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‘They taught me how to dress’: Michael Stipe on Limbo District, the greatest band you’ve never heard of
The wild art-rockers influenced REM and the B-52s, but burned out without making it big. As old recordings resurface, ex-members and fans recall their unorthodox brilliance
“I was an urban punk rocker, and Athens seemed beige and granola; it took me a while to find my ‘people’.” But, in 1979, at the only coffee joint still open after Stipe’s nightshift at the local steakhouse, he saw “this unbelievable, almost-cartoonish trio who looked like they’d stepped out of the Weimar Republic”, he says. Photograph: Collection of Kelly CrowThat trio – Jeremy Ayers, Davey Stevenson and Dominique Amet – later became Limbo District, the most radical group of an Athens underground scene that gave the world the B-52s, Pylon and, of course, REM. Photograph: Collection of Kelly CrowIn 1972 Ayers escaped to New York, joining Andy Warhol’s Factory studio, writing for Interview magazine as Sylva Thinn and befriending superstars such as actors Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis.
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