Magical mystery tour on the trail of city’s musical past - Kevin Buckle
There was some chatter online this week about how Scotland needs to promote its music heritage more after it was announced that there was to be a trail celebrating Liverpool’s music heritage led by The Beatles Legacy Group (BLG) and supported by funding from The Beatles Story.
The Liverpool Music Heritage Trail is the first of its kind in the city, featuring 12 plaques in the style of vinyl records positioned at places that had an impact on Liverpool’s music scene.
It isn’t all Beatles related, with plaques for the punk and new wave club Eric’s and the iconic independent record shop Probe, which is still trading today having, much like Avalanche, moved around the city centre.
Visiting all the plaques is a 90-minute walk, but I expect there will be many who seek out specific sites.
There are music-related paid walking tours already for both Edinburgh and Glasgow, but I’ve found people would much rather visit places that may mean something to them in a less organised way.
I am still asked regularly how to get to different locations that people have heard of or remember and are long gone.
I have of course been involved in several projects promoting Scottish music and held a very successful exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery in 2017 called The Only Fun In Town, part of which went on to be included in the National Museum of Scotland’s larger exhibition Rip It Up: The Story of Scottish Pop in 2018.
I financed the Fruitmarket Gallery exhibition myself and was amazed how uninterested Creative Scotland were to help.
Edinburgh Council did show some interest, even suggesting I could take over the top floor of the City Art Centre permanently or maybe look for any other empty spaces that could be used both as an exhibition space and venue.
While I was quite happy to put a fair amount of time and money into the project with no other funding available it just wasn’t viable.
The idea of a trail, however, would not lead to any great expense and I see that in Liverpool the city centre BID (Business Improvement District) helped with the logistics, securing permission for the plaques to be put up on what are now unrelated buildings.
There is actually a much wider interest that goes beyond simply the music and also includes the clothes shops music lovers frequented.
None are better remembered than Flip, the vintage clothing shop in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle and London.
There is still a Flip in Newcastle run by the owner’s son and Avalanche sells a Flip T-shirt with his permission. Cockburn Street would definitely be full of plaques to commemorate all the famous former record and clothes shops
Certainly there could be an interesting walk around Edinburgh. The Liverpool trail might just be the inspiration.