Street Art and Stamps

Check it out: Stamp street-art! How wonderful. I spotted this at the Laneway Music Festival in Footscray (Melbourne) on the weekend. The festival was great fun - Bat for Lashes headlined, but Alt-J ( ∆ ) were possibly the highlight for me... they sounded amazing and were great fun to dance to.

Anyhow it is not all that regularly that the worlds of rock'n'roll and stamp nerds collide, so I was pretty thrilled to see these paste-up images of an early and iconic Australian Stamp at a music festival.

I do actually have this stamp in my collection, courtesy of Grandma Nellie. Although the stamp I have is not in great condition.

The stamp was part of the George VI series of definitives released in 1950-51. The thing that makes me uneasy about the image is that it was released in that time well before the 1967 referendum which recognised  indigenous people as citizens. So this image smacks of paternalism to me - while it is depicting, and in a way celebrating, the nameless Aborigine on the stamp, the image seems to be loaded with the racist ethnocentric assumptions of the day.

It is an enduring image, even if it is a racist one. And in 2009 another version of the stamp was celebrated as one of "Australia's favourite stamps." I think the image reads slightly differently in the 2009 version than it did in the 1950/51 version. It is a bit more like, "Look! We love Aborigines! We always have: check out this old stamp!" And of course that is blatantly untrue.  But I see an attempt at reconciliation in the 2009 stamp, a more genuine respect that doesn't have the same patronising tone of the 1951 release.

And what of the 2013 paste-up on a brick wall in Footscray of the same image?  I love it.

It's a long way to the top, if you wanna rock'n'roll *

Music features this week on Sunday Stamps, so I thought I would go a bit rock'n'roll on you all. In 2006 Australia issued the above stamps that pictured iconic posters from rock gigs. I think the posters make good stamps, as the images are bold, eye-catching and colourful. I am not sure if many of the festivals or bands would necessarily be recognisable to audiences beyond Australia - with the exception of the poster for the Rolling Stones tour.

Midnight Oil are a legendary Australian band - who had some international success, and had a massive hit with the song "Beds are Burning." To remind you all about the song, I have included the video below. It was taken during the 2009 Sound Relief concert - not a gig immortalised in the above stamp release, but an amazing gig that I happened to attend, which was in aid of bush-fire victims.

The little mini-sheet of rock posters belongs on the page of my stamp album with other rock music related stamps (and some bug stamps that kind of fit colour-wise).

The other music stamps on my album page include these ones from 2001 (but I only have five of the eight stamps in the series):

The 2001 issue celebrates legendary songs, and the artists include Kylie Minogue, INXS, silverchair, Yothu Yindi and (puke) Savage Garden. Midnight Oil's song 'Power and the Passion' also features in this series, but  it is one of the stamps I don't yet have.

Australia Post also paid homage to local Rock'n'Roll in a 1998 issue, which featured Johnny O'Keefe, Daddy Cool and, as pictured above, the legendary AC/DC and Skyhooks. And I wanted to finish off with the ACCA DACCA stamp, so I could conclude this post with the very apt declaration:

It's a long way to the top... if you wanna rock'n'roll.

I heart acca-dacca. It's true. People who know me might be surprised by that. But seriously, how can you go past them?

Bagpipes: Tick.

Angus Young in his school uniform: Tick.

AC/DC on the back of truck driving through Melbourne: Tick.

My Sunday was just totally made, with that little dose of AC/DC. Hope you enjoyed it too, Sunday Stampers. :)

 

* With apologies to Bon Scott for appropriating his legendary rock'n'roll adage to the title of this week's post on a nerdy stamp blog. Sorry about that.