BY JAMES HOOKWAY

YANGON, Myanmar—As the volume rises inside Myanmar for the U.S. and Europe to lift strict sanctions, some noise is also coming from an unlikely quarter: a local underground rock band.

Garage rockers Side Effect took to the Internet last year to rustle up enough money to release their debut album without relying on the conservative record labels that dominate the music scene here among the crumbling, mildewed buildings of Myanmar's commercial and artistic hub.

Inspired by the do-it-yourself drive of the 1970s punk-rock movement and the success of modern, Internet-savvy groups such as Britain's Arctic Monkeys, who used the Web ...