OPM continues its slow evolution online

MANILA, Philippines - This is a chord.

This is another chord.

Now start a band.

The punk mantra was ?do it yourself.?

Don?t wait for some A and R rep to ?discover? you. Don?t wait for a record company to sign you. Don?t even wait until you learn how to ?really? play a guitar.

Just put your music out there.

It took some doing during the punk era. You had to scrape together enough cash to press a record to sell at gigs. Then, photocopy some flyers and mimeograph a fanzine. After all that work, perhaps 30 people would have heard of you, and half of them would have actually heard you.

Then, if you?re lucky, some A and R rep will discover you, a record company will sign you, and baby, you?re a rock?n?roll star.

Or not.

(And remember, back then, there weren?t any call center jobs to fall back on.)

Things are a lot easier today. Thanks to the Internet, you really can do it yourself.

Clubs are still the backbone of the local music scene. Old-school purists still hold fast to the notion that rock ?n? roll only comes alive onstage, live in the sweaty flesh.

But Pinoy music lives a preternatural half-life, unbound by the constraints of time and space, on the world-wide web.

Hardly a local band exists today that doesn?t have at least a MySpace page, or a Facebook or Multiply account. Bigger bands have their own websites (such as Bamboo?s site at bamboo.com.ph), or have dedicated fans maintaining fansites or blogs for them.

If you want to find out who?s playing where tonight, it?s simply a matter of looking up an online gig guide. And if you miss it, you can count on someone posting a review of the show on some blog somewhere.

As for recorded music, even the music industry has acknowledged that downloaded music is the way of the future. Fewer and fewer music fans own a CD player other than the one in their PC. MP3 players such as the iPod have become the norm, and downloads?legit or otherwise?the main source of music. A precedent of sorts was set last year when a singer-songwriter released her major-label solo debut online, as downloadable MP3s, well before launching a CD ?version.? But long before that, bands have been treating their fans to downloads of their songs, almost as quickly as they recorded them, thereby shattering the hegemony of the ?album? and in a way restoring the primacy of the ?single.?

One of the most established local music websites is PhilMusic.com, which dates back to the pre-worldwide web era of mailing lists and electronic bulletin boards. It has since grown into a full-time concern with regular news stories uploaded by a stable of online correspondents, an archive of feature stories, a forum for local musicians, even a classified ads section.

Philmusic covers everything from mainstream pop to indie acts to local blues and jazz bands.

Other sites tend to be more specialized, catering to their creators? peculiar tastes and obsessions. There are sites for emo kids, sites for ska enthusiasts, metalheads, punks, rastas, mods, hippies?there?s even a site for local prog-rockers, apparently.

Some sites are dedicated to preserving a particular slice of Pinoy music history. One site, for instance, is devoted to detailing every aspect of a single event that took place nearly 40 years ago?the Antipolo rock festival. It has accounts from people who were actually there, vintage photos, scans of the actual posters, band line-ups and set lists. If you?ve ever wondered what it was like during the local version of Woodstock, then this site?s for you.

Another site, therockofmanila.com, resurrects the golden era of legendary rock radio station dzRJ during the 1970s and early 1980s, with postings from former disc jockeys and streaming audio.

A former editor of the legendary music magazine Jingle Chordbook is patiently reconstructing its archives online on her blog, a godsend for fans since actual copies of the magazine now seem to be as rare as hen?s teeth.

These days, ?buzz? is generated on the Internet as much as it is in the more conventional media. Without YouTube, for instance, the chances that Arnel Pineda would have gotten his shot at fronting an international band such as Journey would have been exceedingly slim. Now scores of bands are posting homemade videos on YouTube, making it a viable alternative to MTV.

One area that remains to be explored is web radio and podcasting. Right now, only a few local pioneers are experimenting with creating their own webcasts, but if international trends hold, there is a good chance that internet radio will emerge as a major medium for new Pinoy music.