{"id":1656,"date":"2008-08-26T01:22:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-26T05:22:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-04-16T06:38:12","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T10:38:12","slug":"trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Trippin\u2019: Science Fiction\u2019s Got Nothing on This Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/emp.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"351\" height=\"266\" \/><\/div>\n<p>We recently re-ran an early Rock Town Hall (blog edition) piece by <strong>Townsman BigSteve<\/strong> on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/trippin-experience-music-project-jimi-se\/\" target=\"_blank\">his visit to Seattle&#8217;s Experience Music Project (EMP)<\/a>. I was just in Seattle for a quick weekend work trip, and during my 2 hours of free time I made sure to check out this museum with my own ears and eyes. BigSteve&#8217;s piece had me stoked!<\/p>\n<p>My hotel room offered a fantastic view of the body of water and mountains surrounding the city. The city itself was surprisingly unkempt and weatherbeaten, dare I say &#8220;grungey,&#8221; but the natural setting was impressive. Straight ahead, maybe a mile away, was the Space Needle and what looked like a colorful clump of molten plastic. This was the EMP building.<\/p>\n<p>I thought about taking the monorail over to maximize my 2 free hours, but wisely, as it turned out, decided to walk. A block into my walk, the monorail train I probably would have caught had broken down on the tracks. Fire engines and rescue ladders blocked 5th Street. I crossed over to 6th Street and caught whiff of some doughnut factory. Doughnuts do not smell that good when baked <em>en masse<\/em>.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eoQa8ZG2HNA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAs I entered the molten plastic blob, I was disappointed that BigSteve did not mention that EMP also doubled as a Science Fiction museum. I entered at the Sci-Fi entrance, and I feared that having to walk through the Sci-Fi exhibits would taint the musical side of the museum, leading me into some kind of shrine to <strong>Rush<\/strong>. During my nervous trot through the Sci-Fi exhibits, I did appreciate seeing some original <em>Star Trek<\/em> uniforms and the space suit worn by either Charlton Heston or James Franciscus in one of the <em>Planet of the Apes<\/em> movies.<\/p>\n<p>As I entered the music museum side of the building, I was surprised at how humble the layout of the building was. It almost looked like the interior of some new, progressive high school. The Hendrix room was the obvious starting place. Before entering I took some time to marvel at the equipment Jimi and the Experience used at Monterey, I believe: the battered amps were particularly cool to examine. Mitch Mitchell&#8217;s rack toms were set flat. Jimi&#8217;s orange velour &#8220;butterfly&#8221; suit was set up in front of the gear. His silver shoes were there too. The guy had pretty big feet.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QL0IbQ2ltC0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI entered the room, where a large monitor was playing live Hendrix clips. His guitar sound and style were so distinctive. I thought of all the burnout guys I knew in high school who slaved away at learning his licks. I thought of <strong>Stevie Ray Vaughn<\/strong>, <strong>Frank Marino<\/strong>, and other devotees. I thought of how far any of these guitar players arrived at reaching the futuristic-yet-natural sound of Hendrix. <em>Perhaps only that Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, <strong>John Frusciante<\/strong><\/em>, I thought, <em>comes within 100 years of combining the fluidity, power, and sense of groove that were so natural to Hendrix.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A chronologic display of Hendrix doodles, lyrics, posters, singles, and photos graced the walls. I started out at the end of the line, pausing to read some of his later lyrics from his original notebooks. I quickly thought about how unimpressed I usually am by his hippie-dippie, later period lyrics, so I got myself appropriately adjusted in the display&#8217;s chronology before my hypercritical ways spoiled what was off to an otherwise promising start to this room.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/jimi1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"382\" \/><\/div>\n<p>I moved to a case containing some of his key guitars. The first guitar was a gold <strong>Danelectro<\/strong>. Next to it was a classic photo I&#8217;d long known, of a 15-year-old Jimi standing outside with this guitar slung off his right hip. The boy is exhuberant. I don&#8217;t know the circumstances of the photo, but it strikes me as if he was about a week into owning this guitar. He&#8217;s finding himself. I couldn&#8217;t take my eyes off the gold Danelectro, only to take quick glances at the photo next to it before looking back at the guitar and remembering my own teenage crush on the whole notion of being a guitar player.<\/p>\n<p>The white Strat from Woodstock was cool to see. The chunks of famously smashed guitars from Monterey, Woodstock, and some other show sent tingles up my spine. That whole guitar-smashing\/amp-humping routine of Jimi&#8217;s, as slightly embarrassing and calculated it would seem when artists following his footsteps would try it, seemed sincere and even necessary for the evolution of rock when <strong>Pete Townshend<\/strong> and then Hendrix did it. In another room, where a bunch of short films on Hendrix played, an early-70s Townshend told a cool story about first being bummed that Jimi had nicked his schtick but later appreciating the personal spin he put on it.<\/p>\n<p>BigSteve mentioned some childhood drawings. There was a colorful notebook drawing of <strong>Elvis Presley<\/strong> that caught my eye. Check it out! It suggests a pretty cool processing of rock &#8216;n roll at place, more mysterious, first-season, blue-windbreaker <strong>Fonzie<\/strong> than the better-known Leather Fonz.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/hendrixelvis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"513\" \/><\/div>\n<p>There were a lot of obscure soul singles on which Hendrix played, including cuts for <strong>Little Richard<\/strong> and <strong>The Isley Brothers<\/strong>. In the room showing short films, some of these songs were played. Jimi&#8217;s guitar playing was unmistakable&#8211;not too far removed from the style of guitar playing on <strong>Impressions<\/strong> and <strong>Don Covay<\/strong> singles of that time but with much more power than Curtis Mayfield on the Impressions records and greater authority than anything the guitar players other than Hendrix (who played on a Covay single I don&#8217;t know) would play on Covay&#8217;s records. It was hard to fathom that such a force was toiling as a sideman through the mid-60s, but as one of his peers during his pre-fame years noted, Jimi was not well accepted in the African American community. Weird to think that the divide was being established in the mid-60s, from both ends of the racial spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>The pre-fame walls in this first room I&#8217;d entered were fascinating. As I moved into his well-known years, there were still cool things to see, such as the color film for the <em>Are You Experienced?<\/em> album cover. When I got back the end of the line, with those &#8220;Merman&#8221;-type lyrics and the diminishing Look, I took a seat on the couch in front of the video monitor and simply dug the stream of live clips that was playing.<\/p>\n<p>In the room with the short films, one Jimi&#8217;s peers &#8211; it might have been <strong>Robert Wyatt<\/strong> or <strong>Eric Burdon<\/strong> &#8211; noted that it seemed he wasn&#8217;t even holding a guitar, that the music just came out of his body. Right on! Everyone talked about how musical he was, how he could pick up any instrument and make it sing. Jeff Beck said that after seeing him play in a London club for the first time he had to think about finding a new way to make a living. There was a clip of a Hendrix and the Experience playing &#8220;Stone Free&#8221; to a small audience of British kids when he first hit the UK. The kids are sitting around what looks like a small club or studio, their jaws hitting the floor. Here&#8217;s the clip!<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/deawnHtQ9Oc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s so simple yet commanding. The lyrics and overall vibe of the song are liberating. The sound is terrible. It&#8217;s hard to tell what these pasty-faced British kids were feeling while watching this. Was their a language for this kind of rock yet? During his performance of &#8220;Like a Rolling Stone&#8221;, never my favorite Hendrix cover but impressive for its powerful guitar fills, Jimi performs like the embodiment of Bowie&#8217;s Major Tom, lonely but engaged in his own musical mission. Anyhow, without sounding like anymore of the schoolgirl that I was sitting in that short films room, let&#8217;s just say I was moved a few times over. And seeing Eric Burdon speak about Jimi is always a treat. He&#8217;s like those burnout guys in high school who used to make me a little uncomfortable despite my sharing much of their sincere appreciation of the musicianship of Hendrix.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-3ETAZSFWWs?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAfter spending a good 1:15 in the Hendrix part of EMP, I had to hustle through some other exhibits. There was an interactive room, which I was not up for interacting with. It did have a bunch of computer monitors set up with anecdotes from artists organized by theme. I sat down and watched a very cool clip of <strong>Graham Parker<\/strong> talking about the album-saving role producer <strong>Jack Nitzsche<\/strong> played on <em>Squeezing Out Sparks<\/em>. Parker was refreshingly gracious about the contributions of The Rumour, even while discussing the overplaying and ego-strutting that Nitzsche had to break them of. The best part of the story may have been Parker regretting that he&#8217;d just turned the band onto <strong>Little Feat<\/strong> prior to entering the studio, which he said inspired them to new heights of overplaying.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I&#8217;d had more time to spend in the guitar room. As BigSteve noted, it had examples of just about every kind of guitar, including headless ones at the end of the chronological arrangement. I enjoyed seeing <strong>Bo Diddley<\/strong>&#8216;s guitar and <strong>Kurt Cobain<\/strong>&#8216;s blue Jazzmaster guitar up close. The monitor playing nothing but clips of guitarists was excellent. I didn&#8217;t get to see the Roy Buchanan video that so moved BigSteve, but I dug a lot of other clips, including one of <strong>Merle Travis<\/strong>, I guy I&#8217;ve never known anything about, playing some mostly unaccompanied piece.<\/p>\n<p>The Northwest Passage exhibit, as I think the permanent collection on music from the area was called, was pretty cool if a bit short on things that personally interested me. Seeing the <strong>Paul Revere &amp; the Raiders<\/strong> gear and costumes up close hit home. Those costumes they wore looked so heavy that I began to sweat just thinking about what it would be like to wear them in concert. Another thing I liked in this exhibit was seeing the same Otari 8-track our band owns and has used to record over the years in a display on the equipment used to record the first <strong>Mudhoney<\/strong> record. There was stuff on <strong>The Wipers<\/strong> as well. I&#8217;ll have to check out that stuff again. It never makes any sense to me when I try to listen to it. I was expecting more on Nirvana, Pearl Jam, et al, but maybe I just passed it all without much interest.<\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/4\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">4<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/5\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">5<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We recently re-ran an early Rock Town Hall (blog edition) piece by Townsman BigSteve on his visit to Seattle&#8217;s Experience Music Project (EMP). I was just in Seattle for a quick weekend work trip, and during my 2 hours of free time I made sure to check out this museum with my own ears and <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/trippin-science-fiction-s-got-nothing-on\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[59,469],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}