Webb's old radio home has been boarded up and evacuated. Now that the merger is done, the bigshots at Sirius have canned the XM X Country team. I never completely forgave the XM bean counters for ending Webb's deal, but Jessie Scott and the X Country crew were great fans of new music, and more importantly here, Webb Wilder's tunes new and old. The replacement station, ported over from Sirius, is fine, I guess, playing the "hits" of Americana, alt country and old outlaw country, but I have my doubts. Any Sirius subscribers out there? Does Outlaw Country play Webb with anything like the frequency and fondness that X Country always did?

I'm an XM subscriber, too, and from what I can tell in the little I've listened, virtually all of the XM-everything has been replaced by the Sirius-whatever. What used to the be The Boneyard (the hard rock/metal channel) is now Hair Nation, and it has different "DJs" who like to talk over the intros to songs. 8-( It's like AM radio all over again.

Plus, they now have a dedicated Elvis channel, which I thought was pretty cool, until I realized that they compress it a lot more than they do most of their other music channels. 8-( The fidelity leaves a lot to be desired. Of course, all of their dedicated channels are on loops, so you still hear the same songs over and over and over, if you listen long enough. Again, AM all over again.

It's still early, but based on what I've heard so far, I may not be renewing my subscription when it expires next month.

Hunter

I was sad to see Jessie's station go, but she could pop up again in the realignment, I hope. The Outlaw Country folks are nice too, and do play Webb some (they have good taste). It wasn't all XM offerings that went, my favorite Sirius Channel, Disorder, was canned. (Replaced by an all-Led-Zepplin station!) Parts of this moved to The Loft channel. For blues lovers, the wonderful Bill Wax Bluesville show on XM was the winning station. He's played some of Webb too, and really is dedicated to bringing new talent to light. A good guy.

The one thing these stations have brought is exposure to music not regularly heard on the heavily homogeneous airwaves. It will be worth watching to see if that continues as extensively. I'm sure from a cash-standpoint they are getting requests for more tried and true playlists and are certainly doing more tribute channels than before. I listen to the Grateful Dead channel now and then, love it! Good thing that station didn't exist 15 years ago, I never would have left the house!

They will do what their subscribers want, and the squeaky wheel gets the Webb Wilder. Write them with requests and what you'd like to hear. They do take this into account. I hope the new stations will grow and be successful AND good.

There's a petition to sign if you want X-Country back:
http://www.petitiononline.com/BBXM12/petition.html

Already today I've heard George Strait, Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, And Travis Tritt on Outlaw Country channel 12. Need I say anymore. Now granted, I've heard some good stuff too but no Webb(that could few and far between on this station). X-Country was where I first discovered artist like WW, Scott Miller, Drive-by-Truckers, Todd Snider, etc. It's like I've lost a member of my family. I'm with Hunter on this one, I won't be renewing my subscription either.

I have called and e-mailed.No reply. I miss the old X Country. I heard Dolly Parton on Outlaw Country singing Stairway to Heaven. I heard the Dixie Chicks. I will most likely cancel my subscription and listen to CDs I make.
Rest in Peace X Country.

I am so pissed that they dropped my favorite radio station. I will cancel my subscription.

The Boneyard is coming back in January on channel 53.

I found this tidbit about Outlaw Country:

-- "Little Steven" Van Zandt's Underground Garage and Outlaw Country channels, both created and executive produced by the E Street Band member, feature the best rock 'n' roll records ever made and shows hosted by some of country music's biggest names, including Mojo Nixon, Shooter Jennings and others.

http://xmradio.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=1669

Sirius user here. Underground Garage is a very good station and I always had it tuned there at some point in a drive. I found a lot of new music on there. Not for everyone, I know, but enjoyable and sometimes very informative.

I'm a long time XM subscriber. I also miss X-Country but have enjoyed getting to know Outlaw country. I have heard a pretty diverse mix so far. Heavier on Southern Rock and Rockabilly but No Webb yet though. Underground Garage is probably my favorite new channel. Check it out!!

I heard Toby Keith a while ago. This is ridiculous. How about some Corb Lund? Some Slobberbone? Hayes Carll? There are only so many times I can listen to repeats of C.W. McCall. If you want an alternative, go to Boot Liquor on SomaFM. It's an internet station and is actually better than X Country was. I hate this change!

http://www.drivebywriter.com/drivebywriter/The_Driveby/Entries/2008/11/20_I_want_my_X_Country_back!.html

I hate to keep harping (well, no I don't, because it makes me feel a little better to vent about it), but DJs on Classic Rewind (there were no DJs when it was Big Tracks) are driving me nuts. In addition to blathering on over the beginnings of songs, like most DJs, they think they know it all. The other day, I heard one of them play a Journey song, followed by a Boston song. In between, the DJ said, "Journey's singer used to be in a Journey tribute band. That's not the case for Boston's singer...."

Now, I know most of the world doesn't care, but Arnel Pineda, Journey's new singer, was *not* in a Journey tribute band. He was in a band called The Zoo in the Philippines that played a mixture of originals and cover songs. While it's true that they covered Journey, they were not a tribute band, and, in fact, it was a Survivor cover that Neal Schon saw on YouTube that got his attention.

But this DJ was spouting off like the King of All Knowledge, even though what he was spouting wasn't correct. And that kind of thing annoys the heck out of me.

I used to like my XM stations because there were no DJs. Now they all have DJs, and the few XMs that occasionally had a DJ now have different DJs and more of them. (The Boneyard, which is "on hiatus" until January, had a few hours a day with DJs, but its current replacement, "Hair Nation," has DJs 24 hours a day.)

YOU KEEP HARPING on it Hunter. And write some letters to XM while you're at it. The DJs talking over the music is complete BS. If I wanted that, I can get it for free locally.

Same deal with spouting semi-accurate and/or completely wrong trivia. If I want to "learn" something, I'll listen to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. He digs deeper anyway, and (so far as I know) gets the facts right, to boot.

And while I'm ranting, is it just my imagination, or are there fewer stations that are "commercial free" music only ones? Again, I'm PAYING for this service, commercials should be persona-non-grata on satellite radio. What happened to old-school cable TV is apparently happening all over again.

Never thought I'd say this, but I'm considering dropping XM too. Webb getting let go was the beginning of the end for XM as far as I'm concerned. They need to turn it around, and fast.

I second Lance's link. Y'all should read it, if you haven't yet.

From his post there:
>> "The lineups dont always stay," she says.

Yeah, I suppose that's true. But putting aside the inanity of this screw-up for a moment, some may remember that a few years ago, XM Liquid Metal was dropped from the lineup, but customer outrage brought it back. Same could apply for X-Country if we all make enough noise.

FWIW, I'm usually unkind to redundant posts, but to reiterate what TommyLee said, there's an online petition about this. Your email address is required, but can be kept private (be sure to check the 'private' radio button).

Here's the link again:
http://www.petitiononline.com/BBXM12/petition.html

You can't beat a good reiterating! I feel better already.

Definitely better than reiterating a good beating!

I WAS an XM subscriber. . . but I'm not going to stand for this new OC station. I see no chance that X Country is coming back anytime soon.

I'm finding other alternatives like RadioFreeTexas and MP3's.