J.P. Anderton, a vice president at Duncan's, says that Clear Channel's formatting is overwhelmingly "CHR, contemporary hit radio." In other words, Top 40. Translated, that means big bands with big marketing muscle on a national scale. "Clear Channel," says Anderton, who covers ratings and audience surveys for Duncan's, "has the types of stations that play the music that fills the [concert] venues."

SFX's control of those venues is what enticed Clear Channel into the deal. "We see a lot of synergy between the two companies," comments Randy Palmer, Clear Channel vice president for investor relations. "There are big cross-promotional activities. Who pushes a concert? Radio. And vice versa: The artist and the concerts can promote the local radio stations."

That level of concentration is what makes independent promoters nervous. "It's a two-sided sword," says Gary Bongiovanni, "giving them [Clear Channel] the power to say: 'Do your show with us, and we can give your record heavy airplay.'"

The ability to leverage radio play for concert appearances veers dangerously close to what was once known as payola, the infamous practice outlawed in the 1950s in which record companies paid disc jockeys to spin their latest tunes. "Instead of blow and sex and cash," comments Dave Kirby, an independent promoter with the Agency Group in New York, "it's payola in a different form." The key difference, of course, being that the money ends up not in fewer pockets, but in one huge pocket. The new Clear Channel-SFX combine gets it both ways.

"If the government felt that Bill Gates and his company could be divided, they should be coming to the same conclusion with SFX and Clear Channel," asserts Kirby. Kirby came face-to-face with SFX's marketing muscle when he put together the heavy-metal Tattoo the Earth tour this summer and was forced to book exclusively in non-SFX venues (which are harder and harder to find) because SFX feared competition with its wholly owned tour of Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest.

Clear Channel's president of radio operations, Randy Michaels, provided a taste of how the new musical hydra could ratchet up that marketing muscle. In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer shortly after the merger was announced, Michaels asserted that during an upcoming Britney Spears date in Ohio, the company had no intention of tying in the usual promotions and celebrity appearances with any non-Clear Channel station. "When Britney Spears comes here," he told Enquirer columnist John Kiesewetter, "is [CBS/Infinity station WKR]Q going to get a piece of that? No, they're not."

Such practices are "certainly possible" elsewhere once the merger has gone through, says Clear Channel executive Randy Palmer. In other instances across the country, bands have been threatened with removal from Clear Channel station playlists if they refuse to appear in an SFX venue.

The SFX-Clear Channel combination puts artists in a difficult bind. Pearl Jam's ill-fated effort to defy Ticketmaster in the mid-'90s -- which led to the cancellation of the band's tour, and a virtual collapse of resistance to corporate dominance of the ticket industry -- hangs like a specter over artists who might consider resisting the new combine. Few musicians can afford to bite the hand of a company that they must rely on for concert dates and radio play.

About as vocal a protest of the merger as you'll see from any nationally recognized musician is a comment on the Indigo Girls' Web site. Even artists like Bonnie Raitt, who announced her opposition to the National Association of Broadcasters' effort to repeal the FCC's introduction of new low-power FM frequencies, did so several times at SFX venues -- venues which will shortly be owned by Clear Channel, which played a major role in lobbying against the low-power initiative.

Jennifer Toomey, former lead singer of the indie rock band Tsunami, bemoans the impact on small bands just starting out, many of whom face a dwindling number of venues in which to play. Toomey is co-founder of the Future of Music Coalition in Washington, which aims to promote the culture of independent music. "You're going to have more music that's huge and on every station across the country," she says, "or music that doesn't get played at all."

SFX has already shattered the intricate dynamic of relationships that once characterized the live music business. The tacit understandings that once sustained concert promoters as powerhouses in their own regions have been ruptured as SFX propels concert promotion onto a national scale. Now, all bets are off. Recently, Scher began promoting concerts -- by Korn, the Backstreet Boys and Brian McKnight, among others -- at independent venues in the heart of Don Law territory in Boston and Providence, R.I.

"The entertainment industry is different from any other business," says Scher, who continues to hold out hope for independents like himself. "There is one essential ingredient you must have: living, breathing, dancing human beings. In that regard anyway, they won't be able to control everything."

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