It’s 10 years since Universal put out the benchmark Get Easy/ Sunshine Pop Collection, which mixed the giants of the genre with a brilliant selection of blissed-out Californian also-rans. Track One, the Sundowners’ cover of Roger Nichols’ Always You, was a nailedon easy monster: a string and trumpet-driven hallucination of a violet sunset over Malibu Beach, with a girl in a big bikini running your way. It quickly fostered a craving for more.
The Sundowners, it now transpires, hailed from New York and there were six of them. Stylistically, they mashed up the usual Beatles, Beach Boys and Byrdsisms – but these cats boasted symphonic ideas, an edge, a complexity, and a six-way ego clash. Playing Ciro’s on Sunset Strip in the spring of 1967, Michael Nesmith wandered backstage and asked them, “So, how would you like to go on tour with the Monkees?” They ended up supporting Hendrix as well. Then they imploded and disappeared. Finding Nemo, indeed.
