STILL HUNGRY

French band LES THUGS are returning to the UK this month with
a brand new album and 10 dates as support for Mega City Four.
"Still Hangry" is the band third release on Vinyl Solution
following the mini-LP "Electric Troubles" and the 12" EP
"Dirty White Race". 1989 has been a very busy year for LES THUGS.
Following their acclaimed performance at the Berlin festival
LES THUGS successfully toured in West Germany (twice), Italy, England,
Holland and Switzerland. But the high point of the year certainly
was their first ever U.S. tour : 33 dates coast to coast plus Canada
coinciding with the release of "Electric Troubles" on Seattle based
label Sub Pop (Mudhoney, Nirvana, Tad, etc ...). This was yet another
"premiere" by LES THUGS who also were the first French band to be
invited for a Peel session last year.
"Still Hangry" was produced by Iain Burgess (Big Black, Naked Raygun,
M.C.4) and shows LES THUGS at their most extreme ("Square of Lights").
Hailed last year as the 'real thing', 'an important band' by the
British press LES THUGS are still wild and raw taking the
listeners into a spiral of electric tension.



Christophe (RH IFC#9/10) :
"Still Hangry", it's a mixed about the two poles of Les Thugs
in the same time : a mix about what we feel during our affective
life, human relations between guys and chicks and political ideas ...
politics in the sense of "daily life". What we can say to sum up this,
is always as a matter of fact a little stupid ot militant "whine,
whine ...." lyrics are not so plain.

@Your Kind Of Freedom

Your Kind Of Freedom we don't want ...
Hey you with your God on your chest
When you're preaching about liberty
we see the stakes in your eyes !
... Your Kind Of Freedom we don't want ...
Freedom for ignorance and lies
Freedom for women's slavery
Freedom for inquisition's law
... Your Kind Of Freedom we don't want ...

Christophe (RH IFC#9/10) :
It's a song about religious integrism. In France those who
wanted to have the movie "the last temptation of the Christ"
banned by the censor, wanted to have this in the name of the
freedom of beliefs. When people start talking about freedom
to make repression, to censor, I find this really dangerous
Eric (Combo #3) :
It can almost be applied to the US "Land of freedom and so on",
but it's the kind of freedom we don't want. Ignorance and lies,
slavery of women ...

@Suspended Time

Never go to sleep, never give up the light
Never go back home, never give up the fight
Delirium crisis in the van
Investigation about the real life
Suspended time over the Swiss lakes
The quest for fun in funny lights
Opened windows on other lives
Wild city bike in Amsterdam
Eyes that are catching in the dark
The Etruscans are still alive
Hello we come from planet Mars
To visit your highway services
These guys only think about the whisky
And whisky, beer, and beer with whisky
Could you go to sleep, could you give up the light ?
Could you go back home, could you give up the fight ?

Christophe (RH IFC#9/10) :
It's a song on the same line as "See you soon", on the tours,
on being in a r'n'r band, about travelling, meeting people,
doing things different from the life you're ordinary having.

@Groucho's Theme

Eric (Combo #3) :
During the rehearsals, there is a cut that comes out,
a music basis, without lyrics and with a catchy riff
so it is kept as it is. It's not our will to make
intrumental songs to make intrumental songs or for a
certain 50's-60's tradition as Link Wray, sometimes
we find that the music can be enough for itself

@Birthday (Why didn't you come for my ...)

Why didn't you come for my Birthday ?
It has been such a gloomy day.
Why didn't you get to my birthday night ?
It could have been such a funny time.
We could have talked all night,
We could have laughed all night,
Never ever in the dark
With the light of your smile.
Why didn't you come for my Birthday ?
I've been waiting for such a long, long time.
Did you have a date with your other friends ?
I hate when you talk with these brilliant guys.
Did you have fun all night ?
Did you talk all night ?
Did you offer someone else
the music of your voice ?

Eric (Combo #3) :
Birthday is in the style of Where's the Party and Bad News
From the Heart, on disappointed love, a love that has gone wrong
and it extends the Schpountz's theme : it is always the people who
show off, who get the most things

@Birds of Ill Omen

That's just when the air is goin' rare
And poisoned smog makes your children cough
When your salads are all scorched alive
It's only then that you recall
... the birds of Ill Omen
The so safe central has finally blown up
Your latest baby has a real strange face
You're loosing your teeth and you're loosing your hair
It's only there that you recall
... the birds of Ill Omen

Christophe (RH IFC#9/10) :
Since a few months, everyone finds himself to be an ecologist,
everyone wants to rescue the planet and obviously it's too late,
people should have waken up earlier. It's a bit like the modern
society, the people have to face the danger to stop behaving
in a crazy way

Eric (Combo #3) :
Birds of Ill Omen is a song about ecology and all those nuclear plant
directors who tell you that there is no danger. Tchernobyl, yes but
in France there is no risk. Birds of Ill Omen mean the birds which
announce catastrophes, which we are when we denounce
the pollution and its dangers

Eric (SMA #3) :
I'm deeply pro-ecology. It's obvious that we should be careful
at what we do now, that we we should take care the Mediterranean
sea doesn't become a dustbin. We should fight to avoid that animal
species disappear. On another side, we live in a society which
takes profit of these movements to sell soap.

@Going Down

Hurry the research 'bout the potion,
The secret of happiness for all
Cos' they're goin' down
They're goin' down
They try all the things they find
To get always higher in the sky
But they're goin' down
Still goin' down

@Raining Again

The sky was blue and we were feeling fine
Like silly tourists on the postcards.
Do you remember the nice time we had,
But did you really ?
It's raining again and it's raining hard
The sky is bringing grey reflects in your eyes
It's hard to forget that it all starts again
When the autumn is coming back
The night is falling and it's falling fast
But it just can't hide the tears in your eyes
It's hard to forget that it all starts again
When the autumn is coming back

@Inside Room

She's back to work and she's goin' down
Death under the neon light;
She recalls a song and she lifts her head
She's far from all this shit around;
She's got this music in her mind,
A kind of drug that never falls,
And there are no words to describe
The inside room where she's alive
This girl is kissing another guy
He'd like to hide under the ground;
He closes his eyes and remembers a song
That will hold him in its arms
He's got this music in his mind,
A kind of sun that never falls,
And there are no words to describe
The inside room where he's alive

Eric (Combo#3) :
it's a very personal song by Christophe which came to him
after the reading of the book "La Chambre Intérieure".
It's a girl and guy who are isolated each one in a room.
Separated love, disunion. A theme that he is interested in

@Little Vera's Song

There's too much noise & too much vodka
To care 'bout radio's noise
Where Gorbi paints with pastels colours
Your same old factory's walls
- Better beware of a cop who's friendly -
There's some who say that the people today
Don't want to work anymore;
If it is true kindly warn us
Cos' we won't feel so alone
- Democracy is like a friendly cop :
It's always better to beware
Better beware of a cop who's friendly -

Eric (V. #3) :
Everyone claims himself to be part of the democracy. The problem is that
it's very dangerous. For two reasons : firstly because some people say they
are democrat but deep inside themselves they aren't, and secondly democracy
is the direction made by the majority of people. It means that when the
majority of people agrees to do something, it is done ! And it's also very
dangerous. I think of the majority of Germans in 39 who were for nazism,
it was not because they were a majority that is was a good thing. This is
why it is very dangerous. I don't think that democracy is the thing we're
living now. I don't think it's the ideal political system. It may be the
ideal political system when you have a look at all the political systems
in the world but in a whole, I don't think it's the ideal system.

Les Thugs (SMA #3):
First of all, it's about a film "The little Vera", a Russian film. What I liked
in the film, is that it talked about the USSR, not from the democracy point
of view, the human rights but from the one of the workers who live in a poor
district, which deals with alcoholism, with the relationship between the chick and
her parents, and so on ... For me, the misery which is described in this film, it's an
international misery. It took place in the USSR but it could have been in the USA,
in France in any popular district of any country. The lyrics are about this, linked
with the USSR and this regime. And at the end, job is talked about. In fact, it came
from one time where I went to a bar selling cigarettes to buy some, and there was a
kind of not drunkard but a slightly drunk executive who was there telling the owner
that now people don't want to work. I've got the feeling that the opposite is true,
people want and like work all the more as time passes by. So it's about all this and
what's going on in the USSR. It's for sure good, better than stalinism, but at the
same time, we're not blind about what's going on in the Occident. For sure, we can't
be happy that those countries come back to a market economy when you see the results
here or in the USA, I don't think it's the solution

@Time of Reaction

@Radical

Cos' you were speaking so loud
And you looked so assured
In the time when you
Were a radical
You rewrote the world
In two black & white camps
In the time when you
Were a radical
How many friends did you reject ?
And these excommunications
In the time when you
Were a radical
And did you hate them so
All your today's friends
And you always said never ...

Eric (Combo #3) :
We met very radical people : "I've got the truth,
here are my plans, no way to hesitate", particularly
among the people living in the political area, and then
finally we saw that life didn't admit they were right
and they were really lonely

Les Thugs (SMA #3) :
Our past is the one of old militants, and during the last fifteen
years we met people who had speeches, slogans, who fought for
great ideas ... but in a way we take as simplistic, these people
you can meet now well integrated in the society, who are married,
have children, who work ... and have forgotten everything. Recently
I saw a former leader of 68 (period of big strikes in France) who
was going to be employed at the Ministry of finance : Geismar and
it's a bit the lyrics of Radical.

@Square of Lights(?)

This is a black window over the world
Where humans are so crazy
Where violence and injustice take over the screen
In this square of lights, grey over shadows
The shame and the blood are here daily
The lure of gain and glory days
Become the final hope
We're now around over the world
With TV eyes it seems so easy
And Mr Smith watching this scene
Feels so powerful
The fourth power lays down the law here
Politicians are speaking and speaking
So they can broadcast all their lies
But the show must go on
In this square of lights

Eric (Combo #3) :
This song is about TV, of which we were told that it was
the "Square of Lights" as it was said of the "Century of
Lights" (18th) and as it's on the contrary a non-light,
the obscurity with hired journalists and politicians
kneeling in front of it, the thousand lies per minute.
The fourth power and all that it gives birth to.

Les Thugs (SMA#3) :
Many important things are shown on TV but without focusing
on the keys of the problems. Square of lights, the screen
of the light it's a bit the hypnotizing power of TV on the
guy who is watching it. It's some thoughts like this on the
power of media.

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Copyright :

Freely written by Stéphane Dufour