Musician Todd Rundgren is known for such 1970s pop hits as "Hello It's Me," but his wizardry as a producer, music video pioneer and explorer of computer technologies is legendary in the industry. Since 1998, his recordings have been underwritten by PatroNet, a subscription service that gives his loyal fan base online access to works in progress.

Music is a sacrament. This has been true for thousands of years of human history, save the last 100 or so. I'm sure it was not Edison's purpose to debase such an important aspect of our collective liturgy, but what would one expect when something that was once ephemeral and could only be experienced at the behest of other humans is reduced to a commodity on a shelf.

The mechanisms of music, how and why it affects us the way it does, are still mystical even to a cynical older record producer like myself. Anyone who denies the depth and power of this medium has simply forgotten, in the face of the relentless Philistine argument, that all things can be commoditized regardless of their sacred origins -- that all music is worth exactly what the RIAA says it is.

Most musicians who have enjoyed any success under this model are in an ethical bind: On one hand, you may believe that your survival depends on effective marketing of a commodity; on the other, you realize that your truest expressions are being trivialized to fit properly into a prealloted space. How many times have I heard the argument, "Love the record, but we don't hear a third single -- back to the studio"?

I must remind my fellow players that for the vast majority of history we have only been appreciated for the quality of human expression we could produce at the moment. Great performances were only memories in the minds of those who witnessed, each unique except perhaps for the calliope at the local merry-go-round which was, of course, a machine.

The plain reality is that, except for a few notable aberrations, musicians will always be more appreciated, certainly in a financial sense, by live audiences than by labels and the listeners they purport to represent. The seemingly quaint idea that recordings were promotion for great performers is no less true today. Ask Phish.

Ask also whether, as a musician, you ever believed the RIAA was actively protecting your interests until they got into a fight with their own customers and started using your name, your so-called well-being, as justification. And when the customers became skeptical they became the enemy. And to follow the RIAA's logic, customers are therefore the enemies of musicians. Let us ignore the fact that if you ever got compensated for your contribution, it would have been because your manager and lawyer (and many before) forced the labels to recognize your labor in financial terms.

The reason why the RIAA comes off as a gang of ignorant thugs is because, well, how do I put this -- they are. I came into this business in an age of entrepreneurial integrity. The legends of the golden age of recorded music were still at the helm of most labels -- the Ertegun's, the Ostins, the Alperts and Mosses by the dozens. Now we have four monolithic (in every sense of the word) entities and a front organization that crows about the fact that they have solved their problems by leaning on a 12-year-old. Thank God that mystical fascination with the world of music has been stubbed out -- hopefully everyone will get the message and get over the idea that the musician actually meant for you to hear this.

The RIAA protects musicians like the musicians union protects musicians: They reward hacks and penalize those outside the system. The labels are not making this stink out of principle. They are not interested in the rights of musicians who don't sell any records for them. That myth was exploded when Warners dropped Van Morrison for "lackluster sales."

This stink is about a bunch of dumb-asses blaming the public for doing what the labels could have -- and should have -- done 10 years ago. I know because I told them so, each and every one individually and relentlessly: Put the music on a server so you can deliver on-demand services to people's homes. Seems so stupidly simple now.

After nearly 40 years in this business I know who my friends are. I know it isn't the labels who lost interest in my "fringe audience" decades ago. It is that fringe audience who still await any recording or performance I may come up with despite the RIAA trying to drive some symbolic wedge between me and my listeners just because their ass is in a sling. Don't do me any favors.

Audiences and musicians are on the same side. Musicians come from the audience (unlike record execs who come from the ranks of failed musicians). We experience together the mystical sacrament that a musical performance can represent. Additionally, we will be comfortably if not handsomely compensated by that audience if we can deliver a suitably affecting performance with some regularity.

It's time to let the monolith of commoditized music collapse like the Berlin Wall. Musicians can make records if they feel like it, or not. Wide open pipes are ready to transport us, mainstream and fringe alike, into the ears of an eager audience who appreciates us and is more than willing to financially support us. Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand because ... you know the rest by heart.

Published Oct. 22, 2003