Net, -nyet, naut?

Open Door airs for portal-bility

by Michael Caito

Natraj

Saturday afternoon's show at Waterplace Park featuring Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies marks the opening splash bash for the new Open Door record label and online CD vendor. The name itself represents an important tenet in this new Providence-based company's philosophy, which finds the start-up butting heads with such established online music megacorps as Music Boulevard and CDNow. Their aim, as explained in a recent release by co-founder Dan Petronelli, posits that "when people come to our site to listen to, say, the new Goo Goo Dolls, they'll get a chance to check out our own artists, too."

Vital to the Open Door philosophy is the concept that area artists are featured side by each with the Robbie and Johnny Goos of platinum sales land, and not relegated to tiny link status to a web page somewhere several layers below their home page directory.

As consumer use on the jargon-drenched internet commerce jungle becomes more prevalent, this month's buzzword, if one is to believe trades like Internet World (which Iconfess to reading every single week) is "portal." Though definitions of it may vary, many monied 'net vets -- from Microsoft to Netscape to Amazon. com to Yahoo! -- see their viability as portals as being critical in their continuing quest to be the place either for surfers to blow dough or to lure advertisers into forking it over directly.

While this buzzword's precise definition does vary slightly depending upon who's doing the defining, generally it involves a company's enabling and positioning their sites as searchable launching pads for surfers to head toward preferred websites, which either vend directly or advertise for places that do. Everybody and his freakin' brother wants to be a portal, a default home page, and Petronelli says their ultimate goal is just that . . . that music-loving people will start at www. Open Door.com and surf from there, pausing to test drive their CDs, pore over some local musical gusto and, of course, buy some.

Recent instances of the mad scramble for creating portals:last week four search engine companies (Snap, Lycos, InfoSeek, AltaVista) just handed Microsoft $60 million for "premium placement" in that behemoth's expanding portal plans, Netscape is now relying heavily on its expanded NetCenter, and so on down the line. Kinda funny that one synonym for "portals" is "gates." A little geek humor for your ass. Anyway . . . .

Established music vendors like Music Boulevard and CDNow gain leverage and lifeblood revenue from the major record labels (and TV, and clothing stores, blahblahblah) which pay for placement of website banners, hyperlinks and the like, a fact not at all lost on Open Door, who plan to forge label and distribution alliances among many genres of music, bringing their initial CD catalog to a quarter of a million titles. What's more, they're also actively soliciting for their Open Door Records roster, the record label company within a company. The label currently seeks demos -- "mainly, but not exclusively, popular/alternative rock acts" -- which will serve as their own showcase and breeding ground of Southern New England talent. There will be a booth at the site Saturday for the answers to the questions interested musicians will doubtless have, but it should be mentioned that the event is also a fundraiser for the 1 of 52 Network, which combats hunger throughout the country.

Speaking with Petronelli from the Dorrance Street office which will serve as Open Door HQ, he said of Open Door Records "We plan on serving as a farm team, not forgetting how important it is to do the grass roots work." That represents huge marketing challenges and a non-stop foot race to keep pace with emerging technologies like live streaming (this is radio cache on pirate satellite) and the now-inevitable rise of downloadable tunes. Not to mention the ubiquitous bandwidth bugaboo.

The competition is fierce, incredibly monied and, at the moment, getting ridiculous amounts of press for the tiniest of marketing ploys, like this week's decision by CDNow allowing repeat buyers to accumulate points towards free purchases down the road. Just about every store on earth does this, but when an online company does it all of a sudden it's news. That's the froth 'net-related stories evoke as the Millenium approaches and everybody gets twisted up in interknots. How well Open Door ultimately fare as Davids in this well-populated, high-tech and higher-stakes Goliathville will be interesting to witness, as they prepare for their imminent website rollout in the hope that it'll be a lot more internet than internot.

Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies appear with Bare Jr. and more at Waterplace Park on Saturday at noon;the rain location is Bootleggers.

STARS & BARS. EBN's Gardner Post appears with DJ Spooky, who will be off the hook if his life show's half as good as his latest Riddim Warfare (Outpost). The Combustibles arrive, too, as do Natraj next Thursday (10.15). Those Indian jazz stalwarts from Winchester have just released the scintillating Deccan Dance (Galloping Goat). The quintet (Phil Scarff on soprano sax, Mat Maneri on violin, Michael Rivard on bass, Jerry Leake on tabla and percussion, and Bertram Lehmann on drums and percussion) may use raga as a jumping-off point but the moods they swing from trad Indian cuts ("Raga Bihag," Parts I and II) to Ghanaian instrumentation like gankogui and axatse on "Na Yella Bo" make this album's (perhaps inadvertant?) titular pun very forgivable. If you think Indian music requires a reliance on sitar, think again, and head to CAV for thee exotic thrill of the week. Very sharp disc.

Not to stir up trouble, but I wonder if anyone will ask the New York Times representative (at Action Speaks at AS220 Tuesday) about a guy named Kevin Mitnick, who is, unbelievably, still in jail?

Shred at WBCN writes about college airplay solicitation:The Colby-Sawyer College radio station MD is looking to play local bands on her show; her e-mail address is mmccarth@colby-sawyer. edu and her name is Megan McCarthy.

Opening Night of the R.I. Philharmonic's Classical Series is still a week away, but that week offers an earlier opportunity for interaction before the curtain rises on Maestro Larry Rachleff's third season. In conjunction with Brown's Music Department, a series of free Masterclasses presented by soloists who perform with the Philharmonic this season take place at Brown's Grant Recital Hall from 4 until 5:30 p.m. on the Friday preceding the Classical Series concert in which the artist is featured.

Dates and artists are: Friday, October 16, music director Rachleff who will conduct the Opening Night Concert 10.17 and the Sunday repeat 10.18; Friday, November 13, soprano Lori Phillips will perform Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G major; Friday, January 15, pianist John Browning will perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58; Friday, February 26, violinist Mark Peskanov will perform Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219; Friday, March 12, guitarist Sharon Isbin will perform the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez; Friday, April 16, pianist Oleg Volkov, will perform Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 11 in C minor, and Friday, May 7, cellist Colin Carr performs Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor.

Each Masterclass is free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, given the seating capacity at Grant Recital Hall is only 150. Area music instructors will soon receive info about the classes, according to the Philharmonic, and are encouraged to "present their more advanced high school and college students for a 15-minute coaching by one of the artists." Details at 831-3123.