Myspace.com might be the biggest usurper of cubicle-job man-hours since e-mail first came along, but it and Purevolume.com sure are handy when a band with no PR skills, or no taste for self-promotion in general, comes to town. Now that approximately 642 emo, screamo or metalcore bands play the Bay area each week, it’s nice to know I can usually find a couple of tunes from each on one or the other of the online communities. Bands outside the usual hip indie genres are catching on, too. But the label infiltration has already begun; hopefully we won’t run into an mp3.com situation, where the unsigned artists get squeezed out by too many majors buying their way into what they see only as a viral marketing tool. www.myspace.com; www.purevolume.com. - Scott Harrell
