Today is the last day of XM Bootcamp II. I don’t know what I’m going to do without clear direction on what channel to listen to each day — I guess I’ll cope somehow.

Anyway, today’s channel is XM Live, which bills itself as “The Artists’ Playground”. The gimmick is very simple: play live concerts. Well, previously-recorded live concerts. Many come from the BBC; some come from XM. The concerts are generally one hour long. And the schedule is published well in advance.

So it’s pretty easy to listen to what you like on this channel, and avoid what you don’t like — if the schedule shows an hour of Black Eyed Peas, as it did at 11am Pacific today, that’s an hour to avoid. In contrast, an hour of Santana is going to be Good Listening (not to be confused with Good Eats).

I’ll be back, but only for certain hours.

XMU is XM’s answer to college radio stations, and in many ways, the music I heard today wouldn’t have been out of place when I was at WRPI/91.5, back in the ’70s. Of course, we didn’t have hip-hop when I was in college, and I could have done without the hip-hop I heard today, but it wasn’t offensive, and it was part of a pretty good variety of music.

I didn’t get to listen to any of the “special” programs (like Chill), so I also didn’t hear any DJs at work; just uninterrupted music.

This isn’t a channel I expect to put into heavy rotation in my XM listening after bootcamp, but I could easily come back for occasional visits.