Nirvana (1965) Vinyl Records
It must have been a rude surprise for Kurt Cobain and company to be hit with a lawsuit over the name of their band once they became internationally successful. In the finish, however, the result was relatively amicable, with the original Nirvana getting together long enough to record a version of Cobain's "Lithium" for a 1996 collection of previously unreleased material. Nirvana appeared in 1967, starting as a six-piece led by Patrick Campbell-Lyons from Ireland, and Alex Spyropoulos from Greece. They were quickly signed to the fledgling Island label, which had formed out of Chris Blackwell's street-level R&B and rocksteady label operations, when Blackwell recognized a need to hook into the exploding psychedelic genre of the time. The first LP to emerge was the science-fiction concept album, The Story of Simon Simopath, which yielded their second single, "Pentecost Hotel" (their first and third singles appeared on the follow-up, All of Us.)