After years of bitching about the lamentable state of Houston radio, I can officially delete every one of my presets on my factory issued car stereo, for The Wife got me a Sirius subscription for Xmas.
The biggest pain in the ass was running the antenna cable from my trunk. After that, it was all I could do not to get in the car and just drive to Vancouver. And I hate driving, normally. As it was, I contented myself with a 45 minute circuit up 290 and back, ostensibly to get our crabby daughter to take a nap.
To that end, I don't recommend any of the so-called "children's" stations (one of which was actually playing an Olsen twins song), or even the easy listening ones. Leo Sayer didn't knock her out, neither did Steely Dan or Tom T. Hall. Maybe it was a trick of timing, but the song she actually conked out to was "Walk" by Pantera.
That's my girl.
I haven't programmed any presets yet, but so far the stations I'm punching in the most are Faction (metal, hip-hop, punk mix), The Border (alternative country), First Wave (classic alternative), and Slow Jamz, uh, Buzzsaw. Yeah, Buzzsaw.
Most of you could probably not care less about this, but I'm excited as hell. Houston radio is horrible, but it embodies what the coming FCC-friendly Clear Channel airwaves will eventually look like all over the country. If you can afford it - especially if you live in this city - and you spend a fair amount of time in your car, you owe it to yourself to get satellite radio. I'm not sure how I lasted this long without one.
Oh right. The booze.
Alternative...country? I'm still processing that one. Hm.
Aside from the "now I don't use the car every week" alien-ness of NJ,
Unhand me, Yankee.
if I had a good connection from ipod to car system, I'd never listen to the radio again.
Other than an FM transmitter, you mean?
For new materials and wierd channels, internet radio is um, more free and more likely to have what I want.
Well, when I can get free internet radio in my car, I'll look into it.
Alternative...country?
From Wikipedia:
"Despite this confusion, it is generally agreed that alternative country resulted from two opposed influences on country music. The first is traditional American folk music and styles, the music of working people, preserved and celebrated by practitioners such as Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams. The second is country rock, the result of fusing country music with an aggressive rock & roll sound. The artist most commonly identified as the originator of country rock is Gram Parsons, although Jason and the Scorchers and Steve Earle are frequently identified as important innovators. These two styles merged in Uncle Tupelo's 1990 LP No Depression, the first identifiably modern alternative country record."
The genre has essentially become so all-encompassing that the term itself is meaningless (Pat Green is often included, for example). I was just including the verbiage my subscription card has for each station.
Here's a good starter for alt-country.
For kids' music, the spouse and I have made it our mission to inculcate good taste in the nephews. To that end, we're supplying them with a diet of They Might Be Giants, Trout Fishing in America, and the like. And it turns out that the toddler has a serious fondness for the White Stripes.
Which I guess only goes to prove the GIGO theory of childrearing. Give them the good stuff from an early age, and that's what they'll learn to like. If you feed them aural pap, they'll have a much harder time learning to like anything else.
FM transmitter solutions are unsatisfactory unless they disable the car's antenna. If I end up with more car time, I'll get a head unit that can hook up to the iPod by connector.
And not driving every week is sorta cool. It's like being on vacation all the time (except for the work).
I just taught my two year old the chorus from Alice's Restaraunt.
I think he will turn out just fine.
Come on it is not that bad.
We have KACC 89.7, KPFT 90.1, KTSU 90.9 and KTRU 91.7 I can usually find something to listen to on at least one of those stations.
The new Strong Bad e-mail is so perfect for this post -- hahahahahahaha
Which I guess only goes to prove the GIGO theory of childrearing. Give them the good stuff from an early age, and that's what they'll learn to like.
I have often thought that my music tastes, which are amazingly eclectic and also era-matched mostly with my friends 5-10 years old, developed largely because at the age of 6, my father gave me a clock radio. No more kids records for me. At that point, I started listening to the local Album Rock station. (What is now, to my horror, referred to as Classic Rock.) Giving young children good music is NOT a waste of energy.
I'm fascinated by the sattelite radio thing. I had one in a rented car recently. If I ever own a car again, I just might get one. Until then, I'm quite happily an iPod convert.
Who in this city doesn't spend a fair amount of time in their car? :-)
And you are right about the radio stations. They are awful.
Congrats on the new satellite radio, Pete. I got XM Radio for my birthday this year, and I absolutely love it. We have a couple great comedy channels so I hope you have some of those, and for next year XM picked up full broadcasts of every single MLB game, which I still can't believe. I know Sirius has the NFL games, so that's cool. It looks like XM and Sirius are digging in for the long haul, and I hope they both stick around. I haven't tuned in AM/FM in months and don't miss it one bit.
Congrats on the Sirius. Like Brandon, I went XM myself (imagine my delight when I read of their signing the long term deal to broadcast MLB; it's going to be a good summer), and I can't possibly imagine ever listening to broadcast radio again.
Brandon/Len -- If you like the comedy channels on XM, splurge the extra $2 a month for Opie & Anthony (channel 202). It's worth it just to hear Jim Norton (who is a step or two more "off" than The Sneeze.
Pete -- Congrats on doing your part to take a stand against Clear Channel. You'll love satellite.
See, I can't see myself bothering. Aside from the "now I don't use the car every week" alien-ness of NJ, if I had a good connection from ipod to car system, I'd never listen to the radio again.
For new materials and wierd channels, internet radio is um, more free and more likely to have what I want. Radio KOL isn't on Sirius.