCX and their full-time classic rock format, WMMS boosted its ratings for the first time in years with a new, younger audience. He became a part of the heyday of WMMS, which included on-air personalities like Kid Leo, Denny Sanders, Matt the Cat, Betty Korvan, Len Goldberg and the BLF Bash. On May 4, 1970 four students were killed by gunfire from the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University. [142], Radio personality Rover (Shane French), host of Rover's Morning Glory, took over weekday mornings at WMMS on April 1, 2008, following a contract dispute with WKRK-FM owner CBS Radio; John Gorman compared signing the popular morning personality to a "coup". Radio Daze: Stories from the Front in Clevelands FM Air Wars by Mike Olszewski (Kent State University Press), Cleveland Radio Tales by Mike & Janice Olszewski (Gray & Co., Publishers). typify the show's irreverent style. GLAAD is calling on Clear Channel and Cleveland radio station WMMS to suspend radio personality Dominic Dieter for telling a father to essentially arrange for his daughter to be raped if he suspects she's gay. We all have such respect for what this station did back in the day. He returned to Cleveland radio in 1997, working at both WMJO-FM/105.7 and WZJM-FM/92.3. Photos. Pittsburgh Radio Personalities Recently retired from WDVE, longtime DJ Sean McDowell isn't sitting still. The call letters WMMS stand for "MetroMedia Stereo". During the 20th anniversary broadcast, Mike Olszewski, along with Jeff & Flash, spoke with Wally Bryson of the Raspberries and one of the National Guardsmen. [56], MetroMedia found major success with progressive rock at KMET Los Angeles, KSAN San Francisco, WMMR Philadelphia and WNEW-FM New York, but a lack of commitment from MetroMedia led the company to drop the format at WMMS by May 1969. His was the booming voice on the station's hourly IDs, music segues, sweepers, and commercials. Nighttimes, 1968-1970. She started at the Buzzard in 1976, and stayed until 1983, working mostly the evening shift. Widely regarded as one of the most influential rock stations in America throughout its history, the station has also drawn controversy for unusually aggressive tactics both on and off the air. From 1978 on, Belkin Productions conditioned its funding of the Free Clinic on the nondisclosure of the number of Clinic staff on duty at the concerts, the nature of conditions treated and the number of patients treated.[79][80]. WMMS - Wikipedia After two years, Cox left The Loop to begin his own radio show. [120] Geared as a format change to contemporary hit radio (CHR) using the "KISS FM" brand,[30][126] the decision was reversed at the last minute by management. Tony Tilford, WMMS program director (19992003), WMMS shifted format to active rock on February 17, 1997, under the direction of Bob Neumann, who had previously programmed WNCX and WENZ. We never learned what Mr. Leonard looked like, he never discussed it on the air. He helped launch progressive-rock radio as a DJ and programmer at both WMMS-FM/100.7 and WNCR-FM/99.5. John Gorman, Denny Sanders and Kid Leo organized the original campaign with Tunc Erim, assistant to Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun. Her LinkedIn Profile says she is now an independent radio professional in New York. The cast included Casey Coleman on sports, Pat Brady with traffic, Len Boom Goldberg as the voice of the morning show, Ruby Cheeks, Spaceman Scott, Captain Kenny Clean and Mr. Leonard. Belkin Productions staged these events, attracting popular hard rock bands and as many as 88,000 fans. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. "[32] "De-emphasized" in the fall of 2007, the scavenger was revived the following spring to coincide with the station's 40th anniversary and with the arrival of morning personality Rover. The station first turned to adult contemporary, big band, the Drake-Chenault automated Hit Parade '69 and finally Top 40,. It was the first time Stone Temple Pilots performed in Cleveland in six years. Rolling Stone named WMMS "Best Radio Station" (Large Market) nine straight years (197987) as part of the magazine's annual Readers' Poll,[26] but the station admitted to stuffing the 1987 ballot following a February 1988 front-page story in The Plain Dealer exposing manipulation. Weiland and STP were touring in support of No. [74] Of all the personalities that worked at WMMS, Len "Boom" Goldberg remained the longest. [31] In 1981, Radio & Records identified "the malevolent feathered figure" as "the best-known station symbol in the country. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WMMS broadcasts over two HD Radio channels and is available online via iHeartRadio. wmms radio personalities [168], WMMS has served as the FM flagship station for the Cleveland Cavaliers AudioVerse since 2014, sharing network flagship status with AM sister station WTAM. And indeed, it remains a special show in the memories of Springsteen, Weinberg and the members of the E Street Band too. Over the next twenty years Matt did mostly middays and hosted the weekly Coffee Break Concerts, likely introducing more concerts than anyone in Cleveland history. ', Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 19781984, List of programming syndicated by iHeartMedia, List of radio stations owned by iHeartMedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WMMS&oldid=1137903859, Active rock radio stations in the United States, Articles with dead external links from July 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, All articles with bare URLs for citations, Articles with bare URLs for citations from March 2022, Articles with PDF format bare URLs for citations, Articles with dead external links from February 2023, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with MusicBrainz place identifiers, Articles which contain graphical timelines, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, The Cleveland Plaza/Statler Office Tower (now, This page was last edited on 7 February 2023, at 00:47. For 50 years, WMMS-FM/100.7 has been making its mark on Cleveland's airwaves, breaking iconic rock bands and, lately, creating some of the most popular talk-radio shows in the country. iHeart Will Move Cleveland Stations Downtown - Radio World [117] BuzzardFest 2000 was held on June 30, 2000, at the Nautica Stage; Stone Temple Pilots, performing in Cleveland for the first time in six years, headlined the event.[118]. The first buzzard which has penned the name The Wrath of the Buzzard can be seen sitting atop a mushroom paying homage to the former logo along with the competitors call letters WGCL and WIXY grasped in its beak. Lisa Dillon - Owner - Amalon Entertainment | LinkedIn One listener was selected to marry the love of his life or at least at the time during a live broadcast on 100.7 WMMS. Perlich is second from right in the photo above, kickin' it with the WHK crew, circa 1968. [81], In the mid-1980s, WMMS was an important contributor in organizing a campaign (along with former Cleveland ad agency president Edward Spizel and author-deejay Norm N. Nite) which brought the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland. Since leaving Cleveland in the 1990s, she has worked in radio in various big-city markets, including Philadelphia and Phoenix. WMMS-HD2, which relays its signal over low-power FM translator W256BT (99.1 FM), is the Cleveland affiliate for iHeart's all-news oriented Black Information Network. WMMS 50th Anniversary Continued | 100.7 WMMS Buzzard-Palooza was the first of these: held in July 1994 at the Nautica Stage, the all-day concert included sets from Collective Soul, Junkhouse and Fury in the Slaughterhouse,[111] but was cut short after turning into a "rock-and-bottle-throwing melee." Kid Leo - Wikipedia Other stations carried their birthday show. Needless to say, for health reasons, this contest changed the way promotions were done going forward at WMMS. Already strained by ongoing contract renewal negotiations, the incident further alienated the two parties, and by November of that year the show was cancelled. It really was an awesome time.' 100.7 WMMS, 100.7 FM, Cleveland, OH | Free Internet Radio - TuneIn what are the non legislative powers of congress. It was the perfect way to keep the party rolling. The trio moved to WMMS in 1971, laying the groundwork for the station's Buzzard heyday. wmms radio personalities successful heritage brands WMMS - Home | Facebook "I gotta blast this baby all the way to New Jersey," Springsteen quipped. In 2009, she left KSL to become the spokesperson for the FBI Salt Lake City Division. [41] WMMS also lured popular morning personalities Brian Fowler and Joe Cronauer away from rival WENZthen also an alternative rock stationas the successors to Jeff and Flash (Jeff Kinzbach, Ed Ferenc) on The Buzzard Morning Zoo. During his 16-year tenure, WMMS was consistently one of the highest-rated radio stations in the country. During the 1990s, he applied the same, take-no-prisoners promotion, programming and marketing strategy as operations manager of WMJI-FM/105.7, pushing the oldies station to the top of the radio ratings. WMMS sponsored the concerts. The following local and national media outlets have attributed WMMS with this distinction: The following books have attributed WMMS with this distinction: harvnb error: no target: CITEREFNicks2003 (, "Rock Hall to Celebrate 40 Years of WMMS with New Exhibit", "Radio & Records 1981 on the WMMS Buzzard and Other Station Mascots", "The Media Business; Malrite's Buyout Price Disturbs Wall Street Analysts", "R.I.P. He now works as a stand-up comedian, actor and writer. Hughes returned briefly to WMMS in the 1990s for short stints on a new "Morning Zoo" and as an overnight DJ. [170][171][172], WMMS has also served as the FM flagship station for the Cleveland Guardians Radio Network since 2013, again sharing network flagship status with AM sister station WTAM. Since 1998, he's hosted "America's Workforce" a one-hour program sponsored by labor unions on WERE-AM/1490. Jeff and Flash ruled the airwaves for 18 years on 100.7 WMMS. Spero is still active as an artist manager. In the trailer for the new show the character Barry, played by Bill Hader is wearing a vintage WMMS shirt. In September 1995, he was hired to do nights at WRKR-FM in Kalamazoo, MI. [44][45][46] Seven years later, members of the station's staff and management pleaded guilty to disrupting a national broadcast of The Howard Stern Show that originated via the local Stern affiliate, cross-town rival WNCX. WMMS also streams it's coverage of selected games on iHeartRadio, even outside of the Cleveland market. (Plain Dealer file photo), One of Cleveland radio's most popular -- and enduring -- morning teams, Jeff Kinzbach and Ed "Flash" Ferenc were a cornerstone of WMMS-FM/100.7 during its Buzzard heyday. As a kid he was part of a sophisticated bootleg radio station in his neighborhooduntil the FCC shut it down. Denny Sanders came to WMMS in 1971 from Boston where hed been working as a DJ from the time he was just 16 years old. The show was a blend of music, comedy, news and sports, all with a definitively Cleveland sensibility. Rolling Stone named WMMS "Radio Station of the Year" nine straight years (197987) as part of its annual Readers' Poll, but a February 1988 front-page story in The Plain Dealer revealed station employees had stuffed the annual survey's ballot box for the 1987 poll to allow for the possibility of a tenth straight win the following year. That will never be done again. John Gorman and Denny Sanders left the station in fall of 1986, leading fourteen staff members with them to start rival station WNCX. Cleveland Police wearing riot gear were called in just as headliner Green Day took the stage. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Louis they ran another stations birthday party.
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