The Puddle, a revolving line-up of musicians assembled around the unstable creative core of George D. Henderson, has been around, in one form or another, since 1984. Three albums and a 7” single on Flying Nun between 1986 and 1993 attracted critical appreciation and notoriety in equal measures for “pop as shambling and sweet as you could possibly imagine”.
Regrettably The Puddle were ignored on the 2006 Flying Nun boxed set. No doubt the masters, which were known to be disappearing track by track in 1991, have by now been lost altogether.

Their early output paid scant regard to quality control or recording convention and made all but the perfect pop of their “Thursday” 7” single difficult listening to ears tuned to mainstream pop. But hiding within the sabotaged early recordings were brilliant, often beautiful songs with lyrics as sharp, imaginative and clever as you’d ever want.

In the early 1990’s, with a new line-up, the Puddle toughened and tightened up. A technically organized Puddle on top of their game recorded the definitive brainy outsider rock album, “Songs for Emily Valentine” in 1993 but found no-one to release it at the time. Apart from a 1995 single on French label Acetone, the SFEV recordings were not to be released for another ten years. By the mid 1990’s the Puddle had done a Flaming Lips – they had released some bizarre albums hinting at brilliant talent but inaccessible to all but the most patient and tolerant listeners, but further shifts of personnel and other disasters just when they were beginning to hone their craft stalled their momentum.

After a few side-tracks and false starts a new Puddle (George with original Puddle bassist Ross Jackson and drummer Heath Te Au, who George had played with in Mink in the second half of the 1990’s) took shape at the start of the new century. Late in 2005 The Puddle recorded 25 tracks at Inca studio in Wellington, the best dozen or so of which are planned for release in 2008 as an album called “Playboys in the Bush”. In the meantime George recorded a further batch of songs at his brother’s home studio in Dunedin, to be released late 2007 as an album called “No Love – No Hate”.

Back to the beginning
George’s induction into music started with the discovery of The Beatles, The Who, The Stooges and The Velvet Underground in Invercargill in the 1970’s. But he had also discovered Can, Faust, Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd. And other things besides. His teachers told his parents they were unsure if he was a genius or a fool; a question he is no closer to resolving for them today. His earliest band, Crazy Olé! & The Panthers, played live a few times but mostly jammed and recorded to cassette and reel tapes in his bedroom, which he shared with his younger brother Ian who, in the circumstances, thought it wise to take up the drums. The songs were either covers of Velvets songs or songs inspired by the Stooges, like 1975 - "1975/ will be the year to be alive/ it won't be a bore/ like 1974". After leaving Invercargill George managed a few months of University study before heading to Wellington where he formed The Spies. A further move to Christchurch saw George form The And Band and begin to gain notoriety if not acclaim.

After his The And Band experience George returned to Dunedin and had sworn off rock music, but on hearing The Chills' “Satin Doll” played on George Kaye's radio show he took heart. The composition of songs like “Monogamy”, “Xmas in Country”, and “Magic Words” demanded a live band. George, as usual, first tried to form the band around his drug buddies, with predictable results.

The Puddle 1984 - 1989
At last he taught Ross Jackson (a bagpiper) to play bass (for years the only songs Ross knew were bagpipe tunes and George's songs). Despairing of finding a drugster with a sense of rhythm, The Puddle went further afield; early Puddle drummers included George's ex- and partner in The Spies and The And Band, Susan Ellis, and Shayne Carter (Bored Games, Double Happys, SJF, Dimmer). Shayne played a stand-up 3-piece kit with George and Ross at a lunchtime gig in the Otago University Gazebo Lounge, which was the first wholly successful Puddle performance.

The Puddle became a working concern when GDH convinced Leslie Paris (Look Blue Go Purple) to drum. Leslie's style, captured exactly in prose by Matthew Bannister in that compelling read, his tell-it-like-it-was memoir “Positively George St.”, was ideally suited to the drifting arrangements of Puddle songs, and allowed the evolution of their sound beyond the garage (Puddle Mark 1). The Puddle quickly expanded to match GDH's ambitions (some called it hubris) and the occasional importunities of experimentalist mates. Lindsay Maitland, the third member of Crazy Olé! and The Panthers, played cornet and French horn, Peter Gutteridge learned to play George and Susan's old Farfisa organ (he's never looked back), Leslie's Look Blue Go Purple buddy Norma O'Malley played the flute (Puddle Mark 1). In 1985 this line-up recorded “Pop. Lib”., a 33&1/3 12" E.P., live with overdubs. The version of “Pop. Lib.” reissued on the “Into The Moon” CD is a typical Flying Nun travesty: one channel only of an extremely stereo 2-track recording! Only the songs without overdubs, “Candy and the Currant Bun” and “Junk”, survive this treatment: only the overdubs survive of “Lacsydaisical”, and most other songs have been castrated or otherwise rendered ridiculous. The vinyl version, however, was a critical hit. If good reviews were record sales, The Puddle would be rich.

This Puddle, or variants thereof, survived for many years, playing Christchurch and Invercargill and Wellington and releasing one or two tracks on compilations (“Christmas in the Country” on the “Weird Culture, Weird Custom”, student radio compilation and “Friends” on a shared onset/offset label 7”) as well as the live LP ”Live at the Teddy Bear Club” on Flying Nun. This record is a good indication of what the band were like live at this time (as “Pop. Lib.” is of an earlier era).

A few weeks after recording “Xmas in Country” for the student radio compilation, Lindsay Maitland died following a drug overdose. This marked the end of an era, especially as Leslie soon after went to work for Flying Nun in Auckland; The Puddle struggled on occasionally as a 3 piece with other drummers, but didn't regain the same plateau.

The Puddle 1990 - 1996
Then, in 1990, drummer Norman Dufty joined, followed by Jenny Crooks on keyboards and backing vocals (Puddle Mark 2). Things began to look up, and Alistair Galbraith convinced Flying Nun to front $800 for some 4-track sessions (1990), which yielded “Into The Moon”. Later, Ross & Jenny went off to manage a goat farm outside Te Awamutu, and George went to Invercargill prison, briefly. While there (1991) he revised the Puddle blueprint, and reformed the band thusly: George and Norman with Vikki Wilkinson, bass, and Richard Cotton, keyboards and sampler (Puddle Mark 3). This line-up played the Flying Nun 10th birthday shows, with the addition of various guests.

George also co-founded Mink, initially as a vehicle for those songs which had never suited The Puddle, and a demonstration that dance music could be musical and could take off in Dunedin: something he has since regretted at leisure, although he consoles himself that it would, eventually, have happened even without his influence. Several of George’s best-realised songs of this period can be heard on the two Mink albums “Mink” and “For my Mink” released on Infinite Regress in the mid to late 1990s. For once he found himself backed by some of the best musicians around and produced by a perfectionist.

As well as the Mink CDs and Cassingles, The Puddle toured N.Z. two or three times in this era, and released F.Nun 7" “Thursday/Too Hot To Be Coo”l and Acetone 7" “The Power of Love/Mamelons d'Amadou”, the latter from unreleased album “Songs For Emily Valentine” (since released by Powertools records, 2006). These 16-track sessions also yielded “Southern Man”, The Puddle's first nationwide commercial radio success, and, on Festival Records' “Louder” BFM compilation, garnered their first ever paycheck for a recording. This lineup also videotaped a live performance intended for TV, and a video for “Thursday” played on TV 2's Frenzy, at the end of the first show for 1994 (could someone please post this on YouTube?). Norman and Vikki reproduced and went to Nelson, and Ross returned. Before this, in 1996, George had travelled to Te Awamutu and successfully recorded 8 older songs in Hamilton with a reformed Puddle Mark 2 (sessions known as “Emma, Lady Hamilton”, as yet unreleased).

The Puddle 2000 - 2007
Eventually The Puddle became serious again: with Alan Haig on drums and Phil Savory (ex-Mink) on sax and keyboards they played and recorded their part of The Dunedin Sound concert of 2001 at Sammy's. This concert was recorded, broadcast and subsequently released on CD by college radio station KJFC in California. Then Heath Te Au, ex of Mink and Suka, joined as drummer.(Puddle Mark 4). This is the line up which has played regularly in Dunedin for the last 2 years, and a very tight one it is too. After 20 years, it ought to be! With Celia Mancini (who had sung many great vocal parts on “Songs for Emily Valentine”) dueting on “Season of the Wolf” , The Puddle (Mark 4) performed live on TV2's National Anthem; the other song telecast on this occasion was “'pataphysical Bureau”.

In September 2005 The Puddle played Chicks hotel in Port Chalmers; on this night George received unmistakable verification that he had finally fallen on his feet. In the 2 months following, the band recorded 25 tracks courtesy of patron (and sax player in Mk 2 days) Richard Steele at Inca studio in Wellington. This work (for an album to be called “Playboys in the Bush”) was overdubbed in mid-2006 and is due for completion in early 2008. In the meantime, George recorded again with Mink in Auckland and wrote dozens of new songs.

Recording these new songs at his brother’s home studio in Dunedin in 2007, George turned the arrangements he imagined in his head into reality by overdubbing the remaining instruments and discovering himself to be the most sensitive and self-effacing of session musicians for his own work in the process. It’s a Puddle record because The Puddle has always been George playing with the best musicians available (“If it’s just me with yer granny on bongos, it’s still The Fall” as Mark E. Smith said about his own ensemble). However, it has little in common with the full band Puddle album recorded in Wellington; if that’s a turbocharged Ferrari, this is a three speed bike with a basket and a bell that rings, of mainly sentimental value. That said, “No Love – No Hate” is the first new Puddle material to be released in almost 15 years and it’s the perfect prequel to “Playboys in the Bush”.

Members:
Guitar & vocals - George D. Henderson
Drums - (Present) Heath Te Au, (Past), Ian Henderson, Lesley Paris, Norman Dufty, Alan Haig
Bass - (Present) Gavin Shaw, (Past) Ross Jackson, Vicki Wilkinson
Keyboards - (Past) Peter Gutteridge, Jenny Crooks, Richard Cotton
Wind instruments - (Past) Norma O' Malley (Flute), Lindsay Maitland (French Horn), Richard Steele (Saxophone)
Backing vocals - (Past) Celia Pavlova/ Mancini, Demarnia Lloyd

Discography:
Pop lib 12 mini-album. Flying Nun 1986
Live in the palm of your hand Cas. Infinite Regress 1989
Live at the teddy bear club. LP. Flying Nun 1991
Into the moon CD. Flying Nun 1992 (includes Pop Lib EP)
Thursday 7 Flying Nun 1993
The Power of Love 7'' Acetone (France) 1995
Songs for Emily Valentine CD. Powertool 2005 (recorded 93)
No Love – No Hate CD. Fishrider 2007

Trvia:
The Puddle have never appeared on any Flying Nun compilation despite releasing 3 albums and a very poppy single for the label.
George played guitar in The Great Unwashed when they toured.

Also worthwhile checking out the series of magazines w/ comp CDs called "A Low Hum" that were put out for a few years up to end of 2006. They cover a bit of a range but largely indie guitar-based non-mainstream bands. Some of the names featuring there are: Ghostplane, Dead Pan Rangers, Grand Prix, The Dark Beaks, The Enright House, Lawrence Arabia, The Undercurrents, Punches, Voom etc. Most will have a MySpace or NZMusic.com page.

I second the view that the most likely home for NZs version of "College Rock" will be independent labels like Arch Hill (Pine, Fang, David Kilgour, Reduction Agents) and Lil Chief (Brunettes, Ruby Suns, Shaft) and also Powertool (Puddle, Onanon, Robert Scott). But also don't overlook the independently independent as there a few bands not on "name" labels here who are getting recognition overseas and played on US college radio... which I guess makes them "College Rock".

Phoenix Foundation and solo off-shoots like Sam Scott are probably NZ's answer to Wilco so worth checking them. Also a bit of a long history of bands from the '80's and '90's, mostly on Flying Nun Records at the time who still seem to get regular US College Radio play and are still adored more overseas than they are here - The Clean, The Chills, The Verlaines, The Bats, Bailter Space etc. - even by new generations of music lovers. And for more soundscape/ ambient guitar noise don't forget the mighty HDU. Phew...

I always reckon that reviews and allocation of 'stars" and suchlike is often more an indication of the reviewer's (and magazine readership's) taste in music than the true merits of the item being reviewed. Most music will have a loving admirer somewhere, but I suspect that mags like RIU are populated by contributors/ reviewers who are not generally great fans of "classic pop" and prefer harder edges over the alternative whimsy of The Ruby Suns and Phoenix Foundation. There is also maybe a "coolness" factor about being hard on local stuff as a kind of (over)reaction to the perception that NZ reviewers "soft" on local produce.

On the other hand, any regular reader of Mojo knows that the contributors to that mag are besotted with "classic" sounds of any era and are more likely to enjoy The Ruby Suns. And likewise Uncut who also rated it highly (and panned Fat Freddy's Drop). I know who's reviews I'd go with any day (and it ain't RIU or RG or GG for a start).

For what its worth, I regard the Ruby Suns release as one of the stand-out NZ releases of the last couple of years.

Yes, very nice indeed etc. BUT there is nothing by The Puddle on it. A mini album ("Pop Lib"), a live album ("Live at the Teddy Bears Club") and a studio album ("Into the Moon") were released on the Nun. I relaise tracks were hand-picked by Roger etc. but it does seem a tiny oversight in an otherwise scholarly-looking collection IMHO.

Somewhat detracts from the quality of the article when they select the wrong Phoenix Foundation to use a clip from. Last I heard our Phoenix Foundation were headed down a highly enjoyable Beatles meet Spacerock path, not a paint-by-numbers emo-pop-punk path. Also, when they describe Die! Die! Die! as "art-rock". Maybe "post-punk", which is just as meaningless a term to use, but what isn't "art-rock" these days?

There was something about that NYTimes article that depressed me. Quite a lot about it really. I mean the ideas around state-sponsored music are all quite sound (and have been debated at length here) but cultural marketing and cost-benefit is so un-rock'n'roll.

On the other hand it's gotta be better for a band to benefit their country and "national pride" than benefit some multi-national corporations "bottom line" and get screwed over for every penny under a one-sided contract. Actually getting screwed over by a company is certainly more rock'n'roll than becoming a tourist marketing billboard for your country but even less inviting. And maybe "art-rock" is just more marketable than "post-punk".

I reckon the Ryan McPhun and the Ruby Suns album (L'il chief Records) would be an excellent leftfield addition to your travel list. Great summery pop sounds that I find perfect for long road trips. Likewise David kilgour's "Frozen Orange". Again summery shimmering pop with a hint of alt.country. OK, also a bit leftfield maybe... but, hey you are on holiday and holidays are about exploring/ discovering new stuff.

So is that a "yes" to a website for under $100 then???

I keep myself fresh and excited by surfing in the winter waters of Otago. A cold shower and flogging myself with birch branches just doesn't do it for me anymore.

Thanks Karyn, at least we get to understand both sides of the story now. Not that either side makes any particular sense. I'm less interested in the corporate politics and more intesrested in how each option will/ could benefit (a) the public's choices and (b) the musician's chances. The proof will be in the programming... But, as Myshkin says... it's all academic for us south of Christchurch anyway.

I second that emotion mostly... I like both but Noizyland always had the charm factor of (a) being a fanatical fansite and (b) squeezing so much informtion into one megabroadsheethomepage... I hope Noizyland keeps going, not only for all the archival content there that is so valuable to search on, but also because I sent you a copy of our album recently and it wouuld've been nice to be added to the list of artists there...

I'm pretty damned happy with Radio 1 down here. In the past 3 years its got me listening to a radio station regularly for the first time since I was a kid and knew no better... always in the car in the morning (Emma's eclectic taste always presents surprises, incongruous (?) delights and a sensible listening diet. It was Wing's take on Suspicious Minds that had me smiling this morning...) and often at other times of the day too. Hell, even at home in the kitchen. There's the odd show I avoid but on the whole it's a wholesome balanced diet and not all Kiwi but sensibly proportioned and I've bought stuff or gone to gigs on the strength of hearing stuff on the Radio which for me is what it's all about rather than just filling in the vacant space between your ears each day (though it does that nicely too).

Your just being pendantik robyn.

"to be honest though, Dunedin rules and always has, i saw a wonderful new band there the otherday called "zan batman circus", hmm..not sure about that name, but great all the same."

You are right with the name Blink. a bit more info on them on dunedinmusic.com. On my list of bands to see. Dunedin's scene is exploding at the moment, but unfortunately few venture beyond the city boundaries and most are criminally under-appreciated in their home town. Folks seem happy to turn out for (some) bands from other places and ignore the local talent. Need more A Low Hum tours to get numbers through the doors...

... but interestingly non-students with a Onecard were charged $15 on the door so what gives there?

Great gig but pity about the sound at Refuel.