Though it is rock history.
I spent Saturday wandering about the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle with my sister. It is a magical sort of place, for those with music on their minds. We first went through the “Spectacle: The Music Video” exhibit, which has it’s high and low points. Overall, I’d say it is quite good, however, they have it set up like an Ikea store and, if you’re not careful, you could miss a bunch of the exhibit.
We also enjoyed walking through the smaller exhibits. The Worlds of Myth and Magic exhibit (though I did miss the Game of Thrones throne showing), the Icons of Science Fiction exhibit, the Lure of Horror Film exhibit, as well as the Hendrix Hits London exhibit.
My favorite small exhibit, by far, was the Guitar Gallery. They have examples ranging back to the late 19th century of attempts and the fits and starts of electric guitars, culminating in examples of some quite famous and iconic guitars you’ve very likely seen.
Below the fold, I have posted some photos I took with my phone of these iconic tools of aural pleasure. They are all click to enlarge. The EMP does not allow flash photography. Oleg might be able to do something decent without a flash using his skills. However, all I can do is stuff them into the Gimp and edit them to be semi-reasonable. So please do forgive me on some of these.
This being Seattle, they have a number of Hendrix items. The first is this 1968 Fender Stratocaster which Jimi played at both Woodstock, as well as his last show at the Isle of Fenmarn in 1970 with Gypsy Sun and Rainbows.
They also have the 1965 Stratocaster he played at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
He switched to a paisley Strat at the end of his show and then set that one on fire.
Here also is his standard pedal board
Consisting of a King Vox-Wah pedal, prototype Octavio pedal, and a Arbiter Fuzz Face pedal.
The also have Noel Redding’s 1966 Fender Jazz bass that he used from 1967 until the Experience dissolved in the middle of 1969.
Next up, they have the Eric Clapton 1956 Brownie Strat
Which you can also see here
As well as Eddie Van Halen’s original hot-rodded Kramer
All in all, this was a wonderful exhibit. Filled with lots of history and esoteric knowledge that you’ll never need again in your life but which you will want to absorb anyway. I could spend all week putting up posts of the photos I took at the EMP, but I’m not going to. You need to see it for yourself.
Back to our regularly curmudgeoned programming tomorrow.
Believe it or not, that was my first workplace when I moved up to Seattle. And then they downsized eight months after I got hired.
It was a fun place to work while it lasted.