So, you may find yourself in a shotgun shack or behind the wheel of a large automobile. But when, in your beautiful house, with or without your beautiful wife, in the middle of internet ground-zero, do as everyone else does and launch a start-up. Harrison has helped found, and sits on the board of, garageband.com, a purportedly listener-driven site where nobodies like you and me get to pretend we're really A&R flunkies for a label. Interesting idea, but there are too many flaws in the Vaseline, so to speak, and my radar tells me that all is not as cool as the hipster lingo that peppers the site.

After a simple registration process, you are able to listen to music in pairs of songs and rate them. From the site, the utterly lame Real Player is launched and I experienced the usual fall-outs and glitches associated with the Edsel of streaming music players, regardless of connection speed. Based on a calculation of the ratings, songs are ranked and the top 100-ranked tunes are moved onto a chart during a "final review" period. The band behind the top-ranked song at the end of the final review period is awarded a $250,000 recording contract. But that's not all kids!! There's an A-list advisory board led by Sir George Martin himself and includes other luminaries ranging from Steve Earle to Steve Lillywhite who, at any time, can award a contract to some deserving -- all together now -- garage band.

The technology (the proprietary Lathroum Preference Engine) behind the reviewing promotes total equality: the artists are not identified to you beforehand and all songs considered during the final review stage must be reviewed the same number of times. However, I wonder just how egalitarian the whole process really is. Out of the 100 songs in the current final review, none were categorized as electronic or dance. Additionally, I don't think I heard one female vocalist in all of the songs I reviewed.

After listening the first of two songs, you answer a handful of extremely broad questions about the track (did you find it irritating, boring, OK or engaging) and finally review it on a one-to-five scale. You follow the same process for the second song and are asked which you prefer. There is also the opportunity to become the next Rob Brookman and write a review of the song that is sent directly to the band. "Constructive criticism" is preferred. At the end of your second review, you are then shown whom you have been listening to and can link to bios submitted by the bands.

Seemingly tens thousands of unsigned bands have sent songs to garageband.com. The band is allowed to place its songs into one of twelve undefined categories. I'd like some help with the difference between "pop," "pop/rock," "alternative," "punk" and "rock," please. Nevertheless, even if the band does not have a digital file of a song to upload themselves, they can mail in a demo and for $20 a pop (or pop/rock or rock), garageband.com will upload it for the band.

For the non-musician, to make your time worthwhile, you earn garageband.com points (of the frequent flyer variety) for each review you complete and can cash them in for various gifts after you have reviewed 200 songs. There are several other gee-whiz features on the site including a tip of the day to a selected track from a big-name producer or engineer and "bonus" points awarded to the review of the day. Two current promotions make me wonder if the former CBGB denizen has imbibed too much California cabernet: chances to vote a song onto the soundtrack of the next Adam Sandler movie, or for a band to win a support slot for an upcoming Limp Bizkit gig. Where can I rock the vote on those?

In theory, I really like the general idea. However, I heard so much shitty music during my visits to the site over the past few weeks, I could care less if any of them receive the $250,000 record contract that is the big draw behind the site. Out of about two dozen songs that I listened to and reviewed, I gave four stars once and practically everything else "merited" one or two.

There are some issues that deeply puzzle me; chiefly, where is the money coming from? There are some banner ads, but who is ponying up the quarter-million bucks? Makes me wonder if garageband.com may be fiscally tied in some way to the future revenues generated by a band coming up through its system. This sounds suspiciously like more fingers dipping into the pockets of naïve youngsters playing with corporate attorneys for the first time. Deep in the press releases on the site, none other than Jerry Harrison is named as the producer for the second of the only two bands awarded the coveted contract. In fact, the last award was made in February. That corresponded with the site's stated goal of awarding a contract every two months (the site launched in October 1999), one that hasn't been met in the ensuing six months.