Midge Ure Backs Scotland Rock Hall of Fame Bid — SkimNews
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- ScotsRock is bidding to take over the former Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street and convert it into a Scottish Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame; the CCA closed earlier this year after a series of financial setbacks.
- Midge Ure, whose career spans Ultravox, Band Aid and Live Aid, has agreed to become ScotsRock's inaugural Patron, saying "This has never been done, and it should have been done" and asking why Scotland hasn't emulated Cleveland's American-focused Rock Hall.
- Lulu, Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, Travis and Del Amitri have also publicly backed the ScotsRock project.
- Plans for the proposed venue include a permanent exhibition, live performance venue, educational and outreach programmes, a creative industries hub for emerging musicians, archive and heritage facilities, and a year-round programme of concerts, talks and special events.
- Ronnie Gurr, former CEO of the Scottish Music Industry Association and proposed senior curator, said the hall "honours the past but should also help shape the future," noting the live venue would arrive at a time when grassroots music venues "are closing at a rate of knots."
- The CCA first closed in 2018 after a fire destroyed the nearby Glasgow School of Art, then shut permanently in January after the organisation entered liquidation with the loss of all jobs.
- Creative Scotland, which owns the building, previously offered the CCA's former occupants £1.28m a year and says it will shortly launch a formal process for expressions of interest in leasing or purchasing; a competing bid from a collective of theatre and dance companies — Vanishing Point, Groupwork, Shotput and Superfan — has also emerged.
Why it matters: Creative Scotland's upcoming leasing process for the vacant CCA building on Sauchiehall Street pits ScotsRock's hall of fame vision against a competing bid from theatre/dance groups, with all jobs lost in January's liquidation and grassroots music venues already closing across Scotland. Whoever wins controls a key cultural site in central Glasgow.
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