Axe, clicks and rock’n’roll

Forget Pop Idol, James Knight reveals how you can unleash your inner rock god

So you’ve always wanted to be a rock star? Well, now might be your chance. If ska princess Lily Allen is anything to go by, it seems that a cool name, a smattering of talent and a whole load of web savviness will see you into the charts.

The internet has revolutionised the way music is heard and shared, and it could be your ticket away from solitary air-guitar sessions in your bedroom. Online, you can find your dream axe and learn how to play it, discover a decent drummer and even amass a coterie of cyber groupies.

“It’s an incredible time to be a young musician,” says Andy Wood, director of Tough Cookie, an audio and video production company and record label. “The steel doors to the industry have now been blown wide open by the internet.”

So, you want to be a rock star?

Then log on.

1 Find your six-string

The first thing to do is get hold of some proper kit. The average British music shop has little in the way of choice when it comes to electric guitars and basses. Not so at http://www.gak.co.uk: the name sounds like something Slayer might secrete on stage, but the Guitar Amp and Keyboard Centre has an armada of instruments, together with amps, drums, samplers and, if you’re planning some nu-folk venture (very hot at the moment), harmonicas.

An Epiphone Les Paul II, the classic starter model, will set you back £108, which the guitar shops on London’s Denmark Street would struggle to match. And there’s no need to reveal your lack of musical experience to sniffy sales assistants who are appalled that you can’t play every Led Zep riff note perfectly.

2 Learn your craft

Unless you subscribe to the Sid Vicious school of rock where a stoned attitude and spray-on tight trousers outweigh any actual musical skill, you’re going to need to learn an instrument. When I harboured dreams of becoming Flea, bassist with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, my lessons consisted of Saturday morning trips to Ilford and enduring the halitosis of my tutor. Nowadays a webcam and high-speed internet access mean you don’t even need to leave your computer to improve your skills.

Keyboardists can receive online tuition at http://www.jazzpianolessons.co.uk, where lessons cost £28 per hour (£7.50 less than actually turning up in person). The 150 free lessons available at http://www.guitartricks.com, including pentatonic licks for real axe men, give you plenty of mileage before deciding whether you want to start paying.

No band should start without a few cover numbers to perfect, and http://www.sheetmusicdirect.com offers transcriptions and print-outs of thousands of songs from £2.25.

3 Form a super-group

Johnny Borrell, of music press darlings Razorlight, recruited Swedish imports Bjorn Agren and Carl Dalemo four years ago (or thereabouts) through the pages of the NME — the classic way to get a band together. Nowadays bands are more likely to form on Bebo pages (http://www.bebo.com), or through the dedicated messageboards of a site such as http://www.drownedinsound.com. Recently redesigned, it’s a darn sight easier to navigate, looking less like an angry teenage bedroom fanzine, but still full of absolutely music-crazy members to argue with.

Another place to look for wouldbe band members is http://www.gumtree.com, a more focused, better-designed UK variation on the Craigslist virtual classifieds, that can be searched by town. Simply leave your post and wait: the bagpiper looking for a nu-metal band is either an undiscovered musical genius, or insane.

4 Create the buzz

If you want people to take notice then you have to get your music out there and create a word-of-mouse buzz online. Thanks to cool new online services, your audience can suddenly jump from your mum and pet dog to hundreds or even thousands of music lovers around the world, at no cost.

Ringtones, adverts, videos, computer games, promos are all possible routes for your tunes to seep out into the world. The site http://www.bandwagon.co.uk enables bands to sell ringtones for £3 each, and receive 70p themselves, and to sell onscreen wallpapers for £1.50, receiving 35p.

You don’t need David LaChappelle, video maker to the stars, behind the lens to shoot a music video — a decent digital video camcorder will do — and it’s an excellent way to ramp up your profile. Upload it to a video-sharing site such as http://www.youtube.com and watch it take off. Another way to circulate your music is through the peer-based radio station http://www.last.fm, with an audience of millions worldwide. It’s free to register your tunes, and you could find yourself on the same playlist as the Strokes.

5 Get a deal

Rather than spending months trying to befriend the Warner Bros Records mail-room staff in the hope that a demo tape might land on the right desk, http://www.myspace.com now means bands that have created a buzz can wait for the labels to come to them. Just ask Lily Allen.

“MySpace is industry standard,” says Chez Marcher, a London-based DJ and producer who has remixed the Stereo MCs, Blur and Queen Latifah, and supplied original tracks for T-Mobile and Levi’s. “The advantage is that it puts everyone on the same level, competing for the same set of ears. It’s even more credible than having your own website.”

There are a number of other developments that bands should keep an eye on. One is http://www.indiestore.com, from 7Digital Media, which is designed as a free platform for bands to market and sell their music without the need for record label backing. Big brands are also queueing up to push new young talent, whether it’s the user-generated content of http://www.mtv.co.uk/channel/flux, or undiscovered.o2.co.uk.

6 Seeking inspiration

If your latest gig wasn’t well received by the audience of two pensioners who expected bingo, not bogling, at their local, then it is easy for morale to drop. It could be your name that’s getting in the way of success (Coldplay started life as Starfish, after all) so try the automated name generator at http://www.elsewhere.org/bandname. Just prepare a suitably wacky explanation of why you called yourselves Chris LaZonga and the Honolulu All-Stars to avoid the prosaic truth.

If ever you need reminding what this rock business is all about, there’s nowhere better to go than http://www.tiscali.co.uk/events/2006/reading, which carries pin-sharp streams of many of the headline acts entertaining the sweaty hordes at this summer’s premier rock festival. Watching footage of veterans Pearl Jam playing their first Reading set for 16 years is inspiration enough to anyone, and this kind of web coverage, featuring full tracks, on demand, without the inane prattle of presenters, keeps the festival spirit alive long after the last tent has been packed away.

Remember: one day it could be you.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19509-2348960,00.html