SAN FRANCISCO - Digital distribution may not dismantle the starmaker machinery that has long controlled the music business, but it has launched a revolution of sorts for working musicians who might otherwise have thrown in their guitar picks and synthesizers.
Selling their songs online, some bands have gained fans well beyond their local markets. Others have reinvigorated careers, while still others, spurned by the labels, are feeling vindicated by their ability to find sympathetic ears.
Mike Fair, 26, of Houston, was even able to quit his day job.
A technical supervisor at Compaq Computer Corp., Fair couldn't sell his homemade electronica anywhere - until he posted a few of his songs on MP3.com, which pays artists royalties when songs are downloaded or CDs sold.
''Every single time I ever took a song to a label, I got rejected,'' he said. ''It hurts to get turned down and have security take you out by the collar, which happened to me a lot.''
Fair was hoping to augment his $40,000 annual salary. Since he took his computer-programmed, drum machine-driven music online under the name 303infinity in July 1999, Fair has made $160,000.
More traditional musicians have found that a Web presence can help them avoid more frustrating paths - such as spending 10 years playing in clubs in hopes of getting noticed by a major record label.
''Now maybe there can be this kind of middle-class existence. You're not going to be riding around in limos every day but maybe you're going to make a pretty decent income by selling your own music,'' said Jackie Strano, lead singer of The Hail Marys, a San Francisco-based rock band that has sold 4,000 CDs at $10-$15 apiece solely through Web site orders.
The Hail Marys' Web site has details of upcoming shows, biographies and pictures of the well-tattooed band-members and samples of their latest songs.
The global reach and immediacy of the Internet have made it the perfect tool for distributing music and growing a fan base - efforts that once relied on hit-or-miss methods such as sending postcards to mailing lists to announce new releases and upcoming shows.
The Internet also offers an alternative, a self-publishing house of sorts, for artists who get rejected by increasingly monolithic, corporate-owned recording companies.
J.J. Tindall, a Chicago-based rock musician, got tired of hearing that his hooks weren't memorable and that his songs didn't get to the point fast enough, so he created a Web site where he sells his music and poetry.
''I want the control,'' he said. ''I have no one to tell me 'No'. You can bypass the frustrating powers that be. I'm not making a living off being online. I am sustaining my work, and my life.''
In Indianapolis, college student Dustin Brenton and his buddy Chris Stefani parlayed a modicum of computer musical programming talent into success on MP3.com, creating a techno music group called Trance Factory.
Despite never playing instruments and never performing a live show, Trance Factory has made more than $15,000 this year from CD sales and music downloads, more than they ever could have earned by trying to get homemade cassette tapes or CDs into the right hands.
Who are the Trance Factory fans who've never seen the band perform?
''I don't know but I'd like to thank them all,'' laughed Brenton, a graphics design major at Ivy Tech State College. ''Since we made so much money, we've purchased two keyboards, a drum machine, a professional recording program.''
Finding new artists online is as simple as typing in a search word. At www.yahoo.com, ''electronica'' quickly returns 1,051 artists, most of them unsigned. Gatekeepers such as MP3.com and Raveworld.net narrow down the new selections and allow free downloads as well as music for sale.
MP3.com has been a boon for musical also-rans, offering more than a half-million free songs from more than 100,000 artists.
Few enjoy the online success of popular artists like The Offspring, a nouveau-punk band that posted a new song, ''Original Prankster'' on MP3.com last month, prompting 137,000 downloads, according to the Web site.
The song was gratis, but the download was a promotion for a new album.
The beleaguered Napster music-sharing service, meanwhile, offers a new artists program as proof that it is capable of non-infringing uses, an important legal point as the Redwood City-based company awaits a federal appeals court ruling on the recording industry's copyright infringement suit.
For its part, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is not endorsing cutting the cord with the recording industry.
ASCAP spokesman Jim Steinblatt says deep market penetration still comes only through the expensive advertising and tour support that record labels provide.
That's exactly the type of route to success John Vanderslice, who runs the online site www.tinytelephone.com, is trying to avoid.
''We've had meetings with Interscope and a lot of labels. Talk about a waste of time,'' Vanderslice said from his home studio in San Francisco. ''Bands work for a multinational corporation to subsidize their art. Unless you're absolutely willing to be malleable you're never ever going to have a positive experience.''
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On the Net:
Trance Factory, http://www.powersurgerecords.com/
The Hail Marys, http://www.thehailmarys.com/
Mikel Fair, http://www.303infinity.com
MP3.com, http://www.mp3.com
J.J. Tindall, http://www.jjtindall.com
Vanderslice, http://www.tinytelephone.com
