ROCK ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVES

My favorite indie rock internet radio station WOXY went off the air on Sept 15th at 5:40 ET, playing Oasis "Acquiesce", Public Enemy "Fight the Power" and MC5 "Kick Out the Jams" to close out their final playlist. Ever since then I've been looking for a suitable replacement. Verdict: there really isn't one, they were truly one of a kind. Plus, a lot of the alternatives I've found won't play on my computer at work (damn WMP 6.1). But here are a few that I've tried out.

The Current. This is a Minnesota public radio station which I can't listen to at work that has a little more eclectic mix: indie rock during middays, and some blues and jazz sprinkled in, and no hip-hop whatsoever (they're very white in Minny). What little I've heard has sounded pretty good, and they also have podcasts to sample.

Radio-Indie-Pop. An awful name, but a simple concept: give the listener the control over what they want to hear. There generate a different DJ-free playlist every day, and you can skip any song you want or play it again, like an mp3 player. Nice site, free registration required.

WLIR. Okay, so they're pretending to be the old 92.7 FM from Hempstead, Long Island (which later turned to WDRE, and then went off the air replaced by a Spanish station). This was the only station I could listen to back in the 80s to get my fix of Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure and The Clash. Judging by the predictable crud on the playlist (Snow Patrol? Evanescence?), this isn't the same groundbreaking station. But they make up for the lack of Malibu Sue by giving us the 2 hour Flashback Lunch, in case you need more Romeo Void or Book of Love in your life.

Pandora. This site with its deceptively simple web interface is a resource hog, so it's either work or listen to this. Connected with the "Music Genome Project", it theoretically feeds you music depending on your likes and dislikes, but I found it spits out some truly odd choices. For instance, the 80s channel I tried to create kept giving me Green Day and The Bravery, and my Radiohead/Walkmen/Built To Spill channel gave me back Billy Freaking Joel. Ugh! It also doesn't let you skip too many songs in a given hour, which is irritating considering about 2/3 of the songs it gives you are not what you want to hear. I guess the more varied your tastes are, the more you confuse the program.

XM's Lucy. Discovered at Bourbon Street on Saturday, they play a great alternative mix, including R.E.M., Foo Fighters, 10,000 Maniacs, Soundgarden, The Sundays. Of course, I don't have the necessary software to listen to this at work, so maybe I'll try it at home on AOL's website.

KEXP 90.3. This Seattle station has similar weekday playlists to WOXY, but it leaves a weird West Coast aftertaste. Usual suspects like TV On The Radio and Wolf Parade show up during the day, with occasional songs by The Pixies and The Smiths. After hours and weekends are specialty shows, which I don't really listen to much. This is the one I'm going to keep on in the background at work, with Radio-Indie-Pop waiting in the wings to pick up the slack.