Music on the Internet has been a godsend for many Vegas bands

Kimberley McGee

Sunday, Sept. 19, 1999 | 1:29 a.m.

Take the needle off the record (what's, like, a record?) and catch up with the latest music madness: free Internet music.

Now Web users can turn on and tune in to their computers on such sites as MP3, MusicMatch and Spinner (all dot coms) and download music from, say, a garage band in the Kremlin or big, bad music phenoms such as David Bowie, who is scheduled to release his album, "Hours ..." on the Internet Tuesday, two weeks before it is available in record stores.

Las Vegas bands are getting their riffs and samplings out there with some success. There are nearly 100 Las Vegas artists on the MP3 site, a number that barely creates a ripple in the vat of artists on this single site.

"It's been a wild ride," Marija Rawlins, lead singer of the local band Plato's Halo, says. She and Glenn Kachulis, who plays keyboards and sings, began Plato's Halo four years ago and recently downloaded its CD, "Bent," to MP3.

Such sites as these let the user download music and buy CDs from the site or through links to the bands website. Record companies wait like worried mothers in the wings, wanting to control the technology but waiting to see what happens as it evolves.

Plato's Halo and other bands say their music is not something that can easily be slotted into a category at a Tower Records store, but now it can be enjoyed by the masses as they cruise through music samplings.

"That's why we went in that direction in the first place," Rawlins says of the band's decision to go 'Net.

The band's songs soared to No. 1 on an MP3 chart, slipped to No. 5 and was No. 9 the last time Rawlins checked MP3 a few weeks ago. She says that chatting online live, e-mailing fans and using other networking techniques kept the band clinging to the top of the site's music charts.

"I networked like hell and when I stopped, it sizzled," Rawlins says.

The band has also been asked to jump in with other 'Net bands -- people they've never met but who respect their brand of music -- on compilations..

"Our goal is to make a living (playing music), but in reality that may be too farfetched," Rawlins says. "Anyone who thinks MP3 is going to make them rich, they are naive."

What the availability of music on the 'Net does is expose the band, and the listener, to a lot of different music styles and experiences.

"There's so much in one place, you don't have to go all over the place -- everything from noise, clucks and beeps to orchestral compositions and everything in between," Rawlins says, adding that choices are great, but the variety can be overwhelming. "It's so vast, it tends to bury people."

Lawrence Caine, a local audio engineer, songwriter and singer, put his album, "One Man Band," on MP3 a few weeks ago and already has hits. He rose to No. 4 on the site's grunge chart and currently rests at No. 15 with the song "Keep Your Head Above Water," and has two other songs in the Top 40.

He used the site to float his sound and lyrics with an impartial audience, something he says he could never do the old-fashioned way -- well, old-fashioned as of about six months ago -- with a record company.

"It's almost impossible to get your songs out and you'd never get on the radio," Caine says. "MP3 is making it so the industry is not a monopoly anymore."

Getting started on the Web can cost $250 to $3,000 for a typical upstart band. It also takes a lot of work from the musicians for their music to continue pumping through computer terminals and keep them alive, if in name only, something the record company would usually take care of.

"If you hear the song and like it you are going to download it," Caine says, adding that it might then be passed to a friend, who might pass it to another friend whose best friend is, say, a radio programmer dating a record company exec.

Well, maybe it's not that simple, but the Internet does open a lot of doors, and ears, that might otherwise have stayed closed if a CD were passed by human hands to sit in a bin somewhere waiting to be discovered.

Sky Daniels, general manager of Radio & Records magazine, is a big believer in digital distribution, especially when it comes to how it will affect radio.

Top radio station programmers in the country receive about 70 CDs a day, he says. Then they must open, file, store, listen and retrieve the gems at will.

"You wonder how they ferret through those on a weekly basis," Daniels says. "It's a needle in a hay stack,"

So Radio & Records, along with Liquid Audio, Inc., an Internet software and services distributor, has created a site, set to come online in mid-October, that will categorize new songs receiving air time with all the stats about the band and its tracks, such as where it is played in the country, audience response and liner notes.

"It saves (programmers and record executives) time, informs them and reduces the cost for the record company," Daniels says.

A record company will spend about $40 to send CDs to a radio programmer in one day to try and get airplay for one song. Each CD is individually sent overnight and delivered without any guarantee that it will be heard.

"One advantage (the technology) provides for independent artists (is) low cost, (and) they can compete with distributors modeled by the big boys," Daniels says. "They can have their (song) stored in a context to distribute their song to the universe."

And teens can cut their teeth on a wide range of artists rather than the smattering of choices local radio stations can offer.

"There are very few radio experiences where younger kids (who) are looking for counterculture (can go) ... whereas on the 'Net, they can get highly specific (musical genres)," Daniel says. "Kids can download a song, (it) didn't cost them anything, and pass it on."

Radio is too rigid, with its corporate pigeonholing, Daniels says. The Internet opens the natural curiosity in a wandering music devotee.

"Beer, music, women and anything that's free ... that was the proper mind of interest for me (as a teen), I can only assume it's the same now," Daniels says. "The younger generation didn't get rich overnight."

The cost is 15 percent of what it takes to make and distribute a CD, and the exposure is exponential, he says.

"If the 'Net offers anything it offers too many choices," he says. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. 'Net users will become accustomed to pulling music from Zimbabwe or Boca Raton, Fla., and the technology will adapt to the needs of its still-fledgling followers.

"This will be commonplace within the next two years," Daniels says.

Sharay Larsen, of local band Inside Scarlet, says the Internet will definitely take music further. But the further out you go, the harder it is to find what you are looking for.

"It's a little tough sometimes," she says. "It's very easy to get lost in the giant sea of artists."

The band does as much promoting of its site (insidescarlet.com) as well as MP3's, as is possible without annoying those who traverse sometimes murky links to get to where they want to go.

"You have to entice all the time," Larsen says. "We try to update the site with new songs every week, send out e-mail lists. "MP3 has something like over 25,000 artists. It is the artists' responsibility to drive people to their sites. It's a full-time job."

But it's more name recognition than cash for the band that has more visitors to its website than it does through the MP3 link. Inside Scarlet has sold four CDs from the MP3 site as opposed to hundreds at performances.

Which may be a blessing in disguise. "A friend of mine bought one of our CDs from MP3 -- it was scratched," Larsen says.

But the return adulation via e-mail is encouraging. The band has received comments from listeners in England, Denmark and Japan, among others, and says they have been "really complimentary." She's even received some requests to tour in Europe.

E-mail, she says, gives a certain anonymity to writers so they feel they can open up to the band. "Some (fans) say the music touched (them). It's pretty genuine. It's usually fairly detailed, they ask for memorabilia."

Mark Hlobil turned onto the MP3 site two years ago. Since then the electronic music artist and UNLV senior has gathered his creative abilities, computer and business wits about him and put a few songs and an album, "Liquid Dreams," on the site. He has managed to stay on the weekly Top 40 most downloaded songs chart for the past four months.

He says this new format has given him independence to experiment with his own form of music and opened doors to industry executives who likely would have shunned him if he had taken a more traditional route.

"I don't really have an image," he says, explaining that the music stands for itself. "That's how it's been able to stay in the Top 40 for the last four months."

Hlobil was invited to attend the recent local EAT'M music conference because of his Internet success.

"I wouldn't have had that without MP3," he says. Earlier this month he was a guest (albeit a 40-second guest) on a NBC Sunday morning news program to discuss independent bands making it on the 'Net versus acts with major label backing, such as current teen pop star Christina Aguilera.

"It's definitely changing the structure of how music is going to be distributed and markets (itself)," Hlobil says.

The future of 'Net music? "It's probably too early to say exactly," Hlobil says. "The whole thing is very new, to the general public at least."

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