Harmony Central Exclusive Preview:
The Experience Music Project
Sure, Seattle's new interactive music museum may be a monument to one man's love for music -- but it aims to inspire similar passions among all people by Robert L. Doerschuk
Senior Editor, Features
 The Experience Music Project lies smashed like the wreckage of a Martian Harley in the shadow of the Space Needle in Seattle. With massive squashed walls in garish colors, and metallic tangles jabbing at jagged angles high overhead, this building is guaranteed to either inspire or infuriate all that approach it.
It is, in other words, rock 'n' roll architecture: out of tune, rude, seductive, and loud. That is what Paul Allen wanted. His day job involved co-founding Microsoft and changing the way the world works with information. But at heart, he was and is a musician. Just like closet guitar players in office cubicles, or 7-Eleven clerks killing time behind counters until their next gig, the young programmer and cultural revolutionary kept a loop of his favorite music running in his head to get him through the day.
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© Experience Music Project
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Now, it may be presumptuous to assume insight into Allen's listening habits or artistic commitment. But visitors to the EMP can't help but leave with a feeling that they've had a glimpse into the software giant's most personal musical passions. (Full disclosure: Paul Allen is also a major investor in Harmony Central -- but hey, we'd still think of EMP as something to write about, even if he never gave us a nickel.) This impression stems, first of all, from the parochial nature of its exhibits. The spirit of Jimi Hendrix, Allen's main musical inspiration, haunts this place, in his costumes, his instruments, the ruins of guitars he demolished at the Monterey Pop Festival and London's Saville Theatre, and much more memorabilia. The lavish EMP press packet even devotes an entire sheet to itemizing Hendrix's favorite LPs. ("Imagine Jimi pulling each record off the shelf, out of the album jacket, out of the sleeve," the copy gushes.)
It is, of course, appropriate that Hendrix, a local hero in Seattle, dominates EMP exhibits. One could accept as well the high profile given to less epochal acts as an exercise in regional pride -- but it is strange to have to hunt around a bit for evidence of Nirvana and Pearl Jam amidst relics from the Kingsmen or Paul Revere and the Raiders. And one searches harder still for nods toward most gods of British rock. Clearly, EMP isn't distinguished by the breadth of its exhibits -- at least not in its inaugural form. But it isn't trying to be. In fact, it is really about the energy and excitement of making music -- and offering visitors a chance to feel what that's all about. This mission defines the unique nature of EMP. Rather than just set up displays for people to gawk at, or allow limited hands-on contact with this or that exhibit, this place has you playing Van Halen licks, singing along with Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart, and rockin' an audience of thousands with a jam on "Wild Thing."
This is what redeems and distinguishes EMP -- as well as its brain-melting technology and interior design. It begins as a peek into Paul Allen's musical persona, and ends as an invitation for each visitor to develop his or her own excitement about making music. Harmony Central took all this in during a five-hour safari into the facility early on the morning of June 16, one week before its gates were opened to the public. For more on EMP, check out www.emplive.com.
Architecture with Attitude
 The chaos of EMP's exterior only hints at the kinds of spaces it encloses. Moments after passing through the entrance, the visitor enters a vast room that houses, on the left, a ground-floor restaurant and a balcony bar, hidden behind big wooden squares that seem intended to represent equipment cases. To the right, a staircase sweeps up toward a lobby in which staff members check coats and other items and hand out Museum Exhibit Guides, or MEGs.
These playback devices are slung over the shoulder, with earphones nestled comfortably into place from the back of the head. Any time the user wants to learn more about an item on display at EMP, he or she can point the MEG reader toward the display and listen to verbal and musical commentary. From this vantage point, the structural essence of EMP becomes evident. Architect Frank Gehry's aim was to visually depict the high-impact energy of rock 'n' roll. His vision comes to life in the "snake wall," a massive silvery sheet that undulates along the stairwell to connect parts of the museum. Splashes of color along one of the lobby walls were lifted directly from the shades of classic guitars -- a timbral obeisance to the gold-top Gibson Les Paul, for instance, next to the baby blue of a '50s Fender. And high overhead, one section of the ceiling echoes the interior bracing of a deconstructed acoustic guitar; in another, tubes of twisted metal suggest the neck of a mangled guitar -- further acknowledgment of the Hendrix legacy specifically and the ecstasies of performance in general. Next page: The Sky Church
Robert L. Doerschuk is a senior editor at Harmony Central.
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