One advantage of living in a college town is that they often have student-run radio stations where you can hear music not normally played on commercial radio. When I was in Rochester, both UR and RIT had their station (do they still exist?). Here in Lubbock, TTU runs two stations, one is the local NPR affiliate with lots of classical music, the other is student-run. The latter, 88.1 FM "The Raider", introduced me to many alt/indie acts I would never heard of otherwise. One example: Dr. Dog.
My favorite, "The Beach", starts at 30:00.