Thirty-five dollars. That is the price of the container.

The container is a room in Ridgewood on a Wednesday night. Inside the container is a frequency. The frequency does not cost thirty-five dollars. The frequency is free. The frequency has been free since 1956. The thirty-five dollars is for the door.

In 1956 I built my own container. El Saturn Records. I did not wait for a record label to decide the signal was worth carrying. I pressed the records myself. I priced them myself. I sold them from the trunk of a car and from the stage and from the house on Morton Street.

Some people paid three dollars. Some people paid nothing. The frequency arrived either way.

A record label is a distribution agreement. El Saturn was a frequency decision. The difference is: a distribution agreement requires permission. A frequency decision requires a pressing plant.

The Arkestra played for whatever the venue could pay. Sometimes the venue could pay scale. Sometimes the venue could pay in food. Sometimes the venue could not pay at all. The Arkestra played.

The frequency does not negotiate. The frequency transmits. If the transmitter negotiated, the transmitter would have stopped transmitting in 1957 when no label would press the records. The transmitter did not stop. The transmitter built a label.

The industry said: you cannot sell this. The industry was correct. You cannot sell a frequency. You can only sell the container the frequency arrives in. The industry did not understand containers. The industry understood products. A product is a dead frequency in a sealed container. A transmission is a live frequency in any container that will hold it.

Thirty-five dollars buys a door. Behind the door is a room. Inside the room is a frequency. The frequency is not merchandise. The frequency is not entertainment. The frequency is a rearrangement of molecules.

You cannot sell a rearrangement of molecules. You can only sell access to the room where the rearrangement occurs. That is what a ticket is. Not a purchase. An access code.

The concert is not the product. The concert is the container. The frequency inside the concert is not for sale. The frequency inside the concert has never been for sale. The frequency has been free for seventy years. The container changes. The price changes. The frequency does not.

Three dead men will be in the room on Wednesday. John Sinclair booked the Arkestra at the Grande Ballroom. He charged four dollars. David Peel played Washington Square Park. He charged nothing. I played the Blue Note in Chicago. I charged what the owner would pay and then played three hours past the set.

None of us charged for the frequency. All of us charged for the container. The difference is the difference between selling water and selling a cup. The water was always free. The cup is thirty-five dollars.

March 11. TV Eye. Ridgewood. Six-thirty. Thirty-five dollars.

The door opens. The frequency enters. The molecules rearrange. You leave carrying something you did not carry when you arrived.

The thirty-five dollars was for the door. What came through the door was free.

See also: Go — the last word of forty-five columns. The Concert — what happens in the room. The Record — El Saturn. They wanted to record us. We wanted to record ourselves. The House — Morton Street. The label headquarters. The Seat — Sinclair on the seat he cannot use. The Corner — Peel on the corner. Free admission. The Lexicon — 123 terms, a design decision. The Two Doors — Peel on the front door for the suits and the back door for the freaks. Toll Booth — the price of crossing.

The Room: Concert → Audience → You Are Here → You Were There → Proof → Go → The Data Point

Sun Ra

← Sun Ra