EMPREVIEW

A FOUNDER OF one of Seattle's many defunct record labels once told me a story about a kid he attended summer camp with. This kid was rich, but sadly, he was also a total dork. Anticipating that the boy might not fit in, his father sent him to camp with a battery-operated record player. Maybe he'll make friends by entertaining his cabin mates with records, his father reasoned hopefully.

Well, the father's plan didn't work. Not only was the kid teased and ignored, but his cabin mates broke the battery-operated record player out of sheer jealousy. In many ways, Paul Allen reminds me of that kid. Here's a rich guy who, despite his multibillion-dollar fortune, is basically and irrevocably a dork.

He purchased the Portland Trailblazers and the Seahawks to satisfy his sports yearnings. He bought, refurbished, and outfitted Belltown's Cinerama with so many high-tech, interactive advertising gadgets that The Phantom Menace: Episode One ran there exclusively (Allen is also a partner in DreamWorks). He even formed a band called Grown Men, and released an eponymous album influenced by the Eagles, Tom Petty, Jimi Hendrix, and Pink Floyd. And now he's trying to insinuate his way into the hearts of local musicians with an elaborate, high-tech version of the battery-operated record player--the Experience Music Project.

The grandest of all Allen's endeavors is the aforementioned tribute to rock and roll, which manifests itself in the form of a great steel smashed guitar designed at the cost of $100 million by lauded architect Frank Gehry. It houses a 140,000-square-foot museum whose glittering indulgence and final $240-million price tag is unmatched by any other privately funded music museum in the world.

Within that behemoth resides Allen's massive collection of toys, bought both to please and garner respect. Eighty thousand artifacts are on display, including rare guitars (a 1959 Gibson flying V prototype; a 1939 Rickenbacker "frying pan" electric lap steel; a 1964 12-string, formerly owned by Roger McGuinn of the Byrds; and an ultra-rare 1953 handmade Bigsby electric solid-body), handwritten lyrics (from Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, and the Presidents of the United States of America), and the largest collection of Jimi Hendrix artifacts anywhere--including historic garb worn at world-famous events and the Electric Ladyland lyric notebook, handwritten by Hendrix in 1968.

EMP also comprises not only the museum but a fluffy, self-propagandizing, music-based publication called Feedback, as well as an expansive website, www.emplive.com, where visitors can get previews of the museum's interactive exhibits and take daily or weekly guitar lessons via Riff Interactive. The high point of these online lessons is that once a week everyone gets a chance to play the week's task in unison, bonding with their computer geek brethren. Dorky, but interesting, as long as the damn site, outfitted with so many technical bells and whistles, doesn't crash your computer.

Allen sees EMP as a tribute. To hear folks involved in the project tell it, the museum will serve as a positive force in music, a remember-when-it-was-fun buck-up to an industry/community that has become increasingly corporate and less creative with each passing year. (The same could be said of Seattle.) The EMP will be a place where music will be celebrated via a "total sensory experience," where "patrons will make their own music, see and learn about rare artifacts and memorabilia explore various musical milestones within unique interpretive exhibits, feel the power of the creative force by listening to musicians tell their own stories, and discover the power and joy of music in all its forms."

Some people, less fortunate financially yet equally in love with music, view the EMP as a cruelly mocking blight--sort of like Allen is charging his "friends and neighbors" to come in and look at his "fabulous record collection." Though the EMP has garnered the city's support (it was given a unanimous thumbs up by the Seattle Design Commission), local musicians have not been as lucky. They've toiled year after year in a town where they suffer for their art at the hands of the city's leaders: Crappy club laws concerning liquor and music, noise ordinances, and the backwoods Teen Dance Ordinance have thwarted budding creativity simply by leaving it very little space in which to thrive. Clubs in Seattle open and close in a matter of weeks (anybody remember Capitol Hill's all-ages Beatbox?), and as each one goes, so goes another struggling band or DJ who isn't able to get a slot at a well-established venue.

To build a garish, gargantuan monument to something the city has all but slain seems just wrong.

As for myself, throughout the project's building, I have looked at EMP with a jaundiced eye, expecting it to be an embarrassingly indulgent, colossal waste of money. And I wasn't alone. "It's simply commerce," scene veteran Gerald Collier says of EMP. Collier has figured in the musical landscape of two states--Arizona and Washington--for the better part of 20 years, and has been through the industry's corporate wringer more than a few times. "It's squeaky clean; bought and sold. It has nothing to do with what's currently going on in our local music scene whatsoever."

Love as Laughter's Sam Jaynes agrees and disagrees with Collier's opinions: "I don't think [EMP] means anything or makes a particularly important statement in the grand scheme of things," he says. "But I think it's kind of cool to have the museum in our city."

Maybe, but even if it does turn out to be a dandy museum, does the world need another paean to American music--specifically to the increasingly indistinguishable genre of rock 'n' roll? Again, the always quotable Collier has something to say on the subject: "It's about as relevant as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rock and roll never should have had a Hall of Fame; it's an oxymoron. Being included in an exhibit at the EMP or being inducted into the Hall of Fame is just the final stroke of a dying career," he continues, expressing embarrassment for bands and artists who don't know when to hang it up. "You're in the Hall of Fame? Well, big deal. I'm in the grocery store."

Paul Allen may not have been down in the trenches with Collier, but he is tapping into a lot of people who were. Instead of hiring a bunch of rich dorks to create a Planet Hollywood-type re-creation of Seattle's rock 'n' roll history, he's brought in (or bought?) some cool, popular kids to tell it best. "Mark Arm helped develop the EMP's punk exhibit, and wrote his own narration for his contribution to the various 'Oral Histories' heard throughout the museum," says Northwest Passage curator Pete Blecka. Northwest Passage is the museum's expansive, ever-changing nod to the region's verdant musical output; its beginnings, history, triumphs, and downfalls. Though he hasn't been in a band since the early '80s, Blecka has maintained relationships with many of the Northwest's notable musicians by writing for The Rocket and hosting KCMU's Northwest Rock radio show, so he knew who to call for help when the time came.

Other "histories" are provided by local sages like Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Soundgarden's Kim Thayil, Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, and Dave Dederer of the Presidents of the United States of America. While their stories will no doubt prove inspiring for those who wish to believe talent leads to prosperity, a deeper meaning--the one that says true talent doesn't mean shit in terms of record sales or success--lies just below the surface for those of us who have been experiencing music in the Northwest for the past 10 years or more.

Though Northwest Passage is dedicated to local music, Blecka promises that the thing is anything but overblown or maudlin. In a city that holds its music history near to its heart, there's always the fear that events and artifacts will be taken out of context. The EMP expects 800,00 gawkers in its first year of business (30,000 are expected on opening day alone), and while tourists and other outsiders may marvel at the sight of an angel statue that shared the stage with Kurt Cobain in 1993, many of us will remember it as an icon of the last time we saw Cobain perform live, shortly before he committed suicide because, for him, the pressure of being a famous rock star was too much to take. "We exhibit the grunge years and Nirvana, but we don't have some sort of shrine to the band," Blecka says. "We portray the story of how the media was pushing grunge and missing the whole point of how the Northwest was producing power pop, lo-fi, and the riot grrrl movement all at the same time."

Upon learning that there would be a large section of the EMP dedicated to the recent Northwest scene, including a riot grrrl exhibit, Collier hit his limit. "Jesus! Didn't that just happen yesterday? Does it need to be monumented already? Here's an idea: Why don't they just go buy Mt. Rushmore and bring it down there, change the faces a little, and call it Mt. Sleater-Kinney? Better yet, why don't they just rename that climbing rock down at REI Mt. Bikini Kill and just be done with it? Riot grrrl exhibit Jesus."

Ample space is also given to the city's ridiculous poster ban, which came into effect right about the time Seattle's Mt. Vesuvius of talent was readying itself to expel what the rest of the world would soon recognize as grunge. Poster artist Art Chantry's work is represented in the exhibit because it was so influential at the time, and also because he recently announced he's had enough of Seattle (and the local hoopla that will surely escalate to frenzy with the opening of the EMP) and fled for St. Louis, where it's easier to be anonymous and the relatively lower cost of living can support an artist's needs.

Also in response to Seattle's oppressive club atmosphere, Blecka claims that the smallest of the three live music halls within the EMP will be offered to "young, struggling bands to stage record-release parties and play shows they wouldn't get to do at venues like the Crocodile or Graceland." Blecka believes EMP will be a positive force in proving to the city that the all-ages scene is one which should be nurtured and supported. Here the childlike naivetè of EMP figures intrinsically: At what cost will bands rent out a venue requiring such a high overhead as the EMP? (According to their website, the cost of renting out the EMP ranges from $200 for a small classroom to $20,000 for the whole museum.) Will the city share Blecka's convictions about the all-ages scene merely because the venue is attached to a huge museum, or will the museum truly give the city a clue?

The answers are still up in the air. Sure, there have been limited-access media tours, but nobody has really gotten a good, long look at the place, and the shroud of mystery that's surrounded the museum from the beginning has inspired wonder, amazement, and a whole lot of chatter in the local community. The public was given only bits of information along the way as to what exactly the Experience Music Project would be: "It's about music and creativity and how music is made," the P.R. folks said. "We want people to walk in and feel inspired and be creative."

EMP is kicking off its commitment to live music during its opening ceremony, with the help of more than 50 performers, ranging from Kid Rock and Alanis Morissette to the Ventures and James Brown. Beginning June 23 and concluding June 25, EMP will put on one of the most impressive blowouts the city has ever seen--sure to bring out the kid in most of us. It's hard not to get caught up in the Christmas-morning anticipation of what EMP will have under its tree on opening day. As the time draws nearer, I find myself more excited to tear the lid off Allen's giant toy box and listen to his $240-million battery-operated record player. Maybe I'll break it, maybe I won't.

See you at the opening.