Plug Uglies - the greatest band you never heard. Australian underground eighties rock.

Rock 'n' roll is a strange beast. It's the thing that wouldn't die. It's the zombie that keeps coming back. Every time it comes back a little more twisted, a little more ragged. This glorious, beat-up mutant feeds by scavenging on the trash heap of the past. And there's nothing more appetizing than discovering a tasty morsel that has been overlooked.In the eighties kids were discovering Texas punk via the Nuggets collection or drooling over the sixties music you didn't hear on the radio like The Sonics and The Velvet Underground and Love. Now with the noughties comes a realization that there are a slew of fresh sounds from the eighties just waiting to be dug up so they can live again. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Plug Uglies - the Goddamnedest band in the world

In 2000 the remaining Plug Uglies members started creating a collection of their best available songs - as much for their own enjoyment as for anyone else. In March 2001, just as they were about to master the songs onto CD, Michael Hiron died and the project was put on hold. In 2003 Laughing Outlaw Records expressed interest in releasing the 19 track retrospective CD. Titled eponymously, the CD will be released in October 2005, almost twenty years since the first distorted sounds from a bedroom in inner city Sydney proclaimed the birth of the Plug Uglies.The line-up will be: Roger Norris on vocals, Tina Havelock Stevens on drums, Clem Lukey on guitar, John Willsteed on guitar and Paul Miskin (ex Tall Tales and True) on bass guitar.

Their first line-up in 1986 consisted of Johnny Gorman on rhythm guitar, Roger Norris on vocals, Tina Havelock Stevens on drums, Angus Douglas (ex Tactics) on lead guitar, and Wayne Baker on bass. They were as unstable as the 1830s New York street gang they were named after, and several line-up changes occurred early on. They settled for long enough to record six songs at Kings Row Studio in 1988. The members at that time were Johnny, Roger, Tina and Mark Lock (ex Died Pretty) on bass. Producing the EP was Johnny's brother, Michael Hiron from the Riptides. Before the songs were finally mixed, Johnny Gorman committed suicide. Several months after John Gorman's death, Michael Hiron and the other members of Plug Uglies decided to release the six track EP "Knock Me Your Lobes" as a way of documenting Johnny's incredible songwriting. Joining the band on guitar along with Michael Hiron was Clem Lukey, who had played with Michael in a Brisbane band called The Pineapples from the Dawn of Time. John Willsteed from the Go Betweens replaced Mark Lock on bass soon after. This line-up stayed consistent for the next three years, till the band eventually split up at the end of 1991.