Nirvana And Patrick Campbell Lyons - Me And My Friend (Reissue, Remastered, Expanded Edition) (1973/2001)

The original NIRVANA was founded at United Kingdom in year 1967 by Irish born Patrick Campbell-Lyons (ex SECOND THOUGHTS) and Greek guitarist Alex Spyropoulos. Their original line-up consisted of six musicians, but the persons and number of them varied during the following years. The band was active to the early 70's, but they have produced new material sporadically at the present day. Their music is melodic late 60's pop building up from a large palette of styles (rock, pop, folk, jazz, Latin rhythms and classical music), and their work have been compared to THE BEATLES albums "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul", MOODY BLUES and early PROCOL HARUM. There are also some classical chamber music elements in their recordings due their orchestrations.

Chris Blackwel signed the band to the new Island record label, which managed also bands like TRAFFIC and FREE. They were photographed for the press and then presented to the audiences at London's Saville Theater. After this they released their first LP "The Story Of Simon Simopath" (1967), which is sci-fi themed concept album, predating the forthcoming concept albums by THE PRETTY THINGS "S.F.Sorrow" (1968), THE WHO "Tommy" (1969) and THE KINKS "Arthur" (1969). The band also produced some singles like "Pentecost Hotel", "Tiny Goddess" (from "all of us") and "Rainbow Chaser", which was their most successful tune ever (34th in UK singles chart at May 1968). This song is also thought to be the first-ever British recording to feature the audio technique known as phasing, which was identified with the psychedelic musical style. Despite this excursion, and their group name and hippy outlooks, the band's music didn't have much any other psychedelic elements.

Next some demo recordings were done for their forthcoming album "All of Us". As the representatives of their production company had heard this stuff, they made a deal to include it in as a theme song in a movie "The Touchables", of which production the company was involved. During next week the band recorded the album, which songs are melancholic and dreamy pop tunes, and some of them were highly orchestrated.

After their second LP the band's personnel was cut down to the duo of Patrick and Alex. They also faced a drawback as their third album "Black Flower" was rejected by Island label. Another company Pye Recods (which also managed THE KINKS) bought the rights for that album from Island, and the album was released 1969 with a new title "Dedicated To Markos III". From a sales viewpoint this record was a failure, as it sold only a few hundred copies. The album was also leased to the American record company Metromedia, but the label went bust before the record was issued, so only few promo copies of the album appeared in the States.

Alex Spyropoulos left the band and went into TV and film work soon after the release of "Dedicated To Markos III", and so Nirvana was down to Patrick Campbell-Lyons as the only main member. He went on to record an album on the Philips' new progressive label Vertigo, titled "Local Anesthetic" in 1971. This album contained just two long tracks, "Modus Operandi" and "Home", which can also be heard on the "Heads Together, First Round" compilation, which was compiled by Campbell-Lyons for Vertigo in 1971. The band also released a couple of 45s by Pica during these years. In year 1972 Campbell-Lyons recorded Nirvana's 4th album "Songs Of Love And Praise" with some help from his friends. It contained re-recordings of "Rainbow Chaser" and "Pentecost Hotel" along with new material. Later Campbell-Lyons later made solo albums, "Me And My Friend" (Sovereign, 1973), "Electric Plough" (1981), and "The Hero I Might Have Been" (1983). None of these albums did enjoy commercial success.

In 1976, the original duo reunited for a single "Two Of A Kind" (Bradley's BRAD 7602), which contained a grand ballad with choral backing in the style of early Nirvana. In 1978, the pair reverted to the Nirvana name for another vinyl single "Love Is" (Pepper Records/United Artists UP 36461), which was produced in a quite psychedelic manner. The pair also used the Nirvana name in the eighties. They wrote a musical titled "Blood" which was left unreleased. In 1985 they toured Europe and released a compilation album "Black Flower" (Bam-Caruso, 1987) which contained some new material. Also their original albums were re-released on CDs in the 1990s, along with two further albums "Secret Theatre" (1994), which compiled rare tracks and demos, and "Orange and Blue" (1996) which contained previously unreleased material, including a cover version of "Lithium" by the 90's Seattle band Nirvana. The original band had a case in court against them in 1992, but the quarrel was settled out-of-court, and both bands were allowed to continue using the name Nirvana.

To this day, the two core members of the UK Nirvana Alex Spyropoulos and Patrick Campbell-Lyons are still sporadically writing and recording together.