|
THE ROCKING VICKARS, SAM GOPAL AND OPAL BUTTERFLY: THE EARLY YEARS AND RECORDINGS OF MOTORHEAD’S LEMMY BY ALAN BURRIDGE OF THE MOTORHEADBANGERS FAN CLUB There is no doubt that every reader
will know that the name Lemmy and Motorhead are synonymous. Most will know that
he spent four years with space-rockers, Hawkwind. But many, except perhaps the
most devout of fans, will know that he also made some excellent and very
collectable records between 1965 and 1969. If anyone has been through the rock
‘n’ roll apprenticeship, then it is Lemmy. Here, we look back at three of the
bands who saw the same spirit and vision in the man whilst he went through
their ranks to eventually climb the ladder of success with Motorhead. Ian Fraser Kilmister, later to become
affectionately known to us all as Lemmy of Motorhead, was born in Stoke – On -
Trent on December 24th, 1945. When he was nine years old, his family
moved to Almwych in North Wales, where the young rebel became expelled from
school for hitting the headmaster across the face with his own cane. But a few
years later, he discovered his talent for music after the end of term exams
when, instead of sitting around doing nothing, he joined some friends in
getting out the guitars and washboard to play Skiffle.
The first music to catch Lemmy’s attention was Bill Haley and the
Comets, but the first record to ever give him the spinal shiver was Little
Richard’s Lucille, and together with
Jerry Lee Lewis, the two artistes became the heroes of this impressionable
teenage rocker. The youthful Lemmy started playing guitar for the simple reason
he noticed that if you were in a band there were always plenty of girls around
you. Back in the 1960’s and aware of his non-film star looks, he saw a bunch of
kids who were showing off with their guitars. Even though they only knew a
couple of chords, as soon as they hit the strings females surrounded them. From
Lemmy’s point of view this looked the business, and he knew then that he wanted
to be out there at the front rather than being a bystander.
Other members of his family were also musically adept. His mother had
played Hawaiian guitar in her younger day, and an uncle played the banjo. The
Hawaiian guitar had been hanging around the house for years, so when rock ‘n’
roll came in, Lemmy picked it up and began playing. A friend showed him a few
chords, and from there, with a little family help, he went straight into it;
playing in the toilet, the bathroom, anywhere that he could just sit and play.
As a career there was no holding him, and as soon as he realised he could strum
a few tunes he was away. Later, as he found that his confidence had built up
enough to get up there and actually play a song, he found that friends looked
upon him in a completely different light. For Lemmy, this was it; this was the
way that his life was meant to go.
As far as being in an actual band went, Lemmy’s first public appearance
was with another guitarist and a bass player at a café in Wales where he sung
Rick Nelson’s Travelling Man. A
couple of gigs later, the trio were joined by a drummer who played with Gigster
kit brushes which was, no doubt, the ‘In thing’ for drummers of that period.
A while later, Lemmy joined Manchester band, The Rainmakers, who were never much of a big deal for him and they
didn’t make any records. A further step forward to The Motown Sect was similarly dismal recording wise, but the band
used to get plenty of gigs on the strength of their name as there were a lot of
Mod’s around. This was kind of obscure, especially as The Motown Sect used to play R ‘n’ B, mainly with cover versions of
songs by The Pretty Things; but they threw in a few soul classics to keep the
punters happy even though Lemmy and the band didn’t enjoy playing them.
Lemmy’s first band of any consequence, recording wise, was The Rocking Vickars between 1965 and
1967. He had seen the band at The Oasis
in Manchester and thought they were brilliant, mainly because they brought out
the rebel out in him. It was a very strong time for the Mod era, but in
complete contrast, The Rocking Vickars
were extremely scruffy and had hair down to their armpits. They had released
one single, a cover of Neil Sedaka’s I Go
Ape, in Decca Records, which sold in moderate quantities at the time, and
even ‘A’ label promo copies are known to exist.
The band’s correct working title was always Reverend Black and the Rocking Vickars; and they would wear dog
collars of the clergy on stage to clarify the image. However, the record
company tended to disagree and took the view that the name and this additional
attire could offend the Church and the public alike. As the record label
illustrations show in most cases, the band had to suffer the fate of being
billed as The Rocking Vickers to
appease the bosses.
The band at the time consisted of Lemmy on lead guitar, Harry Feeney on
vocals, Ciggy Shaw on drums and Steve Morris on bass. Together, they
successfully toured Lapland, and upon returning home they were wheeled into the
studios for publicity photos wearing the Finnish National costume which they
had acquired during the tour.
The band also had the dubious distinction of being one of the first
Western rock bands to play behind the Iron Curtain in Yugoslavia as part of a
cultural exchange for the Red Army Youth Orchestra. Which country did best out
of the deal is for the reader to figure out!
The band’s next single was only released in Finland and Ireland. Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart was
an odd choice for a song, possibly a further attempt by the band to achieve
chart success.
Following on from this, the band found a new deal with CBS and went
straight into the studio with Who producer, Glyn Johns, (the Vickar’s were very
Who sound orientated and were also friends with them, even down to Keith Moon
making a guest appearance at the odd gig), who took charge of a session
resulting in the It’s All Right
single; a Pete Townshend composition.
The band’s next CBS release was a cover version of The Kinks song, Dandy, which came close to scoring them
a minor chart hit. But they were beaten by a short nose to a Top of the Pops appearance by Clinton
Ford, who had also covered the song, along with Herman’s Hermits and The Kinks
themselves.
One or two American promo 45’s of the Dandy single exists. Obviously the American side of CBS had the
faith in the band to gamble a release, and it reached #93 in the US Billboard
Charts. It proved beyond all doubt, though, that the rib-tickling rumour that
the Vickar’s were only famous around the Manchester area must have been a
complete myth.
Investigation into the band’s murky past has also unearthed the news
that they broadcast two or three tracks for the pirate radio station, Radio Caroline. Also, a fairly good quality
tape exists which highlights The Rocking Vickar’s as they truly were;
thrashing, heavy and feedback laden. Basically, if The Who hadn’t made it, The
Rocking Vickar’s would have – wonderful stuff!
60’s supremo, Shel Talmy, who also had The Creation and The Birds, (two
of Lemmy’s favourite bands), under his wing, produced the Dandy single. The
Vickar’s themselves were managed, firstly by Jack Venet, (a Manchester crockery
salesman), and later by Gail Colson.
By the time the band split up they had been banned by more venues than
those who would employ them. Their stage show consisted of the band shaking
their heads whilst bashing out songs like I
Can Tell, Skinnie Minnie and I’m A
Hog For You, Baby. The act would climax with Harry Feeney and maybe one of
the guitarists stripping down to their soiled underwear and making obscene
gestures to the girls in the crowd – needless to say, they always pulled.
Bassist, Steve Morris, was interviewed by fan, Adrian Lee, back in
August 1984 for the 10th edition of the Motorheadbangers Fanzine, in
which he said: “The Rocking Vickars were always out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll,
which is where Lemmy’s bit comes from. The numbers we played at gigs weren’t
necessarily those we recorded like Dandy
and I Don’t Need Your Kind. Actually,
the bottleneck guitar on I Don’t Need
Your Kind was Lemmy! He always gave out this heavy influence; we changed
our material to compensate when he joined the band. Our version of Dandy got a lot of airplay on Radio
Caroline for fun. DJ, John Peel, was working for the station at the time It’s All Right came out, and his comment
was that the number had the worst guitar solo of all time!”
Adrian Lee’s contact with Steve Morris brought about a small-scale
Rocking Vickar’s re-union during Motorhead’s UK tour in November 1984, when
Steve and Harry Feeney met up with Lemmy during the band’s Keep Death Off The Road Tour, at the King George’s Hall, Blackburn,
which all concerned thoroughly enjoyed. These days, Harry breeds poodles and
Steve is a taxi driver. The re-union also lead to Ciggy Shaw making contact
with Lemmy who, at the time, lived on a houseboat; to which he invited Ciggy
for a fortnight, where the two had a whale of a time catching up on the old
days.
During September 1967, Lemmy moved down to London. It was the place to
be, not only musically, but also for the Hippie / Flower Power scene.
Lemmy found himself looking for a place to stay, and was offered
accommodation by an old friend, Neville Chesters, who was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix;
he also shared the flat with Hendrix bassist, Noel Redding. From there, as he
had little else to do at the time and was as awe-struck by the Hendrix
phenomenon as everyone else, Lemmy accepted the offer of being a roadie on the
second GB tour by the Experience. This turned out to be one of the biggest rock
package tours of the 60’s, featuring Jimi, top of the bill, along with The
Move, Pink Floyd, Amen Corner, The Nice, Eire Apparent and Outer Limits. The
tour moved through the country between mid-November and early December, and
Lemmy felt more than happy to hump the gear, then sit in the wings watching the
maestro perform twice a night and also get £10 wages for the pleasure.
Then, Lemmy helped get another band together, The Sam Gopal Dream, also known as plain Sam Gopal during Lemmy’s time with them. Personnel for this outing
was: Lemmy on lead and rhythm guitars, Sam Gopal, Tablas and percussion, Roger
D’Elia on backing vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, and Phil Duke on bass.
On December 22, 1967, the Hendrix connection came into play once more
when Jimi topped the bill at the Christmas
on Earth Continued festival at Olympia in London. An extraordinary support
bill consisting of The Who, Eric Burdon and the Animals, The Move, Pink Floyd,
Keith West and Tomorrow, Soft Machine, Paper Blitz Tissue, Traffic, The Graham
Bond Organisation, and, last but by no means least, Sam Gopal. From this, we
can presume that Jimi Hendrix was considerably impressed as he went along to
the Sam Gopal gig at the Speakeasy a couple of nights later to jam with them on
stage.
The band continued picking up gigs and found themselves snapped up by
Stable Records. During October and November 1968, they went into De Lane Lea
and Morgan Sound studios to record an album, which led to the release of Escalator on the label during March
1969. Besides Donovan’s Season of the
Witch and Angry Faces written by
Davidson, all the other songs were written by Lemmy in one night, though he
credited some to Group to give
everyone a share in the royalties.
Escalator was by no means a
major hit album, but it did pull nine original songs from Lemmy. Since that
time, two acetate pressings have emerged, both containing the same songs: Horse and Back Door Man, but were different takes and had not appeared on the
album. Mainly due to Lemmy’s input and fame, the Escalator album has frequently been bootlegged and pirated on vinyl
and CD over the past few years.
A very rare four track EP seems to have been pressed in minor
quantities, too. This is somewhat of an odd item to say the least, as it shares
the same catalogue number as the original album (SLE 8001). The EP is in fact a
white label test pressing with a Stable Records label glued over the top.
However, this was a fair move by Stable, as it offered a far more professional
looking sampler for the DJ’s, rather than a white label with hand-written
titles.
The Horse and Back Door Man tracks have cropped up,
(being re-recorded from an acetate original, we must presume?), on two bootleg
psychedelic 60’s compilation albums. Craftily, one track has been pressed on
each to ensure the purchase of both by Gopal / Lemmy fans.
Many fans are confused by the fact that the Gopal album bills Lemmy as Ian Lemmy Willis. The reason behind this
is that after his father, a Church of England vicar, left him and his mother
when Lemmy was very young, he preferred to ignore the surname in favour of his
mother’s later re-married name of Willis. But when it came to travelling with
bands and passport paraphernalia, Lemmy found it less hassle to revert to his
birth certificate surname, which he has used ever since.
Lemmy has always, quite rightly, borne a huge grudge towards his father
for what he did. So much so, he wrote exactly what he thought of his actions in
the final verse of the Motorhead song, Poison.
In essence, the Sam Gopal band was rather difficult to bring over to an
audience in a live situation. However, they played around Great Britain and
visited, among other venues, The Ritz, which was an amazing rock club on the
Bournemouth sea front, in 1968. Fellow Stable artistes, The Deviants, (who had sci-fi author, Mick Farren, as their lead
vocalist at the time), were good friends of the band, and Mick Farren recalled
his memories of the Sam Gopal band in a Motorheadbangers Fan Club interview.
“There was always a problem because they didn’t have regular drums. They had
Tablas, which required every microphone in the house, as the PA systems were
very primitive in those days. There would be howling, screaming feedback, and
we’d be waiting to go on or something, and they’d be hauling all of those
Tablas off and putting the regular stuff back on. Raga rock was a strange concept.”
After Sam Gopal had finally ended their days, Lemmy rehearsed and
auditioned with countless bands, including the strangely named Follow The Buffalo. It was a dismal time
and nothing fruitful happened.
But during 1970, for a brief 4 months, Lemmy joined Opal Butterfly. This band came into being in 1967 by founder
member, Allan Love (vocals), who recruited Tom Doherty (guitar / vocals),
Robbie Milne (guitar), Richard Bardey (bass and vocals) and Simon King (drums),
via an advertisement in Melody Maker.
The band rehearsed for several months before embarking on local dates
and then auditioning for CBS Records. The band signed for CBS in February 1968
and released their debut single, Beautiful
Beige.
After several tours which included support slots to acts such as Argent,
Graham Bond, The Bonzo Dog Band, Fat Mattress and The Move, Opal Butterfly
released their second single, Mary Ann
With The Shaky Hand, a cover version of a Pete Townshend song from The Who Sell Out album.
By this time, the band had gone through several line-up changes. Allan
Love had left, and it was decided they would remain as a four piece. Tom
Doherty and Richard Bardey shared vocals, and Ray Majors replaced Robbie Milne
on lead guitar. Further tours and support slots followed with bands such as
Deep Purple, Steamhammer and Atomic Rooster, and by that time, Opal Butterfly
had built themselves a very strong college and university following; many
people commented on the band sounding like a British version of Leslie West’s Mountain.
Also during this period, Tom Doherty and Simon King had a brief flirtation
with the movie world when they were asked to act as two band members in the
film Groupie Girl. This also resulted
in Opal Butterfly writing and playing on two of the tracks for the film which
also appeared on the soundtrack album.
Just after this, Lemmy joined the Opal Butterfly ranks in the role of
sharing bass / vocals and guitar duties with Tom Doherty who, by this time, had
taken over playing bass after the departure of Richard Bardey. To this day,
Lemmy still owes the band, (if they were still around), £20 for bailing him out
of Chelsea police station.
By late 1971, Opal Butterfly had split. By this time, Lemmy had joined
Hawkwind along with Simon King. Ray Majors went on to join Mott The Hoople, and
Tom Doherty left England to join the Chicago based band, Shakey Jake. At this
point in time, Simon King deals in antiques, Ray Majors is a session musician,
Tom Doherty runs his own record company, (Communiqué Records, home of
Girlschool), and Lemmy, well, you already know. For further details of Hawkwind,
see Record Collector issues #70 and #157.
In essence, Lemmy is and always has been one of the great characters of
the rock ‘n’ roll scene. His recorded output from the Rocking Vickar’s to the
present day is quite something for the collector to track down, but rest
assured, when you do find them it will bring a warm glow which only the true
record collector knows, and it makes everything so worthwhile.
Lemmy was born of the rock ‘n’ roll era. Here, we have reflected his
roots in the genre. Since the inception of Motorhead he has maintained 100
percent tunnel vision that they are no more than a rock ‘n’ roll band. His
definition of rock ‘n’ roll is “Music your parents don’t like you listening
to.” All of Lemmy’s bands have definitely been in that category and he has
always lived by those words. Alan Burridge would like to
acknowledge, with thanks, the help of Lemmy, Mick Stevenson, Tom Doherty, Steve
Morris, Adrian Lee and Mick Farren. Also, Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek for
the clarification of dates in the ‘Chronology’ section of their book, ‘Jimi
Hendrix – Electric Gypsy,’ published by Heinemann. THE ROCKING VICKERS DISCOGRAPHY
Decca F.11993. I Go Ape / Someone Like
Me. October 2nd, 1964. With Lemmy: Decca SD 5662. Zing! Went the Strings of
my Heart / Stella – 1965. CBS 202151. It’s All Right / Stay By
Me – March 1966. CBS 202241. Dandy / I Don’t Need Your
Kind – June 1966. Columbia 4.43818. Dandy / I Don’t Need
Your Kind – USA release. RPM Records RPM 196. The Rockin’
Vickers – The Complete: It’s Alright. CD released in 1995 with 14 tracks by the
band, including some previously unreleased. SAM GOPAL DISCOGRAPHY
(All recordings featuring
Lemmy). Stable SLE 8001. Escalator – March
1969. Stable SLE 8001. Escalator 4 track DJ
promo EP – March 1969. Stable SLE 8001. Escalator – pirate
vinyl pressing – Germany. TNT Records TTE 004LP. Escalator –
Pirate pressing vinyl – Germany. TNT Records TTE 004CD. Escalator –
Pirate pressing CD –Germany. Emidisc acetate. Horse / Back Door
Man. Emidisc acetate. Horse / Back Door Man
(different takes to the above). The ‘Escalator’ album has
been released on CD complete with Horse and Back Door Man in recent years. OPAL BUTTERFLY DISCOGRAPHY
(Lemmy did not record with
the band). CBS 3576. Beautiful Beige / Speak Up –
1968. CBS 3921. Mary Ann With The Shaky Hand
/ My Gration Or? – 1968. Polydor 2384-021. Groupie Girl
soundtrack LP – 1970. Two tracks, ‘Groupie Girl’ and ‘Giggin’
Song.’ |