“
Travels on a cloud/He’s one of the good time people now/I’m a face in the crowd/All dressed up and laughing loud/I can talk to him, and I can love him.” This was my introduction hearing the original
Nirvana’s ‘Rainbow Chaser’ (no, not Kurt Cobain’s Nirvana) on an UNCUT compilation back in the summer of 2003 entitled,
Acid Daze. It was like this crossover between symphonic pop, baroque beauty, and psychedelic phasing that was like a breath of fresh air.
They were often under the radar during the late ‘60s at the height of the Swinging London scenery during that time frame when up-and-coming bands like Pink Floyd, Family, The Nice, Traffic, and Spooky Tooth (who would later record with them) were recording their debut albums. And Nirvana were right in the middle of that scenery. That and their 6-LP box set on the Madfish label entitled
From the pioneers of British Psychedelia and Prog • Limited to 1000 units • Remastered • Includes previously unreleased album • Signed by the band
The output of late Sixties pop-rock band
Nirvana is collected in
Songlife 1967-1972, a highly limited 6LP vinyl box set that comes with a print SIGNED by the band.
Nirvana were essentially the duo of Irishman Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Greek Alex Spyropoulos – who, following a chance meeting in London during the summer of 1966, took a long, strange trip together. The pair would bring in musicians to play on album sessions including the likes of Herbie Flowers, Billy Bremner and members of
/ 28 January 2021 1474 Views
There is some archival footage, made for Danish TV in 1968, of Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos, popular music’s only Greek-Irish pairing of astral-baroque crusaders, collaborating together very naturally on piano and autoharp in Alex’s fourth floor flat on Elsham Road near Holland Park. It is an evocative piece of film, finding the pair at ease, and complementing one another’s strengths as musicians and songwriters. But within 12 months of the film’s making, Nirvana had been unceremoniously dumped by record label Island before delivering the final chapter of a three-album deal. The subsequent reversal of fortune, if not quite analogous to a corpulent prince being ejected from an ostentatious banquet and forced to squat in a Bruce Robinson-like hovel of damp walls, blackened fingernails and empty fridges, nevertheless must have felt like such at close quarters.