Leader of this flagship group of French alternative rock, Tai-Luc had developed several jobs in parallel, including that of a bookseller on the Parisian quays. He died Friday December 1st.
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He was the singer, guitarist, lyricist and leader of the Parisian punk rock group La Souris déglingué: Taï Luc died Friday, December 1, at the age of 65, journalist Philippe Manoeuvre announced on Sunday on Meta, who evokes “the death of this soldier of punk”. According to The world, he would have succumbed to “a lung infection”. The group La Souris déglingué, also known as “LSD”, was formed in 1976 around this figure of an angel fascinated by Asia, born to a French mother and a father of Vietnamese origin, and whose rage was expressed in his lyrics and his sharp riffs.
Mix of punk and 50s rock
Born on August 10, 1958 in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), Tai-Luc Nguyen had moved numerous times after his parents’ divorce when he was a teenager. It was at the Hoche high school in Versailles that he met his future friends and set up a group around the idea of ”make noise together” after having discovered rock at the Open Market, Marc Zermati’s famous record store in Les Halles and having measured the punk madness in London. La Souris déglingué was first noticed thanks to the energy of its concerts , then thanks to the singularity of its mixture of punk and 50s rock, which Tai Luc described as punkabilly.
After a first self-produced 45T called Hate, Hate, Hate in 1979, the group released a first eponymous album on New Rose in 1981. A record which deals with youth revolts, praised by critics, which confirmed their reputation with titles like Rock’n’Roll Vengeance, Young lords, On the area Or Hi buddies !. Spearhead of the French punk scene of the 80s, the group subsequently released around fifteen albums – its last, The Roofs of the Palace was published in 2014 – and was still active.
Bookseller in a second life
But Tai Luc had resumed studies in the meantime and became a doctor in linguistics, lecturer at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO). Author of several theses, he had at the same time become a bookseller in Paris, a profession that he appreciated, his book boxes being located on Quai de Gesvres. His last raised fist was to defend the cause of second-hand booksellers, forced by the Paris Prefecture to remove their boxes in preparation for the next Olympic Games.
This weekend, tributes poured in on social networks. Among them, that of Fanxoa from Bérurier Noir, who greeted “a great and beautiful voice of French independent rock”and those of journalists Philippe Manoeuvre and Laurent Chalumeau, who had supported La Souris déglingué from the start.