Punkobit: Sam Davis

Sam Davis - better known as Eric Shark - has died.

Davis was one of the founder members of Deaf School, considered by the Boswell of Liverpool music Paul Du Noyer to be as important as The Beatles, having been the primordial soup from which Mersey music rebuilt itself after having been Beatled to death.

The band could also be seen as a prototype Hear'Say, too - they won a Melody Maker organised contest with a prize of a contract with WEA at the end of it. They were, perhaps a little too far ahead of the loop - they'd formed two years before The Sex Pistols made it to Manchester, which you're meant to believe was the point where punk came to the North West - and never quite turned into household names. The groups dissolved in 1978, with Bette Bright going off to be Bette Bright, Clive Langer heading off to become a super-producer, and Davis opening a shop.

There were to be two revivals - 1988 saw a new album, Second Coming, recording at a live gathering of the originals; A 2006 reunion has led to a series of occasional shows.

Sam Davis was 59; beset with health problems for a long time, he had been on an lung transplant waiting list. He played his last gig with Deaf School, in September, with an oxygen mask close to hand.