Nick Rocks

Nick Rocks is a television show that aired on American cable channel Nickelodeon from 1982 to 1989, which featured pop and rock music videos for 30 minutes. The show's host was identified only as "Joe From Chicago." Nick Rocks occasionally featured guest stars hosting the show, including They Might Be Giants and the Monkees. In 1988, a spin-off called Nick Jr. Rocks premiered which was geared toward younger fans and featured children's music.

The show's theme song was written by Edd Kalehoff.

Joe from Chicago

"Joe from Chicago" is Joseph R. Piasek, formerly the director of programming and news of New York's WPIX-FM and currently on the faculty of New York University and SUNY Delhi. Joe wrote and voiced Nick Rocks, which was produced by Andy Bamberger, for Nickelodeon. Joe was an original member of Nickelodeon's 1984 on-air launch team and remained a voice producer, writer, director, and consultant throughout most of Nickelodeon's (and Nick at Nite's) formative years, producing, scheduling, writing and performing the networks' "voiceover credits" and top-of-the-hour "pronouncements." He has done similar work for Viacom's VH-1 and TNN. Joe's doctoral thesis chronicles Nickelodeon's childhood in the context of organizational learning. His earlier exploits in radio are revealed in Paul Colford's book "King of All Media: Howard Stern." Piasek is a co-founder and manager of WIOX radio in the Catskill Mountains, a wildly diverse, live, community radio station at 91.3FM in Roxbury (NY) and wioxradio.org.