The Station Hotel is approx. 5.6kms from Flinders Street Station. Built in 1910, people still today reminisce about the Melbourne musicians who played there. By the end of the 1990s, these people had been moved on like flying foxes suspected of carrying the Hendra virus
Dutch Tilders and the Blues Club had a residency on a Sunday afternoon. It was through those Sunday sessions where Alan Stafford proposed an English style blues society. So a group of blues professionals and enthusiasts collaborated on 9th October 1990 forming the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society. It’s still running today from Flemington Bowling Club and still supporting phenomenal talent – Geoff Achison is the Patron
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM AND ARCHITECTURE
I am writing this from my “globurb” house – global suburb – and my house is a 1950s shell now cream-rendered with black window frames. I call it “bland” but it’s what society or real estate agents stipulate
BluesTone’s questioning centres on valuing our pubs. How “globurbing” our pubs has stripped our Australian culture. No matter what level of popularity is being enjoyed at the time in other countries, local councils preserve their cultural heritage, like Stonehenge
When travelling through an airport terminal, from one country to another, their environment’s are all pretty similar. I believe that Airport Terminal Mindset (ATM) is now seeping into our cities’ landscape, why is this happening?
Are we becoming culturally uniform?
Why is the character being sucked out of our buildings?
Pubs are being gutted, commodified and the historical character traded on by real estate agents. They use the word “Iconic” to sell this space as shops and apartments. All of the “iconic” has been stripped out. I believe a building’s character holds the spirit of those people who inhabited the space
This is the blurb the Stonnington Council wrote on this photo of The Station Hotel:
“The sculptural installation of the train bursting through the wall was removed during renovations to the hotel in the late 1990s. For several decades prior to this, the Station Hotel was renown as a live music venue, and decidedly ‘down market’ [my italics]. Renovations included the addition of a restaurant”
I am going to ignore that Stonnington Council is making a value judgement on a significant historic music landmark. But it makes you think doesn’t it?
If we could value our pubs, as Londoners value theirs, we will have a much healthier, wealthier and wiser Australian culture. For me, stripping the character out of the building is like a knife stabbing and murdering our Australian cultural experiences
I believe there are remnants, auras of people and cultures contained in these buildings
The Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street London WC1 is approx. 3.1miles or 5kms to one of the busiest London train stations – Liverpool Street. The Fitzroy Tavern resonates with me because George Orwell’s aura is in this pub. On the walls there are photographs and plaques dedicated to him
Has Australian society been denied this aura of its history? Yes most definitely
George Orwell’s novels question politics, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Australians also question, we don’t just accept what politicians hand us. Yet we allow Australian culture to be stripped of character through homogenisation embedded in American Cultural Imperialism
American Cultural Imperialism = Globalisation
American cultural imperialism and blues music culture are mutually exclusive
Australian blues music and blues music culture is informed by those first blues musicians from the Mississippi Delta, Chicago, Kansas, New Orleans, etc. An oppressed and marginalised culture born in America
American cultural imperialism as Anthony D. King argues in Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture Urbanism Identity, is “American Globalisation”. The normalisation of global products and practices, like that airport terminal, across the world. I suggest the irony of Donald Trump’s “Anti-Globalisation” rhetoric is that globalisation is the very thing that has made America great. However, I argue, to the detriment of local Australian culture;
“Emphasising (American) cultural imperialism – American media culture, commodities, fast food and malls are creating a new global culture that is remarkably similar on all continents […] A completely new cultural system, or systems of culture, emerging from the diffusion of cultural values, belief and practices worldwide and which takes on new attributes, and becomes transformed in the process” (p27)
Australian culture is being moved out of our pubs like flying foxes suspected of containing the Hendra virus. King argues for a new cultural transformation but I don’t feel this is an “evolution” of cultural practices. Cultural imperialism or a globalised Americanism is sucking our Australian character out of society to the point where we only identify with an American mainstream culture
See SMH newspaper article “A new look in train for Prahran’s Station Hotel”
Where graffiti adds character and culture, the original character of The Station Hotel has been lost. The aura of those musicians who performed throughout its 70 odd years has evaporated and replaced by a sterile hospital like building trading on the adjective “iconic”
London’s Councils spruce up the facade – like The Bank in Warragul – and put up blue plaques if someone of historical significance lived in a house, worked in a business, socialised in a pub. The sprucing up plus these plaques, represent past histories and connect with us and our culture. Valuing these things is important because you can feel the aura of these people. You think about their lives, family, loves and their existence because even though it’s a plaque it plays with memory by making those people come to life. A blue plaque gives a connection to those people just as blues music connects to those blues people of America
The Station Hotel gave the people, who experienced the aura within it’s walls, their strong sense of inclusion. An Australian culture through the music they heard and the relationships they made. While the Station Hotel’s character has been erased in the 2000s, the culture in the minds of those who were there, is valued and still exists.
Chain Awards are the highest accolade paid to our Australian Blues Musicians
In February 2017, Geoff Achison’s album ‘Another Mile – Another Minute’ won Best Album; “I’m Gonna Ride” Song of the Year; Artist of the Year: Geoff Achison – “High Wire”; Duo/Group of the Year: Geoff Achison and the Soul Diggers; Producer of the Year: Ben Harwood, Rob Harwood, Geoff Achison
How to end? … “RACK OFF … GO ON!”
