The Politics.. Politics.. of Pudding

Rip It Up, Issue 208, 1 December 1994, Page 17

The Politics.. Politics.. of Pudding

I’m on the phone to Brice Pudding of “Hamilton band” Wendy House. The Te Aro warehouse he calls home has managed to remain mercifully unaffected by the literally crap weather conditions which have assaulted Wellington of late. We break the ice with a quick game of let’s-swap-second-hand-anec-dotes-about-things-reported-to have-been-spotted-flying-above-the-streets-of-Wellington. I say door, he says roof, thus winning (game rules available on request), then we get down to the not very serious business of discussing the new Wendy House CD Hot Action Plastic, which I am seriously taken by in a suitably unserious sort of way.

Hot Action Plastic is made up of Wendy House’s three previous cassette releases {2032 AD, Cruising and Xanadu), with four tracks by London guest Mr Snakes. The whopping 29 tracks unashamedly pilfer from a wide variety of songs which have gone before them, with the most diverse sources ranging from ‘Riders On The Storm’ to ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. This lack of respect for copyright, combined with a bunch of mighty big ideas and a band of truly tiny instruments, makes Hot Action Plastic come across like a strangely sane version of anarchy in the music corner — the child prodigies cut loose the minute the teacher turns their back.

Hence, it’s not surprising to learn a large portion of the Wendy House fan contingent consists of Pudding’s young nieces and nephews. “They love the stuff,” gloats the proud, kindypunk hero. “Their parents get a bit freaked out because there’s a bit of foul language and some naughty ideas in there, but they sort of reluctantly let them listen to the tapes.” Wendy House made their debut at Soundwatch 1992, at Auckland’s Artspace Gallery. They performed in a six foot tall, windowless wendy-house. The inner action (three Wendy Housers jamming on toy instruments) could be viewed through fish eye lenses installed in the walls. It was the public’s first glimpse into the weird and wonderful world of 2032 AD.

“It was a sort of a psychedelic version of a Big Brother’s watching you kind of thing,” explains Pudding. “Rather than that 1984, austere, concrete bunker aesthetic, we tried to go for: ‘Nah, people are still going to surround themselves with things that make them feel good, or give them a sense of security. So, when you looked inside the house there was this sort of orange swirly carpet, lemon yellow walls, and shelves full of knick knacks. One shelf was just full of religious iconography from all sorts of religions, as if the inhabitants were kind of hedging their bets against fire, flood, famine and all that.’”

Wendy House next performed at the Waikato Art Museum, inside an Anglia wreck, in an attempt to "gradually wean themselves off enclosed spaces”. These days, it is possible to catch Wendy House in a pub (although they are just as likely to play in a kindergarten), but don’t be fooled into thinking they will be like any other bar band you have encountered. “With our last gig in Hamilton, people kept

saying it was like story time for adults,” explains Pudding. “People usually just walk up to the front of the stage, sit down, sing along and do kind of call and response stuff if they know the music, which they do in Hamilton because we’ve got a high profile there.” The story behind Wendy House’s proud “Hamilton band” dubbing is long, complicated, heartening, humorous, and off the record. Pudding says sporting the “Hamilton band” label is "about the un-coolest thing you could do”. He affects a sneer to reflect the popular attitude regarding the town of which Wendy House have become cultural ambassadors: “‘Everything that’s ever come out of Hamilton’s a piece of shit.’ [A] review [of Hamilton compilation Discordia Concors] that appeared in the [Wellington] press was like: ‘We all know anything that’s ever come out of Hamilton is a piece of shit and this is no exception,’ and then just completely screwed the whole album. About us [it] just said: ‘There’s nothing wrong with Wendy House the stop button won’t fix.’ That’s what we used as our plug for the [1994] Fringe Festival.”

Pudding’s authoritative description of Hamilton is as “kind of a mixture” of Knightshade with “this weird, sort of aging, Dada-ist, hippie culture”.

After that excellent description, I try to procure one of Wendy House from the mouth of the Pudding who should know. "Well, I was reading something the other day that was calling [They Might Be Giants] ‘geek rock’. I did think: ‘Oh well, that’s yet another label that could be applied to us, probably,’ along with about 20 others. When we did Uncharted, they were taking the mickey out of the fact there were so many influences, and using about a 20 word pigeonhole to introduce the style of music at various points through the interview.”

They Might Be Giants are a very good reference point for Wendy House, although Pudding is not overly familiar with their music. He is surprised to hear TMBG have a song called ‘I Hate The Mall’, as Wendy House share the same sentiment in their song ‘Fuck The Mall’. And yes, it would be easy to come up with another 19 reference points for this truly whacky “performance group”. Pudding has given the second two, by crediting King Missile (lyrically) and The Tall Dwarfs (musically) for some of his inspiration. Previously dropped descriptive touch points numbers four to 20 are as follows: gloriously absurdist; the Hamilton band from hell; not exactly immemorable [sic] elevator muzak; mutated dwarf music; very user friendly; cyberchoirboyish; sugary; non-grunge; non-hard rock; non-rebel stance; rebel stance; self mocking; political to the core; toy punk; of an often cheesy sensibility; staunchly cute; and stylishly ambiguous. That’s 20, and the mere fact that many descriptions have been dropped on (and often by) Wendy House must account for something. Wendy House could be the best thing that could happen to the kindergarten set short of Bert and Ernie conceiving an heir.

BRONWYN TRUDGEON