Radio Daze

KIKK/650 AM KIKK-A** Talk 650 offers a succession of syndicated shock jocks cracking wise and spinning recorded comedy bits. It's anchored by Howard Stern, whose sidekick Robin rips-and-reads an item from the New York Post about an aging groupie's tell-all book. Seems the groupie told Spin that Huey Lewis was hugely endowed. Peter Frampton, on the other hand, had an inapt first name.

KSBJ/89.3 FM This is the "God listens" station. If that's true, He could never get a job at my record company, 'cause right now, He is listening to a truly hideous song -- a whiny-voiced nerd intoning lines like "I give You my life, take it and make it Yours" as drecky '80s-style hair-flipping glam-metal billows.

10:59 a.m.

KTRH The first rumblings of the inaugural speech. "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in our world." Looks like professor Taylor was right about the platitudes.

11:02 a.m.

KLOL/101.1 FM, Mega 101 Easily the most thrilling new music on the dial, and the best thing Clear Channel Radio has done here, this is the new outlet for reggaetón, Latin hip-hop and dance pop. Right now, they're playing Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina." According to a Spanish-speaking friend of mine, the chorus to this bumping reggaetón is about a woman begging her boyfriend to give her his "gasolina," which is Spanish slang for sperm.

11:07 a.m.

KTHT/97.1 FM, Country Legends Conway Twitty croons "Rest Your Love on Me Awhile." Not a horrible song, but Cox, the owners of this station, pissed away a golden opportunity here. When Country Legends debuted, it shot straight to the top country slot. A slow slide set in thereafter. There is only one DJ on the station -- the rest of the week, Country Legends is simply a jukebox, one that spits out the same lame songs way too often. ("Hello Country Bumpkin" once an hour, it seems.) If Cox had given this station even a little TLC -- hired some old-school country DJs, involved the listeners a little, played less country-pop pap -- it coulda been a contender.

11:08 a.m.

KHMX-96.5 FM, the Mix "Your Body Is a Wonderland." But "The Mess" is not. The slogan of this sprawling jumble of soft rock, soft R&B and soft pop should be "The Mix -- we play Peter Gabriel, Genesis and Phil Collins."

11:09 a.m.

KHJZ/95.7 FM, the Wave This "smooth jazz" station spins an awful lot of stuff that even the most generous music fan would have trouble calling jazz: Simply Red, the Police and Sade, whose "Ordinary Love" is playing now.

11:10 a.m.

KTBZ/94.5 FM, the Buzz "Houston's New Music Alternative" is spinning Crossfade's "Cold," and it sounds like more of the same awful sludge-rock with whiny vocals by some over-caffeinated, post-rehab paint-huffer who fronts all these other bands the Buzz is determined to force down our throats as the real "here and now" of rock. This music? She is not good.

11:11 a.m.

KKRW/93.7 FM, the Arrow Over the last couple of years, Clear Channel's somnolent classic rock station has shown fitful signs of life. They've been taking more requests and doing more promotions, such as the one they are in now, which is an alphabetical run-through of their catalog. Jimi Hendrix's blazing "Stone Free" plays on my first visit -- and it's certainly welcome to hear this somewhat unusual selection of the master's work. (There's been a new development on the rock-radio front. See Racket, page 63.)

11:12 a.m.

KTRU/91.7 FM, Rice Radio. Mates of State's "Along for the Ride" plays. Now this really is alternative.

11:42 a.m.

KPRC Rush Limbaugh wafts in on a fanfare of brass and drums, and after sneering a bit at Kerry, he turns his attention to Caldwell's benediction. He plays a clip and then chortles his way back on the air. "Ah, yes," he says, before lapsing into French. "What a pièce de résistance! What a prayer delivered by a black preacher!" He ludicrously overemphasizes the word "black."

12:06 p.m.

KKBQ/92.9 FM, the New 93Q Country "52 minutes of Q Country music" commences with SheDaisy's "Come Home Soon," a dreadful song about a lonely, nervous housewife whose husband is in Iraq. "I know that we're together even though we are far apart" is about as deep as the lyrics delve into what has to be an awful situation. And it takes a war to give this innocuous pop-country pap something like gravitas.

12:17 p.m.

The Wave Donna McKenzie's sultry, dulcet tones are at odds with the fare she says is coming next: a "Wave four-pack" including music by James Ingram and Dave Koz. I take the promise of this syrupy miasma as a threat and whiz off up the dial.

12:20 p.m.