BCAA Travel Blog

Only two North American cities can truly boast rock and roll museums that are major tourist attractions: Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Seattle’s Experience Music Project (EMP). The latter, which opened in 2000, has become a city landmark due in large part to its unique and controversial architecture, which is meant to symbolize the energy and fluidity of music. The wildy undulating, rainbow-hued, steel-swathed building was designed by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, whose other noted works include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Dancing House in Prague.
Gehry claims he drew his inspiration for the design from a pile of guitar parts he had acquired from a Seattle guitar-maker, and that the entire shape pays tribute to the Fender Stratocaster, the guitar of choice of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan and host of other famous axemen. Even the colours of the building’s exterior derive from classic electric guitars–pastel blue, brilliant red, silver, gold, and a shimmering violet dubbed “purple haze” in reference to Hendrix’s famous song.

The opening of this museum of music was greeted by Seattle residents with a mixture of acclaim and derision. Its detractors pulled no punches. New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp described it as “something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over, and died.” Forbes magazine called it one of the world’s 10 ugliest buildings. Others suggested that it resembled “open-heart surgery gone awry.” Gehry answered his critics by stating, “This building is supposed to be a lot of fun. That’s what Paul Allen wanted. Fun. It’s supposed to be unusual. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland wanted a straight-forward corporate look. Paul didn’t want that. He wanted what he called “a swoopy building.’ Nobody has seen this before or will see it again. Nobody will build another one.”

Paul Allen, is of course, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, who commissioned and paid for the flamboyant $240-million structure. Allen, who is a guitarist with his own rock band, called Grown Men, had originally conceived the idea of a museum dedicated to his favourite musician, Seattle’s own Jimi Hendrix, who had no shrine in the city, save for a commemorative rock at the Woodland Park Zoo. In 1992, in anticipation of constructing a Hendrix museum at the Seattle Center, Allen began buying Hendrix memorabilia including shards of the guitar that Hendrix destroyed during his incendiary performance at the ‘67 Monterey Pop Festival and the guitar on which he played “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock. Al Hendrix, the guitarist’s father, initially supported the idea, but Allen and the Hendrix family later had a falling out and the museum evolved into the far larger, costlier and more innovative EMP.

EMP’s mission is to celebrate “creativity and innovation in American popular music.” To do that, it combines concert halls, exhibits–even a ride–with a myriad of hands-on activities. The celestial “Sky Church” room in the building’s interior pays homage to Hendrix’s vision of a Sky Church where all kinds of people–regardless of age, background or interests–could come together to appreciate music. This dramatic reception/performance area features a stunning 12-metre-high, 21-metre-wide video screen and an 18-panel montage of images.

The permanent exhibits include the Northwest Passage which is a hall containing exhibits on the history of popular music in the Pacific Northwest. There is also the Guitar Gallery, dedicated to the history of the guitar; the Sound Lab, in which museum-goers can take virtual music lessons on the guitar drums, and keyboard; On Stage, where one can play in front of a virtual audience of 10,000 screaming fans in a simulated rock concert experience; and Costumes from the Vault, a collection of performers’ costumes.

There is also a collection of thousands of artifacts from the history of popular music, including the signed contract for Nirvana’s original recording deal; Bob Dylan’s 1960 harmonica; Grandmaster Flash’s original turntable; the mixing board from Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios; Elvis Presley’s black leather jacket; R. Crumb’s original cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s 1968 album “Cheap Thrills”; and the files from the FBI’s two-year investigation into the Kingsmen’s song “Louie Louie,” which was prompted in 1964 by complaints from parents and the governor of Indiana about the tune’s supposedly obscene lyrics.

The EMP is currently hosting a new exhibit devoted entirely to Hendrix. Through film footage, instruments, memorabilia, and electronic equipment–Jimi Hendrix: An Evolution of Sound–traces the evolution of the guitar god’s music, from his upbringing in Seattle through his stint in the military; his years working on the chitlin’ circuit; his experiences in New York and London; and his meteoric career as a rock superstar, before his sudden death in 1970. The hands-on exhibit invites visitors to manipulate recording-studio equipment just as Hendrix did in his own studio, as well as the effects-pedals he used to produce his psychedelic guitar sounds. The show runs until February 7, 2010.

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