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Nirvana (UK band)

Nirvana are a UK-based progressive rock band formed in 1967, primarily active in the late 1960s and early 1970s - and still sporadically active to the present day.

History

The band were formed in the summer of 1967 in an era when melodic pop/rock music with baroque and chamber arrangements and instrumentation was highly-prized. The band consisted of two songwriter/performers: Greek-born Alex Spyropoulos and Irish-born Patrick Campbell-Lyons, who met in London. They produced a number of singles (notably "Rainbow Chaser", "Pentecost Hotel" and "Tiny Goddess"), for the fledgling Island Records label.

The band were signed by Island Records' founder Chris Blackwell in the era when he also signed the bands Traffic and Free. Blackwell considered Nirvana one of his prize signings in his early forays into progressive rock and showcased the band by presenting them at prestigious concerts in venues such as London's Saville Theatre.

In October 1967, the band released their first album: a concept album produced by Blackwell entitled The Story of Simon Simopath. The album was probably the first narrative concept album ever released, predating story-driven concept albums such as the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow (December 1968), the Who's Tommy (April 1969) and the Kinks' Arthur (September 1969).

Musically, the group blended myriad musical styles including rock, pop, folk, jazz, Latin rhythms and classical music, primarily augmented by baroque chamber-style arrangements to create a unique entity.

The next year, 1968, their follow-up album, All Of Us, featured a similar broad range of musical styles. Their third album Dedicated To Markos III was released on the Pye label in May 1970.

In 1971 the duo amicably separated for a while, with Campbell-Lyons the primary contributor to the next two Nirvana albums, Local Anaesthetic 1971, and Songs Of Love And Praise 1972. Campbell-Lyons subsequently worked as a solo artist and issued further albums: Me And My Friend, 1973, Electric Plough, 1981, and The Hero I Might Have Been, 1983, though these did not enjoy commercial success.

Though the band have not achieved commercial success, from their inception they were acclaimed both by music industry professionals and critics.

Musical styles

The group were in the school of baroque-flavoured, melodic pop-rock music typified by the Beatles of "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver", the Beach Boys of Pet Sounds and God Only Knows, the Zombies of Odessey and Oracle and Time Of The Season, the Procol Harum of A Whiter Shade of Pale, the Moody Blues of Days of Future Passed and Nights in White Satin and the Kinks of Waterloo Sunset and Love (band) Forever Changes. The majority of the tracks on Nirvana's albums fall into that broad genre of contemporary popular music, not easily categorized but perhaps best described as the baroque or chamber strand of "progressive rock, soft rock or "orchestral pop" and " Chamber Pop".

People who worked with Nirvana

A who's-who of behind-the-scenes craftsmen - who went on to become Britain’s top producers, arrangers, engineers and mixers of the 1970s - chose to work with Nirvana in the late 1960s and in essence cut their studio teeth working with Nirvana. Two of these arranger/producers actually worked with Nirvana before working with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Nirvana’s producers, arrangers, engineers and mixers included:

Chris Blackwell, Island Records' founder who produced the band before hitting his production stride in the 1970s with Bob Marley
Tony Visconti, Arranger/producer, before he worked with David Bowie, Marc Bolan, the Moody Blues and U2, among others
Mike Vickers, former Manfred Mann multi-instrumentalist, who undertook arrangement work for Nirvana in 1967 and 1968 before his work with the Beatles in 1969 arranging and programming the extensive Moog synthesizer contributions on their Abbey Road album.
Jimmy Miller, the US-born producer, who worked with them immediately before starting his five-album streak producing the Rolling Stones, including the Beggars Banquet, Exile On Main Street and It's Only Rock 'n Roll albums.

Chris Thomas, the producer, whose credits include The Beatles, Procol Harum, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd (mixed The Dark Side of the Moon), the Sex Pistols and INXS.

Guy Stevens, A&R executive and producer, before his production work with Mott the Hoople.

Brian Humphries, the recording engineer, who started engineering Nirvana before going on to work with Traffic, Black Sabbath, McDonald and Giles and Pink Floyd (eventually engineering their acclaimed Wish You Were Here and Animals albums).

Others who worked on production with Nirvana include Muff Winwood (formerly of the Spencer Davis Group and arranger/producer Mike Hurst who worked with Jimmy Page, Cat Stevens, Manfred Mann, Spencer Davis Group and Colin Blunstone; arranger Johnny Scott who arranged for the Hollies and subsequently scored films such as The Shooting Party and Greystoke.

Top musicians who played on Nirvana sessions include: Lesley Duncan, Herbie Flowers, Billy Bremner (later of Rockpile/Dave Edmunds fame), Luther Grosvenor, Wynder K. Frogg, Clem Cattini and the full lineup of rock band Spooky Tooth.Also Keyboard player Pete Kelly(AKA Patrick Joseph Kelly)who co-wrote with Patrick Campbell-Lyons the track 'Modus Operandi' contained on the Nirvana''Local Anaesthetic' Album

Phasing

The Nirvana song Rainbow Chaser is thought to be the first-ever British recording to feature the audio effect known as phasing or flanging throughout an entire track, as distinct from occasionally within a song such as The Beatles' usage in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and the Small Faces in "Itchycoo Park". Phasing was, by 1967, heavily identified with the musical style known from 1967 onwards as psychedelia, and as Rainbow Chaser was the only Nirvana single to achieve commercial success, peaking at number 34 in UK Singles chart during May 1968, they were invariably tagged as a "psychedelic" band. However, despite their name, promotional photographs on the cover of their first album wearing "flower power" style clothes that implied associations with "druggy" music and distorted acid rock-style guitars, the band actually had no associations with that style of music. "Rainbow Chaser" was the primary Nirvana recording that had phasing or other elements of "psychedelic" music. Notably, "Everybody Loves the Clown" blends high-pitched, child-like voices with "trippy" echoing vocals singing the song's title--providing a definite psychedelic feel.

Reunion

The band reunited in 1985, touring Europe and releasing a compilation album Black Flower (Bam-Caruso, 1987) which contained some new material. (Black Flower had been the working title of their third album). In the 1990s two further albums were released. Secret Theatre 1994 compiled rare tracks and demos, while Orange and Blue 1996 contained previously unreleased material including a tongue-in-cheek flower-power cover of Kurt Cobain's song "Lithium" originally recorded by Cobain's grunge band of the same name, Nirvana.

The original band had filed a lawsuit in California against the Seattle grunge band in 1992. The matter was settled out of court on undisclosed terms that apparently allowed both bands to continue using the Nirvana name and issuing new recordings without any packaging disclaimers or caveats to distinguish one Nirvana from the other.

In 1999, the band released a three-disc CD anthology titled "Chemistry," including several previously unreleased tracks and some new material.

Their first three albums were reissued on CD by Universal Records in 2003 and received critical acclaim. In 2005, Universal (Japan) reissued Local Anaesthetic and Songs Of Love And Praise.

As of 2006, the two members Alex Spyropoulos and Patrick Campbell-Lyons are still sporadically writing and recording together.