Struggling garage bands from Poughkeepsie to Pittsburgh are selling their souls to the devil: Howard Stern -- and it's paying dividends. Throughout his illustrious career, and frequently of late, the King of All Media has stripped a handful of desperate musicians of their pride and dignity -- daring them to suck toilet water out of his soiled shorts, eat his snot and basically do anything worthy of ridicule in exchange for a little airplay on his syndicated radio show. The bottom line is Stern's gross-out stunts seem to be working, according to the objects of the King's derision.

One of the first such guinea pigs was unknown Trenton, N.J., guitar rock trio named Internal Neurotic Universe. Last year, the group piled into their Caravan and hauled ass to Manhattan at 6 o'clock in the morning to answer a challenge Stern broadcast the day before. They were to outdo a zealous Boston band by not only eating the shock jock's snot, but by washing it down with spit from his sidekick, Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling.

"We had tried everything possible to get on the Howard Stern show," said INU frontman Joe Halsey, who sucked down the noxious concoction in a white contamination suit. After stalking Stern during his Private Parts book signing tour, mailing him yearly birthday gifts and pestering everyone affiliated with the radio show for years, the band had finally found its break.

"You guys are sick bastards," Stern said on the air after Halsey guzzled the booger and then literally swapped spit with his bandmates -- brothers Dave and Ray Pantaleone. Rude and crude worked, however, because Stern not only played the band's single, "Stalker," he also renamed them Bigger Than Plastic -- the original title of the band's sophomore album. "Maybe you should call yourselves Hungrier Than Gandhi," Stern joked afterward. "Man these guys are hungry. They want to be famous in a real big way."

Fame, however scant, did follow the Stern cameo. "It opened doors that wouldn't have been open otherwise," Halsey said, noting that Bigger Than Plastic's gross-out helped them gross more than $10,000 last year. "Radio stations introduced us as the guys who ate the booger, and we were instantly recognized."

Another aspiring band, Manhattan's Toilet Boys, launched into contract negotiations immediately following their bold appearance on Stern's morning show earlier this month. Roadrunner Records was the first to take notice when Toilet Boys' guitarist and self-professed "media assassin" Sean (no last name) weaseled his way into Stern's studio by posing as the fictitious Johnny Rock & Roll, manager for Candy Ass, an all-girl band that gladly stripped naked on national radio and, subsequently, Stern's national Saturday night CBS-TV show. Meanwhile, Sean plugged his "laser punk/go-go rock" band, convinced Stern to play their single, "Another Day in the Life," and escaped the studio without ingesting any fecal matter whatsoever.

"My concept is that the Howard Stern show is just another facet of the promotion business," Sean says. "He makes his living being a prick to people, but I respect the shit out of him because his show is all based on balls -- and that's rock & roll."

For a well-known New York club band that's opened for Rancid, hob-nobbed with Mercury Records' new raunch rockers Nashville Pussy and plans to play with the Donnas in California next week, the Toilet Boys see Stern as the gatekeeper to certifiable stardom. Other future marketing ploys -- a trumped up legal battle on The People's Court and a brawl on the Jerry Springer Show -- will only help the cause.

"Toilet Boys have thirteen months to get the biggest record deal of the millennium ... we're talking three million dollars," Sean says in all sincerity. "We're already an up-and-running rock & roll machine going for broke and kicking ass. Now we're waiting for someone to invest in the gasoline." Which, of course, they'll gladly drink for exposure.

ANNI LAYNE