Sometime in the late-nineties, before I had lightning fast internet (or even my own computer, for that matter), I stumbled on to a little, scratchy AM radio station who had an interesting -- to say the least -- morning show. During normal hours, the station played big band music, but the morning DJs had the freedom to play whatever they desired. One of the guys was a former jock on an early, alternative radio proto-type, before alterna-rock stations were a dime-a-dozen, and usually they brought in their own music.

But some of the station's records made it into their playlist, resulting in an eclectic mix of everything from Sinatra to Snoop Dog. I thought I'd found heaven.

I was no stranger to odd sounds emanating from the radio dial. I had already discovered that my city -- St. Louis -- had a really good community radio station in KDHX. (Poppymom and South City Confidential can attest to that, also.) And I could almost --- almost -- tune in Washington University's campus station, KWUR. With some difficulty, of course, befitting a low-power college station. One day, I'd be able to pick it up in the small hallway in my apartment, the next day I had to move my boombox into the bathroom to hear anything. Yes, there was a time when, if I wanted to hear music outside the top 40, I had listen in the john. But at least I knew there was music that existed outside the usual commercial radio pap.
I guess the question I'm trying to ask is, does anyone listen to the radio anymore? Though my gonzo, AM discovering is long-gone, and I've long since moved far away from the college station's signal, I'm still a loyal listener of KDHX, though these days I do most of my radio listening online. I've also discovered the fun of creating your own stations via Last.fm and Pandora, two of the "personal radio" sites Virginia mentioned a while back:

It makes sense. We're spending more and more time with our computers and less and less with our radio and TV, so why not stream radio broadcasts with your computer? Why buy or collect music to save and store, when music you love can be streamed into your ears all hours of the day and night? I wondered if Pandora was the only Internet radio source, and it turns out there are several great sites for streaming music of your choice. Here are some of them.

Other tradition radio stations have a greater online presence than ever. KEXP out of Seattle keeps their listeners updated via their blog, as does New York favorite, WFMU. Chicago's XRT has an active message board where fans of the popular Sound Opinions show can chat. WOXY (infamous for the mention of its call sign in Rainman when it was still a terrestrial radio station: "97X, bam! The future of rock and roll!") has become an online-only station. These days, with competition from online services as well as other radio stations, it would be unwise for a station not to beef-up its online presence.