July 2 [16:00 EDT] -- While the structure of Seattle's Experience Music Project won't be complete until 1999, Net-savvy fans can check out vital moments in Seattle music history right now online.
The EMP launched its website (at www.experience.org) on Wednesday, and fans can now delve deep into the histories of musicians from the Pacific Northwest like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Jimi Hendrix.
One portion of the site, dubbed "Northwest Passage," lets users follow the personnel links between bands like Mudhoney, Love Battery, Soundgarden, and Mother Love Bone. Elsewhere, you can read Jimi Hendrix's hand-written lyrics to a number of classic tracks.
The experience also enables users to create their own music by strumming a collection of vintage guitars or by assembling a band of your own and mixing their sound in the studio.
As we reported in June, the EMP plans to erect a 130,000 square foot interactive music museum in the Emerald City. The project sprung from the imagination of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, whose love of Jimi Hendrix drove him to plan the museum the celebrate the music of the Pacific Northwest.
