As long as music has been recorded, bands have been searching for alternative ways of releasing their music without having to sell out to The Man. Kevin Courtneyreports on a new online initiative that hopes to launch a plethora of rockin' careers

RECORD companies, eh? Can't live with 'em, can't burn 'em down. They throw a six-figure advance at you, then expect you to write decent songs and record half-listenable albums. They spend millions on top producers, studios, packaging, promotion and advertising, then have the cheek to ask the public to actually pay for the finished product. And woe betide you if you dare to upload their stuff without permission - they seem to have more lawyers than artists on their books.

The indie labels aren't much better, either. Sure, they'll nurture you at the early stages of your career, buy the Rizlas and help pay the HP on your amplifier, but as soon as you break through and the big-money offers start pouring in from the majors, your little indie label will become a big pain in the ass, refusing to release you from your contract, and banging on about protecting their investment. When Silvertone refused to allow The Stone Roses to abscond to a major, the likely lads were forced to take drastic action and "do" a Jackson Pollock all over a Silvertone exec's car. The ensuing court battle ensured that the Roses were tied up for the next few years with nothing to do but hang around the studio with lots of Mancunian talcum powder.

Since the dawn of the recorded music industry, bands have been searching for alternative ways of releasing their music without having to sell out to The Man. Now, with the age of downloading upon us, new avenues for self-promotion have opened up, and there's no shortage of young entrepreneurs ready to exploit the new routes to rock'n'roll stardom.

We all know about MySpace, where bands have their own pages and can give away free downloads of their music, but anyone wanting to make a buck out of that method of distribution would need Lily Allen's PR team to help turn street cred into sales. With just a few exceptions, most small record labels have to do it the old-fashioned way: sign up a young band, help them develop their sound and build up a buzz, release a few singles and EPs, and hope that when the band eventually breaks big, they won't get poached by a big label.

But there are still a few people out there willing to take a leftfield route to getting the music out there. FOR instance, www.sellaband.com sees internet users as potential A&R people and investors. If you like a band on the site, you can buy shares in them online, and help them along the road to stardom. Set up by Dutch entrepreneur Pim Betist and directed by former Sony BMG exec Johan Vosmeijer, Sellaband wants to give the public the power to choose the music they like - and put their money where their tastes lie. The band uploads its music for free, and if you like what you hear, you can become a "believer" and pledge money to the cause. If a band can pull in enough shares, they can record their album - and their investors will get a special edition of the CD, plus a stake in the site's ad revenue. We're not talking big money here, but every little helps.

Denver Thomas thinks he's found a neat way to sidestep the music industry monolith and get the music delivered straight to the listeners - and directly into the charts. His label, SonikDub, launches later this month, and he's looking for young bands to sign. But, unlike the major labels, he won't be waving any big fat cheques in the air; on the contrary - and bands of a nervous disposition better sit down for this - he'll be asking you to pay him to release your record.

For many young Irish bands who think the world owes them a record deal, the idea of paying someone to release their records might seem tantamount to heresy, but Thomas believes that the days of record companies handing out money to every Tom, Dick and Bono are over, and that if bands want to make names for themselves, then they have to do it by themselves. Besides, even if your band did manage to catch the interest of a major label (and few bands do these days unless they've already released music off their own bat and built up a fanbase), any monetary advance would be nothing more than a loan, to be paid back in full after you've sold your first million albums. And the record company retains all your copyrights, and ownership of all your recorded work, not to mention your kidneys and your firstborn. Thomas, a musician and dancer originally from Southampton, has had first-hand experience of record company dependency that nearly sank him.

"I had a band in the US, and our management company threw a cheque for a quarter of a million dollars at us," he recalls. "We were like, yeah, take it. But they wanted six times their investment back, and deals of around three million were being thrown on the table from record companies. We worked out that we'd have to sell four million copies of our debut album just to break even."

If Damien Rice had released his debut album, O, on a major label, he would probably be as broke as he looks, but the fact that he released it on his own label and retained control of all his copyrights, both songwriting and mechanical, means that he could afford some decent jeans if he felt so inclined. Denver Thomas believes that, instead of sitting around waiting for record companies to come knocking at their door (about as likely as the Pope dropping in for a spliff), bands need to take control of their careers and be proactive in getting their product out to the general public.

Sonikdub, says Thomas, is an "open-source" label that allows bands to sell their songs through such top online music stores as iTunes, Vodafone and the 3Music store. All sales from these sites count towards a chart position, so if the band puts the work into pushing their product, they can feasibly score a Top 10 hit.

For a flat fee, Sonikdub will upload your songs onto a number of online music stores (including its own Sonikpollen store, due to open soon), and produce 1,000 physical copies of your CD so you can send them off to newspapers, radio stations and even to big record companies. The label launches officially later this month, and will announce themselves to the world via a gig at Dublin's Crawdaddy on May 1st, featuring three unsigned bands who will be using the label's services. You can bet there'll be a few industry people there, too, checking out to see if this new label can point the way to a future for their acts.

"We're not making a fortune here," insists Thomas. "This is about bringing in enough to keep things ticking over. We're getting a lot of interest from managers and producers who want to use Sonikdub to develop their acts. I wanted to do a concept that could protect artists. If a big label signs you, they're not signing you because they love your music. You're just a product to them, whether you're Bruce Springsteen or U2 or a small indie band. I'd say to bands, forget what you think a record contract is. Take the Disney out of the equation. Some bands still think that all they have to do is play Whelans and upload one song on the web and a record company will come up waving a blank cheque. It doesn't work like that.

"A major label will put in X amount of money and take 99 per cent of your future. Bands come to us and hand over a small amount of money, and they keep the rights to their future, but we also give them the industry tools to get a chart ranking, purely from self-promotion. I think that's good value for money."

www.sonikdubcom, www.sellaband.com

LAZYBIRD

With a roster that includes Dry County, Rollers/Sparkers and NeoSuperVital, Lazybird are not backward in coming forward with pale, interesting acts who are not afraid to dabble in every genre from country to electronica to disco. The label also runs its own club night every Sunday at the International bar in Wicklow Street, Dublin.

REEKUS

Run by the redoubtable Elvera Butler, Reekus is home to such diverse acts as Sligo expat Perry Blake, ex-Rollerskate Skinny guy Stephen Murray - aka The Radio - and ex-Lir tinkler David Hopkins. Reekus is also the place you'll find classic stuff by Ireland's great lost hopes, The Blades.

TRUST ME I'M A THIEF

Trust this label to provide a platform for leftfield lads such as Jape and Goodtime John. One of its artists, Si Schroeder, was nominated for a Choice Music Prize for his album, Coping Mechanisms. TMIAT also boasts the fab Redneck Manifesto and the frankly scary Warlords of Pez.

1969 RECORDS

Founded by a group of music heads who were "sick of too much style and not enough substance", 1969 nevertheless features two of Dublin's most stylish acts, Thomas Walsh aka Pugwash and Dave Couse, ex-A House and now fronting Dave Couse & the Impossible. Expect tunes you can sing along to that remind you of the good times.