My radio listening habits tend toward college stations and public radio — what the Replacements celebrated as “Left of the Dial.” So my awareness of the continued degradation of the commercial part of the spectrum has been provided mainly by the dogged investigative work of Salon’s Eric Boehlert, whose exposes of the Clear Channel monopoly have justly earned him a passel of awards.

Today’s New York Times brings a new twist on Clear Channel-ism: David Gallagher reports on the remarkable process by which this radio mega-conglomerate has assembled a DJ from database parts. Basically, they’ve taken the recorded voice of Carson Daly, chopped it into little snippets and used those soundbites to re-assemble pseudo-local broadcasts — so that listeners in, say, Atlanta hear a localized “top 40″ broadcast, with Daly introducing each song in the particular order that applies to that market, yet Daly never actually said those words in that order.

It’s hard to know whether to applaud the ingenuity required to create such a DJ-bot, or barf at the complete triumph of corporate homogenization that it represents. I think the gagging in my throat tells me which reaction predominates for me.

Time for a music break. I’ve always been a fan of the Silos, but recently I’ve been delighted to find that their earliest recordings are now available again on CD. The mid-80s EP “About Her Steps” was (I think) their first commercial recording, or at least my first introduction to them, and it now forms the cornerstone of “Ask the Dust,” which also collects other early work by the band and its leader, Walter Salas-Humara. Also newly available on CD is the album “Cuba.” The Silos have never sold a lot of records, but their style of domestic folk-rock — “About Her Steps” begins with a description of cleaning up a house and “Cuba” is shot through with the love and pain of marriage — has prodigious staying power. The Silos sprang out of the same scene as (and once shared some members with) another little-known but much-loved band, the Vulgar Boatmen. (Read Charlie Taylor’s great paean to them here.) Today’s practitioners of “alt-country” are mining a similar vein but without quite the same spirit or simplicity. Music like this is worth having a reunion with.

Interesting link found on Tenorman.Net: EMUSIC OFFERS TWO NEW FRANK BLACK ALBUMS IN MP3 — Former Pixies Leader was the First Artist to Partner with Pioneer Downloadable Music Service. (This page is from the new Blogcritics project, which looks like it’s off to a great start.)

Now, here’s the thing — I subscribe to EMusic’s service. I also just bought those two CDs at Amoeba here in Berkeley. Now, theoretically, I should be upset, right? I just paid about $28 for music that I could have downloaded, legally, as part of an online service I already pay for. But guess what? I’m not upset. I’d have bought these CDs anyway. I’m a Frank Black fan, I buy all his CDs, and that’s that.

The point here is simple: Some music you want to own. Other music you just want to try out, sample, see whether you want to own it. The problem with the current music industry position is that they don’t provide us with enough options for trying stuff out, on our own terms.

In Feb. 2000, I wrote a column about Napster and the future of online music that noted:

Well, it now appears that — having successfully crippled Napster and several successor outfits — the RIAA is getting set to do precisely that. As Declan McCullagh reports on News.com, the record companies’ trade association is adopting a two-pronged strategy: sue individual file traders and get the federal government to take action against them, too.

And when all the file traders are in jail, who’ll be left to buy music?

Everyone’s linking to it, and with good reason — Janis Ian’s proposal for breaking out of the online music logjam: “All the record companies get together and build a single giant website, with everything in their catalogues that’s currently out of print available on it, and agree to experiment for one year.” Charge a reasonable fee per download. See what happens.

Of course, it’s hard to imagine the record companies collaborating like this. But if even two got together and started down this road it could snowball. Somehow antitrust objections would have to be overcome. Still, it’s a great dream. Maybe there are still some dreamers in the music industry.

In tonight’s Salon cover story, Farhad Manjoo surveys the sorry state of the online music world. Much of the file-trading world has been hobbled by the RIAA’s legal assault, yet the music industry has not stepped forward with an alternative that makes sense.

In its prime, Audiogalaxy was beautiful, even better than Napster — it allowed us to hunt for an obscurity even when the people who had the track weren’t currently online, then download it once they reconnected. I used Audiogalaxy to fill out the odd corners of my library with live recordings and rarities; every artist whose work I downloaded and kept was one whose entire recorded commercial oeuvre I’ve already paid for in CD form.

My demographic profile may not be exactly what the record companies are after (I’m 43), but I’ve probably spent $1000 a year on music for the last decade or so; it’s my biggest personal-entertainment expense by far. My music purchases soared during the heyday of Napster and Audiogalaxy, when I could easily sample new bands and new work; in recent months my purchases have tapered off. If the music industry wants to know where its sales have gone, there’s one clue.

In the meantime, anyone who’s looking for an online music service that offers variety and depth and doesn’t try to control your behavior or limit how you can listen to the music you pay for, I recommend EMusic. For $10 a month you get unlimited access to their catalog. No, they don’t have the major labels’ hot hits. But they have enough interesting stuff to keep the alternative/indie fan happy for months — like vast quantities of Guided by Voices, They Might Be Giants, Yo La Tengo and Pavement — plus oldies, jazz and other eclectica.((Full disclosure: EMusic has worked with Salon on the music mixes we offer our Premium subscribers. I’m not involved with that — and I gladly pay the company for its service.)

A new album from Bryan Ferry? in 2002? On “Frantic,” the sheen on Ferry’s croon has cracked a bit — with age, or disuse, or pain, I don’t know. But it’s becoming. The perfection of his “Avalon”-style gloss was seductive but barren — a sort of vocal embalming had taken place. Here he sounds battered, but alive and kicking back, with a mixture of Dylan covers, dance numbers and old Roxy Music-style extravaganzas. I think it’s his best work since “Siren.”

Steve Earle’s John Walker song: Anders Smith Lindall has heard it and reports that “Earle doesn’t pontificate and never breaks character, much less glorify Lindh.”

Leave it to country-rocker Steve Earle to write the first song about John Walker Lindh, American outlaw: John Walker’s Blues. I haven’t heard the song yet, but Earle is a smart musician who’s earned his compassionate streak the hard way. And I’l bet that what he has to say on the subject is more valuable than a hundred op-ed thumbsuckers.