A competently energetic but relatively faceless British mid-'60s band,
the Rockin' Vickers are mostly remembered today because the guitarist for the bulk of their recording career was
Ian Willis, who would eventually gain international fame as
Lemmy with
Hawkwind and
Motörhead. The Blackpool band were still
Lemmy-less when they made their debut in 1964 with a supremely raunchy version of
Neil Sedaka's "I Go Ape," which was anthologized in the '70s on
Hard-Up Heroes, the British equivalent of
Nuggets. They'd only record three other singles, all of which had
Lemmy aboard on guitar. Although capable of generating respectably raunchy, modish heat, they had nothing in the way of original material. Their third single, interestingly, was a version of a
Pete Townshend song called "It's Alright," which sounds like a prototype for the much superior "The Kids Are Alright" (although, puzzlingly,
the Who had already released "The Kids Are Alright" by the time
the Rockin' Vickers' "It's Alright" appeared in March 1966).
Who producer
Shel Talmy liked the band and produced their final 45, a cover of
the Kinks' "Dandy," which actually made number 93 in the States (where it was far outpaced by
Herman's Hermits' version) before
the Vickers split in 1967.
–
Richie Unterberger, Rovi