Pop Music : Pop Eye : Artists Treating Scalpers Uncharitably

Reselling tickets for prices well above face value has long been a dark corner of the concert business, a place where the free market and the black market intersect.

But now Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos, who have just started a tour together, are trying to use the Internet to bring some light into that realm. The idea: Channel the extra money people pay for premium seats to good causes.

For each Morissette-Amos show, 25 pairs of tickets are being auctioned on the Internet, with every cent above the face value being split by the artists’ designated charities--Amos’ share going to her Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) and Morissette’s going to local organizations in each tour community.

Auctioned via Tickets.com, the seats, with face values between $40 and $45, have been regularly bringing in more than $200 a pair.

And that’s nothing compared to the $13,050 one fan paid for a pair of front-row tickets plus backstage passes for a Bruce Springsteen date in Boston. It’s one of four shows for which a pair of tickets and passes is being auctioned though VH1’s Web site (https://bossauction.vh1.com), with the money going to Musicians on Call and to the Kristen Ann Carr Foundation.

In the case of Morissette and Amos, though, the purpose is not simply to direct money to charity, but also to direct tickets away from brokers.

“No matter how hard we try, we can’t keep tickets out of the scalpers’ hands,” says Morissette’s manager, Scott Welch. “If people are going to pay these kinds of prices for tickets anyway, at least with this, charities can benefit.”

It’s the latest twist on what for some artists has become a tradition--the “golden circle” approach with top tickets donated to charities that then sell them at a premium price. The idea appeals to Tom Campbell, who as executive director of Los Angeles-based Avocado Productions oversees “golden circle” activities for Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

“It’s a great spin as far as I can tell,” he says. “Maybe next time we’ll try it.”

Managers for several other prominent artists also find the system appealing and plan to investigate it further, and Tickets.com executive vice president of marketing Tim Kelly says discussions are underway with other acts, as well as promoters of sports events.

“I can see no downside to this,” says Arnold Stiefel, Rod Stewart’s manager, noting that Stewart donated 25 cents from each ticket on his last tour to the LifeBeat AIDS charity, and has regularly offered golden circle tickets to organizations. “It’s just the type of thing that would appeal to Rod.”

One prominent manager, though, takes a dissenting view.

“We considered this,” says Tony Dimitriades, who manages Tom Petty. “But our feeling was if you want to give money to charity, give money to charity--and Tom does. But we felt that anything that proliferates and encourages tickets to be sold for above face value is not good. Even for charity, it’s still giving these tickets to the elite. We prefer to save some front-row tickets and some other good seats each show and go to people with bad seats and give them these for nothing.”

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MOJO WORKING: Another error in the Dodgers’ woeful season--they let a great piece of L.A. rock history get away to the New York Mets. The Doors’ “L.A. Woman” has become the New York team’s theme song, with the phrase “Mr. Mojo risin’ ” as the Mets’ battle cry.

Mets’ media director Jay Horowitz says it was third baseman Robin Ventura who introduced the song to the team one day before a game that the team won. Baseball players being notoriously superstitious, Mets were soon wearing T-shirts under their uniforms with the key phrase on them, and the song has now become part of the ritual, played in the clubhouse after every Mets victory.

And now the team is inviting Patricia Kennealy Morrison, the former music journalist who married the band’s Jim Morrison, to a game. It was she who discovered that the letters of the singer’s name could be rearranged as Mr. Mojo Risin’ while the band was recording the “L.A. Woman” album.

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CHECK MATE: Veteran blues and rock fans know the name Chess. Chicago-based Chess Records was one of the birthplaces of modern blues and rock ‘n’ roll as the home of such Hall of Fame artists as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.

But what about Czyz? That’s the original Polish spelling of the Chess family’s name, and it’s the moniker of a new label founded by Marshall Chess, the son and nephew of the original company’s founders. And Marshall, 57, wants to do business the way he saw it done when he was assisting his dad and uncle before he even turned 13.

“Most of the record business has become like the shoe business,” says Chess, who also ran the Rolling Stones’ label in the ‘70s and more recently ARC Music publishing. “The real relationship between the artist and the man who runs the company doesn’t exist like it used to.”

With that in mind, he enlisted young guitarist Murali Coryell--son of jazz guitarist Larry Coryell--to make the label’s first album, titled “2120” in honor of the street address of Chess Records. Due Sept. 21, the album was recorded live in studio, without overdubs. But just because he’s old-fashioned doesn’t mean Chess is opposed to progress.

“The Internet fascinates me,” he says. “It’s like the old listening booths in record stores. It allows you to hear songs before you buy. And it will allow people to break the business formula.”