Stars become DJs thanks to radio waves turned satellite waves

The buzz is over Bob Dylan, but satellite radio is crawling with rockers and rappers turned would-be Wolfman Jacks.\nIn the iPod age, you are what's on your playlist, so if you really must know what makes Ashlee Simpson and Ashley Parker Angel tick, their mixes are for sale at iTunes. But the XM vs. Sirius satellite-radio battle one-ups Apple by putting name-brand musicians to work as DJs and programmers in pursuit of market share.\nBesides the Bard, Snoop Dogg, Tom Petty and Rancid, among others, have their own weekly shows on XM. Sirius employs the likes of New York Dolls front man David Johansen and hip-hop producer Prince Paul as DJs, as well as giving Eminem and Little Steven free rein to program entire channels. \nMost of these on-air personalities are hardly overworking themselves, putting in hour-long shifts that are repeated over the course of the week, though Steven, who rarely appears on his Underground Garage channel (Sirius 25), is on air for two hours every Sunday night on "terrestrial" -- otherwise known as "free" -- radio.\n(And it's almost all guys, it seems, intent on disseminating their aesthetic visions, though I did catch Joan Jett guest DJing on Underground Garage last weekend, spinning Patti Smith's "People Have the Power" and the Kinks' "Death of a Clown.")\nThe worker bee of the bunch is Johansen, whose often-inspired six-hour "Mansion of Fun" airs on the free-form channel Disorder (Sirius 24) at 3 p.m. each Friday. The glam-rocker, who also performs as Buster Poindexter, has a show that's almost too mind-blowingly eclectic as it mixes philosophical musings while moving from the Beach Boys to Julie Andrews to Claude Debussy to Senegalese singer Musa Dieng Kala.