Subversive Sounds of The South presents some of the best old and new campaigners of the the punk and post-punk genre that Hobart nipaluna has produced.
Legendary Little Ugly Girls and a re-imagined Mau Mau Menace team up with a more than match fit Liquid Nails. No pickle juice required!

LITTLE UGLY GIRLS

Legendary Australian punk band Little Ugly Girls (aka Lugs)
formed in Hobart /nipaluna in the very early 90s and have been based in Melbourne for the last 25 years.
The band formed around fiery vocalist Linda J (aka LJ Dacio) whose uncompromising wails and words, coupled with a formidable punk presence maker one of Australia's most electrifying front people. Alongside her is axe wielding brother Bean Johnston whose grimy jagged sonic assault drives their songs in a relentless sensation.
The original songwriting team was completed with drummer Brent ‘Sloth’ Punshon whose extraordinary galloping rhythms gives their body of work an intense chaotic assault but holds its centre.
After moving to Melbourne in the late 90's the band settled on their classic line up with the addition of rock-solid thudding bassist Mindy map previously of another cult 90s band Brisbane’s much-loved seminal 90’s cult band, Fur. Most recently the punk family unit has been completed with baby brother Robert ‘Pops’ Johnson, totally crushing the huge challenge of percussion master.
Little Ugly Girl have played with seminal punk legends, Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, and Fugazi.

Since first breaking up in the early ‘00s, Little Ugly Girls have made semi-regular live reappearances, always just as powerful and invigorating as ever.
In 2018 they played Meredith Music festival –

“My favourite Meredith set was Little Ugly Girls in 2018. Sitting on the grass in the sun, recovering from the night before and promptly having my mind ripped to shreds by a local punk band I'd never heard before, playing songs over two decades old – it felt like peak-Meredith: a discovery for some and total familiarity for others. The festival is perfectly primed for daytime raucousness.” – Brodie Lancaster -The Age.

More recently in 2021, they shared the stage at the Forum with Cable Ties and Mod Con. In 2024 they played the last day of the last Mona Foma Summer Sessions sharing the stage with Wednesday and Shonen Knife. Lugs’ show was described in Broadsheet as “beautifully scathing and scorched earth tough’.

Fun Fact – They once headlined a show with The White Stripes as their support at the iconic Empress Hotel in Fitzroy.
But Little Ugly Girls were woefully under documented on record, releasing only a handful of cassettes and one CD-r in the 90’s and 00’s. Luckily in 2018 Chapter Music managed to extract a full length album from them, featuring recordings spanning more than 20 years, including news sessions to finish off songs first tracked in the late 90s that had been stranded on a damaged hard drive for two decades. The album sold out its first vinyl pressing in a flash and Lugs went on to win Best Rock/Punk Band at 2018 Music Victoria awards.
WordPress review describes the album as
Fresh and outlandish: a classic
Vice Magazine describes it as,
A dirty, raging piece of punk, Little Ugly Girls is an exhilarating record of crackling guitar and pummelling drums, all built around Linda’s gruff, caustic wail. It’s an excellent record in its own right, but also a necessary corrective to the myth that the local punk canon was predominately men.
LJ, Bean and Pops have gone on to solidify their place in the underground canon as the trio behind bands The Dacios and Bulls.

Mau Mau Menace:
Before the dawn of the internet, in Hobart there was a post-punk band honing their craft and playing their songs to captive audiences at Risdon Prison.
Step forward 34 years and a re-invented Mau Mau Menace are back with singer/songwriter Dave Hughes, and 3 teenage punk recruits. This has been made possible with a Creative Australia grant to employ the young punks to learn and rehearse the Mau Mau Menace album "Slugs and Romance" which will get it's official release at this auspicious event, 34 years after its initial recording!

Liquid Nails:
We opened for the Saints a few months back! Who'd have thought?...... Anyway, we continue to rely on the expertise of those that can eloquently write about us. Here's an exerpt of Richie Cuskelly's (208L Containers) summation of our band:
"Though stirring Killing Joke hooks hang all around, Liquid Nails don’t embrace repetition. Their rhythm section pulses with organic Sleater-Kinney slink rather than blunt industrial force, changing course as often as an exciting medical emergency. (Sir, for the last time, the birthing pools are for the pregnant not the gout-ridden!) Simply, these songs refuse to settle. They stay on their toes and so must we. And on top of it all, an uncanny hint of the Wiggles' dress sense and all-ages suitability. Even when Trent yells ‘have some fucking integrity!’ it is in quite a warm, comradely fashion – as Ringo Starr might've had Thomas the Tank Engine ever released bloopers, or as Garrett should do this moment to Albanese."

LITTLE UGLY GIRLS - FACEBOOK / INSTA

LIQUID NAILS - FACEBOOK / INSTA

MAU MAU MENACE - FACEBOOK / INSTA

Poster and hero image Artwork by David Fooks, Little Ugly Girls photo by Daniel Oh, Liquid Nails photo by @coopdelaloop, Mau Mau Menace photographer unknown

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