I’ve been an XM Radio subscriber twice. When I started driving to work last year during the fall I called in and got the “open secret” $77 annual membership deal. Service is usually $13 a month, so I was glad paying more than 50% off. However, as the weather got better I rode my motorcycle so much I didn’t listen to XM for months at a time. Even then, I wasn’t a big fan of their music selection and wound up listening to just two channels, something I wrote about almost four years ago when I tried XM for the first time.

Anyway, my year subscription expired about three months ago. I called in and spent forty-five minutes on the phone with an account representative and canceled my membership (which was set to auto-renew at $13/month).

What followed was a ninety-plus day barrage of sales calls trying to get me to become an XM customer again.
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Listening to music while motorcycling is a sensitive subject. Riding requires a lot more attention than driving a car, and some people are understandably nervous about giving up some of their concentration and sensory input to tunes. However, the longer I ride, the more I’ve determined listening to music is an acceptable choice for me. My commute puts me in the saddle for about an hour every day. I take a few 1000 – 1500 mile trips a year, and boy can the monotony and thrum of the interstate numb your senses.

The trick then is finding earphones that successfully satisfy the following:

• Are comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
• Do not move much (or at all) when putting a helmet on.
• Block “enough” noise to partially qualify as earplugs.
• Provide decent enough response so that I can keep my music volume as low as possible.
• Not cost a hojillion dollars.

I had tried the Etymotic Research ER6i earphones based on reviews from ADVrider.com, Ars Technica’s Lounge forum, and a few other places. While they sounded great, they were very uncomfortable and I couldn’t figure out how anyone could wear them on a motorcycle. They didn’t block much wind noise, either. I gladly sold them.

It was with hope and some reluctance that I tried out the Skullcandy Asym earphones as suggested on an FJR forum I frequent. The Asym was designed for dynamic activities like snowboarding, skating, and perhaps even motorcycling. Sporting a design that was “helmet friendly,” the Asyms seemed to be what I was looking for. Best of all, they were available at Target for $40 — half the price as the ER6i earphones.
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I love, love, love Pandora Radio, which suggests music for you based on the types of music you like. One of the things I’ve always wanted is a way to listen to Pandora in my car. I was jealous when iPhone users got to listen to Pandora on the go, and I hoped for a Windows Mobile version. Time passed, and passed, and passed, and finally you can listen to your favorite Pandora station on your Windows Mobile device.

Sort of.

The catch is that it only works with two phones right now, the HTC Touch (Verizon xv6900) and the Motorola Q9C. Luckily (for me, at least), I have an HTC Touch. The mobile version of Pandora.com works great. I had a problem copy and pasting my username/password into the application and had to peck out my password via the phone’s virtual keyboard. That took FOREVER, as I have strong password with all sorts of randomly-generated letters, numbers, and symbols. After I got past that, though, everything ran well.

I am a little surprised to see that you can’t buy music directly from the mobile version of Pandora. I have purchased a half-dozen albums from Amazon through Pandora. I am not sure if the iPhone version has this, but it’s a definite “nice to have.”

My next task is connecting my phone to my MazdaSpeed3′s stereo. The stock head unit has a 3.5mm standard headset jack, but my Touch does not have a headset connector. I will have to buy a mini-USB to 3.5mm adapter cable, and most of the ones I have found online are from dubious places I’ve never heard of. On eBay, every single adapter I found is sold out of Hong Kong. I’d rather not pay $15 in shipping for a $5 cable, but if that’s what I have to do to have Pandora in my car, then that’s what I have to do.

Here’s my favorite Pandora station, “Relaxed.” I used to listen to it while working from home. It is seeded with songs by Juno Reactor, Lamb, Mocean Worker, Mr. Scruff, Truby Trio and Weekend Players.

One of the nice things about working in a group office environment again is that there is a lot of banter. A LOT of banter. I am the unofficial DJ for our development room, and between the tunes and the shit-talking there is plenty of commentary to go around. Someone dredges up a long-lost track they liked as a youth, and it’s up to me to find it.

I also listen to a lot of music that doesn’t get heavy rotation. I am particularly fond of cultural mash-ups, like traditional Middle Eastern or Latin American music set to electronica. As you can expect, it’s hard to find these types of albums at big box stores like Best Buy or Wal*Mart. Even when I find them at local record shops, the import prices put a ten-track CD into the $20+ range.

So, what do you do when someone mentions “Ladies First” by Queen Latifah, or if you want to buy Cafe D’Afrique Volume 3 without spending $20? Try used CD e-tailer Second Spin.
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I’ve written about how royalties have threatened Internet radio in the past. According to this Ars Technica article, it seems like the Sound Exchange is trying to drive nails in the coffins of my favorite Internet radio stations. Ars Technica discusses the awesome-o Pandora in particular, but the disproportionally high royalty fees will affect all of the Internet radio stations I listen to, including SomaFM and Frisky Radio.
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Okay, here’s the challenge:

You are sending out a space probe, with the hopes that it will one day encounter intelligent life. Like the Voyager Golden Record, the idea is that you must convey significant aspects of yourself or your life’s history on one disc. Since this isn’t the 70s, we’re going to use a single 80 minute CD as our medium.

You can either select songs that describe you, or describe your history/upbringing, or both. For my part, I selected songs that described my personality. Here’s the list, in no particular order:

• N.E.R.D. and Zero 7 – Provider
  Name says it all, but this track is about a guy who does whatever he needs to to pay the bills.
• Rage Against the Machine – Year of the Boomerang
  What goes around comes around — I remember listening to this in college almost every day right before an English course where we conducted a peer-review on the weekly papers we wrote.
• DJ Shadow – Building Steam With a Grain of Salt
  Sometimes you have to make something from nothing, or rather, as the point of this song, pull together something big from chaos.
• Cirrus – No Pressure
  “Everybody wants to sing along, but they never have my kind of blues.” A great tune when I just want to sing to myself alone in the car.
• Disturbed – Land of Confusion
  Yeah fuckers, I know the original is by Genesis, and that Phil Collins is supposed to be lame, but it was a great song when it came out and it’s even better with Disturbed’s hard edge. News flash: the world is fatally askew, and sometimes realizing there isn’t anything I can do about it keeps me from flying off the handle.
• Anthrax – Antisocial
  Well, it’s Anthrax. And it’s about being … antisocial. v0v
• Linkin Park – In the End
  Sometimes things fall apart no matter what you try to do. At least take it gracefully.
• Juno Reactor – Guardian Angel
  Madonna once said that the problem with techno music is that it doesn’t have a soul. Some groups, like Juno Reactor, defy that convention.
• Guns N Roses – Rocket Queen
  After listening to this song a billion times over the years, I’m still not entirely sure what it’s about. I am sure, however, that the first two lines really resonate with me. So it’s on the list.
• Public Enemy – War at 33 1/3
  PE has a ton of great songs (including “Bring the Noise,” also included), but this one track epitomizes Chuck D’s blistering vocals — both in speed and in spirit — along with PE’s overarching aural assault.
• Rage Against the Machine – Pistol Grip Pump
  I don’t know what to say on this one. I just get a guttural feeling from this song.
• Limp Bizkit – Break Stuff
  If you’ve ever seen me bonk my head on an open refrigerator door or struggle with something mechanical, you know exactly why this song is here.
• Korn – Faget
  Fantastic song off of Korn’s first album about someone who’s different and has had enough of being picked on. It’s a soundtrack for vengeance.
• Lamb – Gabriel
  You can’t be a toughguy all the time. Or even most of the time. This song makes me want to cry every time I hear it.
• Anthrax and Public Enemy – Bring the Noise
  At a time when the only other rock-rap cross over was the comedic “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith and Run DMC, Bring the Noise demonstrated five white guys could throw down with one of hip hop’s baddest ensembles.
• Rob Base – It Takes Two
  I can’t help but join in any time this song comes on.

So, what would be on your Golden CD? You don’t have to give reasons if you don’t want to, just try to fit everything within 80 minutes. Have fun!

From Ars Technica: Internet radio royalty rates are not going to go up as expected — at least, not yet anyway. This announcement was made during a Congressional discussion. SoundExchange, the entity responsible for collecting the increased fees, announced that they would attempt to negotiate something more reasonable with Webcasters.

The royalty increase has been a big issue to me. Not only do I listen to Internet radio for most of the day while I work from home, but one of my good friends BushPutin is employed over at Pandora. BushPutin said that Pandora did not have plans to fold up immediately on the 15th, and was still hiring and maintained their operating budgets. He was still concerned about the impact of the fee increase, and believed that Pandora would hit the proposed rate cap of 2500 stations due to Pandora’s “create-your-own” station format.

In preparation of losing some of my favorite Internet radio stations, I have been recording Frisky Radio’s stream for the last twenty six hours. Thanks to this announcement, it looks like I can give my hard drive a rest.

Don’t freak out if you tune into SomaFM today and hear the San Francisco public transit system. Along with several other online radio stations, SomaFM is participating in a day of silence to demonstrate what Internet radio would be like if the increased Internet royalty fees are instated.

While I’m going to miss Soma’s Groove Salad station today, I hope that this day of protest doesn’t turn into a permanent silence.

You will love the new Linkin Park album, Minutes to Midnight. The first track sounds exactly like a Stabbing Westward song. The rest of Minutes to Midnight isn’t bad, but if you’re expecting the scratch- and guitar riff-heavy sounds of the first two albums you’re going to be in for a surprise. As I noted in my review of DJ Shadow’s album The Outsider, it can be a jarring experience when an artist or group changes musical direction.

“Bleed It Out” is the first decent song on the album. It does not surprise me that this is also Mike Shinoda’s first turn at the microphone. Primary singer Chester Bennington (Shinoda is LP’s rapping vocalist) attempts to stretch his vocal range a bit in Minutes to Midnight, but I’ve always liked him better as a counterpoint to Shinoda and less the main focus of a track. “What I’ve Done” is a good example of what happens when Chester’s bleeding heart wailing is untempered by Shinoda or more hip hop elements. It almost made me reach for my cuttin’ tools.

If you’re looking for an evolution of Linkin Park, pick up (or return to) Shinoda’s 2005 side project Fort Minor. If you want to hear a mashup between Linkin Park and an industrial rock band from the 90s, check out Minutes to Midnight.

Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica just reported that the Copyright Royalty Board is delaying the proposed royalty hike until July 15, 2007. This is good news for Internet radio, but doesn’t guarantee a fair solution to the CRB’s absurd proposed fee structure.

Just in case you missed our previous coverage:

The CRB is trying to disproportionately raise Internet radio royalty fees that would cripple online stations.

Links to online petitions.

My experience in calling my representative to support HR 2060, which would control the proposed royalty fee increase.