On the for-profit front, Dorf and Rasiej spent a couple of years as 50-50 partners wrangling and redrafting a business plan, then hired the preternaturally mellow Werth, a creator of the first-generation city-guide site Total New York, to help them get it into final form. When they started off on the venture-capital circuit, the team quickly learned that potential investors didn't like the idea of co-CEOs; they wanted to know who was in charge. The Knitting Factory's planned expansion to Los Angeles and Berlin preoccupied Dorf, who's known as more of a visionary than an executive. Rasiej, who had sold Irving Plaza to concert-promoting powerhouse SFX Entertainment for nearly $2 million, assumed the CEO spot.

In July 1999, DCN landed $1.5 million in seed money from Carlin Ventures, which had known about Rasiej via mouse. Dorf, though still DCN chairman, receded from day-to-day involvement, and his company KnitMedia eventually sold part of its stake in the network to raise cash for its over-budget L.A. club.

Even after the dot-com funding well ran almost totally dry this spring, DCN closed on $12 million more of financing in May at a $53 million valuation. After the festival, DCN will look to raise $30 million to $50 million more, at a price that will probably make the last venture round look like a fire sale.

On a 24-hour-turnaround trip to Seattle, Rasiej pays a call on the Showbox, an 800-capacity room complete with smoke-damaged paint job, stale-beer bouquet, and perpetually twirling mirror ball. Since it pulls in about 100 national acts a year, he wants it badly for his Northwest hub.

Despite straddling two industries that spearheaded five-day casual, Rasiej wears what he seems most comfortable in -- a navy Armani blazer. The old-school touch suggests both a New Yorker's reluctance to part too completely with his East Coast identity and the slightest strategic whiff of Establishment credibility.

"Andrew will be a politician in ten years," Calacanis pronounces with just a touch of jest. "He's done an even better job of branding Andrew Rasiej than Mouse or DCN."

Jeff Steichen, the Showbox's goateed fortysomething owner, has been a harder sell than most. "We've been met with lots of models for what a Web broadcast needs, how you monetize it," he explains over the din of noonday beer deliveries and pinball repairs. "We're right in the middle of a lot of technology stuff here in Seattle -- we live and breathe it -- so we're a little skeptical."

Jason Fitzgerald, a booker and manager, shows more enthusiasm: "DCN brings it all together -- they'll have a great selection, the best clubs in the world, strength in numbers." In other words, when it comes to making a business of Webcasting, a club cartel should have a better shot than a bunch of unallied Showboxes. They also have a better shot at negotiating with artists, record labels, publishers, and other rights-holders to cut deals everyone's happy with.

The clubs get a piece of any DCN revenues their shows generate, plus a chunk of DCN stock options, which could be worth somewhere in the mid­six figures if the network succeeds. "The stock certainly sweetens the pot," Steichen says, although he still hasn't made a definite decision. "We watch the market daily here on our computers -- we gaze at the Internet while we lick our brick-and-mortar wounds."

DCN's locational rights are only one element in the music business's famously byzantine tangle. Live performances themselves are almost always owned by the artist; today, every time it wants to stream a show, DCN has to negotiate with the band. Artists and/or their labels will generally get between 25 and 50 percent of any money DCN makes on both live-broadcast and archived material. Eventually, the network hopes to standardize its clubs' booking contracts to include Webcasting permission.

Rights to the archive are even more convoluted. Unsigned acts (i.e., most of those that play DCN clubs) can generally grant ownership of their performances to DCN. Why would they sign? Because with worldwide reach and ample royalties, DCN will be able to give them the best deal. But with acts signed to major labels, the label almost always owns all recordings the band makes while under contract. BMG is negotiating an agreement as part of a possible strategic investment; others are at least discussing DCN. But none have committed. Until they do, the value of DCN's archive remains in question.

DCN also has some brand-name competition. House of Blues, the nation's second-largest concert promoter behind SFX, already Webcasts an impressive slate of live shows (this summer's lineup includes the Beastie Boys, Santana, and N'Sync) and has secured a distribution deal with MTVi. The company, which recently filed to go public, has also begun to get into smaller venues, mopping up whatever Rasiej misses (DCN lacks a strong presence in California, where HoB is based) and installing higher-quality video equipment than DCN has in its clubs. House of Blues Senior Vice President of Digital Technology Stephen Felisan thinks DCN's small-pond strategy won't work, because the audience just won't be big enough to pay off. "You can't have the small emerging artists only -- people don't just want to see those kinds of artists."

Though DCN will carry some big acts, it will admittedly not feature established stars all that often. (This weekend's festival will be an exception.) Rasiej charges that House of Blues' investment in high-end video will prove wasted, and notes that his company will generally have more extensive rebroadcast rights to the material it records. Typically, he ends up spinning the situation as a win-win. He contends that any success for House of Blues would ultimately help DCN by validating Webcasting. "Cybercasting and archiving are going to be part of the business," Rasiej insists.

Problem is, he isn't sure which part. At the moment, he's enthusiastic about one potential source of revenue for DCN: data-mining, or compiling and selling information about how many of which people are interested in what new bands to A&R departments. At least some major labels have taken an interest.

"If there's an unsigned artist we're seriously looking at, it's great to get online usage stats and comments," says Elektra Records' new-media VP Camille Hackney. "Outside of an A&R person flying to Podunk to see a show and catch the vibe, it's a good way to see what's going on."

But data-mining is merely this week's idea. Depending on the prevailing winds, next week's Rasiej spiel might focus on DCN itself becoming a record label that uses audience data to snatch bands before the majors. Or DCN could go pay-per-view. Or it could charge an all-you-can-eat subscription fee for its thousands of shows a month. Or, as concertgoers head out after a show, it could offer to sell them a CD of the gig. Or it could make its live Webcasts free and charge five or ten bucks for archived shows. Or something.

There's one thing he's sure of: The rights intrinsic to prime brick-and-mortar real estate -- for example, several dozen leading nightclubs regularly packed with rabid music fans -- will always end up valuable to someone.

Gack at Calacanis's Rising Tide confab, Rasiej has ascended to schmooze heaven. One minute, he's pitching former police commissioner William Bratton on a plan to hire uniformed off-duty cops to keep the peace outside nightclubs, as they do at sporting events. The next, he's mind-melding with an ABC News producer about educational technology initiatives. Then he's advising a leading nanotechnology CEO on P.R. strategy. Rasiej works a room best when it's crowded with people from all different walks of life. "He has that ability, in a 1,000-person cocktail party, to make you feel you're the only person in the room," says one Alley acquaintance.

That's a politician's skill, and elected types recognize it -- which is why Rasiej will keep busy this summer between DCN deals by fielding calls from the likes of Torricelli. "Andrew has a tremendous ability to bridge the gap between key leaders in the high-tech community and in government," says New Jersey's soon-to-be-senior senator.