Jimi Hendrix Red House: Each Gateway Offers A New Perspective Of Music Icon By:Cynthia Rose

----------------------------------------------------------------- Red House preview

Red House is located in the Seattle Center Pavilion and is open noon - 7 p.m. daily, tomorrow through Monday. Bumbershoot admission $10 adults, $1 children 12 and under and seniors 65 and older. Free admission today only for children and seniors. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Frank Zepponi handled last year's Bumbershoot design. This year, he applies the same exuberance to that celebration's central icon: Jimi Hendrix.

Visitors enter his Red House (named for the famous tune) through a forest of hangings. Symbolic of the star's many facets, they are psychedelics, stars and stripes and flames.

Once inside, the next gateway is a double Hendrix. Its outline is his Afro - through which his face regards you. Their divider is a doorway lined in dark fake fur. Each of three pathways then promises a different treat: archives to the left, art in the center and a cyber light-exhibition to the right.

Of greatest interest to a hardcore fan is the left turn, into a room which could be dubbed Museum Hendrix. Here, in a corner niche, is a re-creation of young Jimi's real-life bedroom, as seen via the photograph above. There is a plain brown couch, one period Dr Pepper, and LPs from Tammi Terrell to Richie Havens. Hard not to contrast the tiny speakers on the floor to those monsters seen behind on the wall of photos.

Elvis would like it

Here is a glass case of clothes which would please Elvis (orange and chartreuse outfits with foot-wide flares). There are LP covers, Jimi's own unplugged ax, posthumous awards and a slew of family photos (sample caption: "Jimi on the corner of 26th and Yesler with a guitar.") There is also a wall of childish drawings, mostly of football, "Daddy sleeping," storms and dragons.

To the left in this room sits a giant altar. It is made of purple velvet, draped in beads and lit by candles. Here, any visitor may leave whatever he/she likes - whether or not it relates directly to "Jimi."

One thing which does relate is the cyber-art component: mandalas, light shows and interactive gizmos. Saying Hendrix would not have welcomed these into his world is like saying Leonardo would scorn his Codex going CD-ROM. For Jimi Hendrix, every kind of instrument was a bridge to somewhere.

After all, it was he who re-defined the Fender guitar. As Zepponi puts it, "That was the white-boy guitar no black person played; I mean, Buddy Holly played a Fender. But, as with so many things, he saw its potential."

Pertinent to such facts are the Red House mandalas: simple, kinetic, mesmeric art. They are the work of cyber-artist Steve Hawks who, with Cully Ewing, also creates the light show. It scrambles old and new techniques, with '60s oil-and-water meeting strobes and video.

Other items

Red House also contains Hendrix folk art: from iconic paintings to the requisite black velvets. There is one wall of work by Nona Hatay: who has solarized, stretched and doctored photographs to give the feel of performance.

If you except the souvenirs, the air guitar area and Your Chance to Be Photographed With Jimi Hendrix (!), Zepponi can be proud. Red House is light of touch and extremely well-mounted. It escapes the double curse of nostalgia and solemnity.

Says Zepponi, "I didn't really make this for me or for Bumbershoot or the general public. I did it for Jimi Hendrix. He was the client.

"Jimi Hendrix is a hard guy to classify. He wasn't really psychedelic, wasn't quite a blues guy. He was also more a gypsy than a hippie. These days, big rock stars try to be so untouchable. Hendrix was the opposite: he never said `no' to anyone. Consequently, you can see and smell and taste his music. He sang about space and myths as much as he sang about rocks and dirt. That's what Red House had to be about."