Great British Heroes - UK Punk Rock

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Eric Miller/Don't Give A Damn (Lightning, 1978)

Lightning got up to some right old mischief back in the days of the punk wars, but nothing comes even remotely close to approaching the great Great British Heroes debacle.

North London's hard rockin' Stars 'n' Stripes quickly caught the punk bug in '76 and started knocking about under the new name Great British Heroes, playing the Roxy and everything in '77 and teaming up with Lightning for a single. Singer Ray Burdis (he of Brit-TV and a string of hard-man gangster-type movie roles, most of which seem to involve the Krays) punched out a mean (well, theatre-schooled, to be fair) raspy vocal and a future Attendants ("Happy Families") or two pulverized the old Strawberry Studios live-room while ex-drummer Roland Rivron (he of Brit-TV, etc) watched from the safety of the control room while newly-hooked-up manager Jeff Miller met with the Lightning honchos to dot the i's and cross the t's, but before the mixes were dry there was a problem: manager Jeff wasn't happy with the terms of Lightning's proposed contract.

Ray Burdis - Vocals. Graham Reed - Lead Guitar. Russell Chaney - Drums. Ken Redding - Bass

GBH supporting Eater at The Roxy

Negotiations (along the lines of 'no', 'I don't care' and 'you're fucking crazy') continued while the band packed up the gear, did another show down the Roxy and Roland Rivron presumably went off to the Comic Store or wherever, telling all his new showbiz mates that there'd be a new 'hard man' available soon for their songs and sketches and theatre revues cos he had a jolly good idea that his old mucker Burdis wasn't for much longer going to be gainfully employed by the now imploding GBH. Lightning, ever used to dealing with either in-house converts (like Horrorcomic) or provincial wide-eyers (like The Mirrors), thought it'd all come out in the wash and printed up some records anyway, complete with a full-on punk rock sleeve of the highest order. Manager Jeff stood firm, until one day Lightning DITCHED all the records and sleeves and TORE-UP the proposed contract, immediately clinically forgetting all about the entire incident like the band had never happened.

Download 'Eric Miller' MP3

Meanwhile the band lost Burdis, there were a couple of other comings and goings, and the memory of their day in Strawberry was, as far as the band members were concerned, all that remained of their time as potential Lightning superstars - as far as they knew, "Eric Miller" and its B-side-to-be "Don't Give A Damn" never made it to vinyl. Manager Jeff disappeared to Sweden (could've been Norway... is there a difference?) and hasn't been seen since.

It was only when a copy surfaced in 2002 that it was revealed that the record was actually manufactured after all. All band members were shocked. Lightning blokes are still clinically unable to even remember that they've ever even heard the name Great British Heroes - as far as they're concerned, it wasn't included on the recent Lightning punk comps cos it doesn't exist.

As of this writing, there is still only one known copy.

GBH Supporting The Last Resort
NME 24.12 77

This entry has been ripped from the excellent Low Down Kids Blog Spot. I like the writing and I like the attitude.