The Puddle | pl

After 25 Years largely lost in the mist, and with their 1986 – 93 Flying Nun Records catalogue long
out of print, The Puddle finally re-emerged in 2006 from more than a decade of sporadic live
performances and occasional lost album recordings. Rumours that founder and core member
George D. Henderson had “done a Syd Barrett” proved to be unfounded. A decade of ill-health
was conquered by a rigorously scientific approach to clean-living coupled with happenstance. Now
with three acclaimed albums released on Fishrider Records since 2007 - No Love - No Hate, The Shakespeare Monkey and Playboys in the Bush - and a fourth, Secret Holiday/ Victory Blues, due for
release late in February 2012 The Puddle are determined to make up for lost time.

The Puddle have always been the most stubbornly underground of the bands associated with the
Flying Nun imprint, despite George’s lifelong desire to write “pop music”. A favourite of some
critics, who could see beyond the fragile limitations of their early recordings (their debut mini-album
recently included in SPIN magazine’s list of the best Kiwi pop releases alongside The Clean),
praise for Henderson’s song writing also often comes from other song writers.

The current line-up of the band includes long-time collaborator Alan Starrett (who has played and
recorded with The Bats, David Kilgour, and Robert Scott and was also in the short-lived Flying nun
psych-pop tribute supergroup The pop Art Toasters), eccentric Dunedin poet and musician Gavin
Shaw, and George’s brother, and original Puddle drummer, Ian Henderson. The Puddle have now
completed a couple of extensive New Zealand tours, dazzling people with their mix of gentle psychpop,
melodic garage rock and Wagnerian mini-operatic “chug-rock”.

“beautifully resigned guitar pop… full of the kind of articulate and well-read pop songs that made
Henderson’s home country the epicentre of literate guitar music in the 1980s and ‘90s”
Uncut Magazine .