Radio Radio

I've recently discovered some new, listenable radio stations... which must be some sort of odd Midwestern thing, because both in the place I grew up (West Coast) and where I've lived as an adult (Mid-Atlantic and the Deep South), you pretty much know exactly what's on the dial all the time (unless they decide to switch formats as soon as you discover them, something that happened to me in Roanoke back in '98).
Anyhow, I've been thinking about the various--and pretty good--NPR stations that come in down at one end of the dial, and the smooth jazz--with Stevie Wonder thrown in this afternoon at least--I occasionally listen to at the other end of the dial... and the mixture of country and Christian stations in between. "Country & Western" is not my music, despite the fact that the little boys who lived across the street in Roanoke always thought I listened to country because they would troop over when the Dead broke into Mama Tried or Big River or Me & My Uncle on some bootleg I was listening to.
C&W is the music of my uncle, Fred, who shoes and trains horses for a living. His kids--my cousins--listen to it to, but both of them did rodeo as a varsity sport down in high school in Bakersfield, CA. And since it was part of the culture of a close part of my family ("close" in the emotional sense, not in physical proximity), I recognized that I couldn't just co-opt it. That, and it tends to be stupid and repetitive.
On the other hand, Christian music is mostly unlistenable, at least what they play on the radio around here, as well as what my grandparents listen to (although I have a killer version of "Abide with Me" on my latest CD!)
SO: depending on where you are in town, and the weather (and possibly other factors I haven't yet discovered, such as the color of my socks and how many times I've posted in the last week), I can pick up some decent rock and roll on the radio. But it's a gamble.