Rem's London Misery

Recording early album Fables Of The Reconstruction in London was not the pleasant experience rockers REM had hoped it would be.

Holed up in North London's LIVINGSTON STUDIOS, the now legendary stadium band worked with producer JOE BOYD on their tricky third album in 1985, but didn't have as much fun as they wanted.

Despondent bassist Mike Mills remembers, "It might not have been the best time for us to be in England. We were exhausted from having just finished a tour right before we went into the studio, and going to England, where we didn't really know anybody and we'd never really spent any time there, we didn't really know how to deal with it.

"At that point there still wasn't anything good to eat over there except Indian food, and there were still only four channels on the TV and I couldn't figure out CEEFAX to save my life. So, it was actually kind of miserable.

"I tend to remember really lonely, miserable times with a nice sort of nostalgia, in that those feelings are so intense it's indelibly marked, but London was very strange to me. I enjoyed working with Joe Boyd and I'm happy with the record - there's some songs I might, in a perfect world, re-record, but the record's got a very good feel to it, a nice mood that's a result of all that we were doing."