Anybody have satellite radio here? If so, do you subscribe to XM or Sirius? What do you think of it?

my dad has XM. since he got it a couple years ago, he pretty much stopped listening to cd's completely. he doesn't follow current music anymore, like he used to. he doesn't have favorite bands per se. he switches between decades. mostly, i think he had said, the 60's channel, and the 70's channel. which makes sense, i suppose. he likes it.

we listened to the metal station a little, and the punk station. maybe there's more than one of each, i dunno. but on the punk station, that's the only time i've ever heard Government Issue. i was like "hey, i know that band name!" so some of the stations must be at least somewhat cool, and certainly better than anything fricking clearchannel has to offer.

laslo wrote:Anybody have satellite radio here? If so, do you subscribe to XM or Sirius? What do you think of it?

I have XM. I looked at the Sirius stuff too. XM seems to sound better, so I went with that. Both are 100% commercial free. It's nice to listen to the same stations coast to coast.

Some cool stations on XM:

44 Fred-Kinda retro alt rock new wave and some punk.
53 Fungus-All punk rock all the time. Have heard Shellac, GI, SSD, etc, etc, many times.

Actually, I'm not even scraping the surface about the programming. Best $10/month I can think of.

I once rented a car that had XM and drove through Michigan with it.

I found it to be depressing. It was homogenous. I like hearing the radio in different places to hear regional things I don't get to hear at home. XM radio seemed to kill any sense of uniqueness about where I was. There are already so many cultural forces out there doing this.

Angus Jung wrote:I once rented a car that had XM and drove through Michigan with it.

I found it to be depressing. It was homogenous. I like hearing the radio in different places to hear regional things I don't get to hear at home. XM radio seemed to kill any sense of uniqueness about where I was. There are already so many cultural forces out there doing this.

Point taken.

But I find XM to be so much better than commercial radio that it's not even funny.

Plus just because you have XM it doesn't mean you can't listen to the regular radio.

I pity the poor people at Sirius and XM Radio who have to take my calls on about, oh, a monthly basis.

S/XM: "May I help you?"
BRW: "Yeah, when will you be offering the Major League Baseball package?"
S/XM: "I'm sorry, sir. We do not offer Major League Baseball at this time. However, we do offer over a hundred channels, including ESPN and the National Football Lea--"
BRW: "Goddam it! If I wanted football, I'd order football! If I wanted hockey, I'd order hockey! I WANT BASEBALL! You get it? Baseball! If you offer baseball, I'll sign up for life! FOR LIFE!!! I'll pay you $1000 a month! Do you understand? I live in Idaho! No baseball on the radio in Idaho! Get me my goddam baseball!"
S/XM: "I'm sorry, sir. We do not offer Major League Baseball at this time. Is there anything else that I can help you with today?"
BRW: "Yeah, when will you be offering the Major League Baseball package?"

hey brad,

i hope i'm not out of line in asking, but how come you're in idaho anyways? why aren't you in the chi?

scott

toomanyhelicopters wrote:hey brad, i hope i'm not out of line in asking, but how come you're in idaho anyways? why aren't you in the chi?

Thanks for asking why I moved from Chicago to Idaho. Here is your answer:

toomanyhelicopters wrote:my current plans for my future involve moving back to chicago in september.

chicago, here i come again!

aha then! the part about going back home to be near family and/or friends i understand 100 percently...

I like the idea of regional radio, but as far as I'm concerned Clear Channel and Viacom have pretty much made radio the same nationally anyway. On a lot of stations, there's not even a live DJ, just someone taped at a studio somewhere and shipped with the playlist.

Weirdly, I'm reading this post as I sit in a cafe near my house in Brooklyn (yeah, I'm one of those annoying guys today), and this place is playing satellite radio right now--XM, I think. They're playing a live, ununinterrupted R.E.M. show from London in what sounds like '85 or so. I have no idea what channel it is or anything. I know the general feeling about R.E.M. on this board, but I have to say it's bringing back lots of nice memories, and it sounds a lot better than the crappy R.E.M. show I saw around the same time.

They just announced it--it is XM, and this is some sort of channel devoted to live shows, and right now it's all stuff taped for the BBC. Okay, now it's the Cure live from Birmingham...