The music industry is littered with performers who briefly promised to make it, only to quietly fade away. Gags, on the other hand, delivered twenty years of raucous live R & B performances and various recordings before morphing into a new incarnation that still plays today.

From its first residency, at The Cavalcade in Didsbury, in early 1977 the four-piece quickly built a dedicated following across the North West. A regular fixture on the pub rock scene Gags were in demand with an ever-evolving set comprising self-penned numbers and interpretive rock and blues covers. Who needed punk?

A self-produced LP, Death In Buzzards’ Gulch, followed in 1978, and fame and fortune was within their grasp. So, where did it all go wrong?

Or did it?