That’s because you’re going to want to spend a lot of time at Rehearsals.com. Maybe a couple of hours or perhaps an afternoon. Better yet, lock the door, turn off your cell phone and tell all your friends you’re out of the country for the week. It’s that good.

As the name implies, Rehearsals.com is about rehearsals, and features clips focusing on bands and artists practicing their chops as they get ready to go on tour. But it’s more than that. It’s Toto’s Steve Lukather getting together with Glen Campbell for some down-home picking and grinning. It’s test driving The New Cars, experiencing the alluring catnip of The Pussycat Dolls and seeing how all the elements come together to make Earth, Wind & Fire.

Owned by Burbank-based CenterStaging Music Productions, 10-month-old Rehearsals.com makes good use of CenterStaging’s 11 rehearsal studios and one sound stage. With remote-controlled cameras capturing all the action, bands and artists need not worry about cameramen and floor directors getting in the way while they work on their performances. The results are video clips that come across as natural as Mick Fleetwood pounding the skins, and as intimate as Beth Hart describing the respect her bandmates have for each other.

To get the behind-the-scenes lowdown on Rehearsals.com’s behind-the-scenes action, we talked to two CenterStaging execs – chief operating officer Paul “Schmidi” Schmidman and executive VP of business development Tommy Nast.

Schmidman’s no stranger to Web entertainment. Before joining Rehearsals.com, Schmidman held several executive positions at AOL including senior VP, executive corporate relations, office of the chairman and CEO, and played a key role in bringing last year’s landmark Live 8 concert to cyberspace. During his AOL years, Schmidman also was responsible for AOL Sessions and the company’s working relationship with AEG and XM Radio, which resulted in the popular music feature, Network Live.

Of course, both concert and radio vets know Tommy Nast. As executive VP of business development at AEG Live, Nast helped develop AEG TV. Like Schmidman, Nast was also involved in the the launch of Network Live and last year’s Live 8 concert broadcast. Radio folk know Nast from his years with trade pub Album Network and other radio trades such as Network 40 and Urban Network, as well as the Yellow Pages of Rock.

“What the vision is, is basically to give the fans who come to our Web site a fly-on-the-wall perspective of what goes on in the rehearsal process of an artist really going to work,” Nast told Pollstar. “You talk about giving somebody the ultimate backstage pass? To be able to see what goes into the craft, songwriting, musicianship, and to be able to do that and promote the artist, is something we’re very pleased with how it has gone so far.”

But Rehearsals.com isn’t about artists popping in for a couple of days to record a behind-the-scenes clip. We’re talking real rehearsal studios where performers come to get their acts together. A working scenario that just happens to have cameras working all the angles.

“We have some productions here for a month or so before going on the road,” said Schmidman, who added that they are reaching a point where they don’t have to “beg any more” to get artists to appear on Rehearsals.com. “… Right now we average about two to three [taped] performances a week, and our goal is to bring it to five.”

Perhaps one of the keys to CenterStaging’s success with Rehearsals.com is that they don’t have to deal with any of the actual Web work, leaving CenterStaging free to do what it does best – running rehearsal studios and providing technical expertise for televising live music. When it comes to the actual Internet nuts and bolts for Rehearsals.com, the company turned to an unlikely source – professional baseball’s MLB.com.

“We give them tickets to concerts and they give us tickets to baseball games,” joked Schmidman in describing CenterStaging’s relationship with MLB.com before he got down to business and described his company’s interaction with pro baseball’s home on the Web.

“Basically, Major League Baseball decided to be a little bit different on the Web site and their Internet operation than other sports [organizations] in the country,” said Schmidman. “What they wanted to do is focus on the 9 million unique hits they’re getting on the [MLB.com] site, but also entertainment. Entertainment and lifestyle are two key elements that baseball viewers like to see as well.”

Along with operating all major league baseball team sites, MLB.com also manages several artist sites.

“We came to the conclusion,” said Schmidman, “that positioning Rehearsals.com as an entertainment avenue for Major League Baseball’s site, is basically going to do the job. They created this thing called “Best Record” at their studios in New York… And this was an extension of the brand. For us, coming from nowhere on view captures, to be able to position their 9 million-plus unique hits per day during the season, to come to our site too.”

CenterStaging’s expertise from years of presenting music on TV shows, including “Late Night With David Letterman,” “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and countless award shows makes them a natural to helm Rehearsals.com. But what about the artists? After all, rehearsals are supposed to be practice sessions for the public, yet Rehearsals.com lays it all out for the fans to see. Nast talked about The New Cars experience.

“He [Todd Rundgren] did a walkthrough here. They had originally been booked to rehearse somewhere and their management had found out we had a state-of-the-art, high-def studio that’s unlike any others. So Todd and Elliot Easton came through here. Did a walkthrough. Saw how this is shot. Saw the high level of quality. Saw that the audio and visuals were up to his standards. And the rest was history. They came in. We shot their first video which was utilized, and we shot their audio here too. The audio from their live record that was out was captured from the three things we shot here.”

Obviously Rehearsals.com is still growing. But the concept of capturing rehearsals for posterity is fast becoming popular with both fans and artists. Plus, CenterStaging just might have a Rehearsals.com TV project in the very near future.

Seeing both established and up-and-coming bands and artists rehearsing could become as much a part of an act’s recorded legacy as albums and music videos. But before you check out all the great video clips Rehearsals.com has to offer, make sure you take your phone off the hook and don’t forget to hang a “gone fishing” sign on your front door. Once there, you’re going to want to stay for a very long time.