There are nekkid people in the video, so it’s age-restricted. Click on the Marlys Lenz Cox images to open the YouTubes. The video is Carnival, by James Herbert, who was Michael Stipe’s art professor at the University of Georgia in Athens. You will glimpse Marlys taking the still photos, on which she would later overpaint.

It’s hard for me to describe the effect Limbo District had on us, or the effect we had on them. Jerry Ayers was a legend in Athens, a kindly trickster in the video and in real life, a Pierrot of the highest order. Dominique Amet was French, which, in 1982, bestowed either mystique or the term “eurotrash”. Dominique, though – or because – she smelled French, got the mystique. Craig Woodall was a sweet, soft-spoken, but oddly surly-seeming intellectual who drank too much. Davey Stevenson was the strawberry-blonde strong man in the video. Kelly Crow was the dark-haired counterpart. They were all of them burning with intellect and curiosity and we lit each other on fire.

I wish I could find a better version of this video – I once had the VHS – and their music. It was as if the Velvet Underground were marching in a psychedelic second-line parade, which thrilled me no end. Here are some links I found:

Live show : 40-Watt Clayton St. | Fetish This on YouTube | Fetish This on Soundcloud | A La Maison on Youtube

The live show actually sounds great. Go the page and search it. Now how do I download it? And, please, someone ask James Herbert to upload a better version of this film. It’s too beautiful to be displayed in such poor quality.

Rome, Piazza Navona. December 2021