 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we have our old friend Mr Rob Cook on Rob welcome back to the podcast Good to have you here. I saw you at the Chicago show in May, which I don't think we've talked since then That was awesome. That was a huge. I would call it a huge success. What would you how do you feel about things? Yeah? Yeah, it's coming back The the numbers are all Looking real good We we moved the clinic area over to a separate building and that was probably a misstep I was trying to go back to the big format clinics with the stage and and so on but In it being in a separate building and having to trudge over there and stuff I'm not sure if we're gonna do that. We'll probably just do it upstairs again and make it a little bit smaller format But overall the attendance and the number of exhibitors there and everything Was good a lot of people weren't quite ready to come back in 2021 or two, but You know COVID's still out there. It's still a factor and some people are still factoring that in But it's it's a lot less So there was a lot of excitement last year was the first year I think that a lot of the foreign buyers were back there were there were the Japanese were there and so on and That that makes a lot of exhibitors happy. So they're yeah, business was booming. It was it was an encouraging year Yeah, I had an awesome. I mean, I'm there more just to see people and talk about the podcast and Talk to some people about Advertising because everyone can do different things there. You can sell you can buy you can network You can just hang out you can do whatever you want and that's The best part about it and I like I said, I had a great time the the community Was talking, you know, the the word on the street because I'm sure you you were doing a lot of different things as you Kind of as you run the show Everyone was very happy. So Anyway, I should mention for people who haven't listened to a Rob Cook episode before or read one of your books Rob Publishes many great drum books writes many great drum books through Rebeats.com He runs the Chicago drum show You've been on the podcast about six times so far, which you've got so many great topics Which I'll link all the your episodes in the description and maybe I'll read them off at the end So people can say hey, wow that guy knows his stuff. Let me listen to his other ones, which I highly recommend But today we're talking more broad about calf skin heads, which you've got a super cool page on your Rebeats.com website you've sold them in the past you've done a lot of stuff with them, but Rob as I mentioned before we started let's assume people don't know anything about calf skin heads and just kind of jump in and Really learn the full story of what cap skin heads are and all that good stuff Sure, sure and well, although we're referring to him as calf skin heads We should mention that you know, there's a lot of other animals have been used and and in the drum world Especially there are a lot of goat skin. There's a little bit of sheep skin There's even some kangaroo. There's a guy in Australia doing kangaroo heads and deal Yeah, so and of course the native Americans are Still using a lot of elk for tribal drums and so on deer skin not so much It's it's too stretchy I think human skin also would be a little bit too stretchy At one point I Thought well all these great tattoos Maybe some of these people would like to have their skin preserved after they're gone and and stretched and you know put on Drumheads, but then I realized there are someone called to my attention that technically that's illegal Don't go down that road stick with the animal skin, but there's a there's a lot of different skin But we'll refer to it basically as calf skin. That's what most of the skin heads were From and and we're we tend to think, you know, of course drums are Go back through the ages, but we're kind of think in terms of revolutionary war drums and Civil War drums and then On up through the drums of today and you've done a couple of mylar head episodes I think with Herbie from Remo and so on so and I believe Evans was in there at one point So a lot of people they even the younger guys realized that heads haven't always been made out of mylar or plastic So they were made out of skin before that and generally calf skin So where to start this is a broad topic Actually, let's jump in with Rogers that leaps to mind because Joseph Rogers got his start In Ireland working in the vellum and parchment yards and so that was his skill set when he immigrated and that's what he started doing in the in the Americas and North America and Since he was had experience with it in a skill set. He made really good quality heads compared to maybe somebody that had just, you know Butchered a calf recently and was making making their own because you've got to Scrape it in just the right way get it thin get the hair shaved off stretch it and dry it and and so on and It really was an art form and actually there's still a company in Ireland called vellum and parchment works in Cellbridge and I They're known as one of the Highest quality heads out there a lot of the symphonic guys and so on using but It hasn't been all for drums when they say vellum and parchment Those are both kind of the same thing. They're both skin heads in general Parchment is a more highly finished and was produced for writing all these old illuminated manuscripts that were done by hand and 1300s 1400s and so on they they obviously needed Something closer to paper than rawhide to to write on So and and they still use it in those applications today not so much for books, but for proclamations and historical Reconstructions of Documents and so on just to clarify that you're saying vellum, which is V E L L U M And it's just Google quickly says vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane typically used as writing material It is to extinguish from parchment when it is made from calf skin rather than made from other animals or having a Higher quality when it is not so vellum. It sounds like it's just super thin Capskin that can be used to write. Yeah, or yeah I got I just looked that up yesterday and I got slightly different definitions one said the difference is vellum shows the veins and is a little bit rougher parchment is more finished but So take take your pick but but it's all The the starts with the same stuff the skin and and scraping it down and so on so Joseph Rogers transferred his skill set to this continent and for decades was was known as the premier skin and One of the things That that comes to mind. I might be taking it out of sequence is that he always Claimed that there were no chemicals now What makes a Skinhead white They call it breaking white because it's translucent by nature when They've gone through the first few stages of the I guess it's basically tanning, but then they stretch it real tight on a frame and either leave it out in the sun or in a specially heated room and as the skin dries it stretches and the little fibers in it break and it goes from translucent to white There are some manufacturers who Have reacted to market pressures of people who want a perfect looking head and would would use chemicals to bleach them white and so on but those would damage the fibers and wouldn't sound quite as good as a Skin that had not been chemically treated So Rogers at various times made a point of saying no chemicals were used in the production of our heads Let me ask you though So and I think I've mentioned this in one of the previous head episodes and there is one with Jeff Stern Where he talked about that one is called a look at animal skin drum heads with Jeff Stern, which was a pretty specific though, too He did he owns the stern tanning co and it's kind of more based if I remember correctly Around the process and stuff like that, but I know that like urine and like feces would be used historically for a lot of things, but I know that like Maybe it's more like when they were making like not exactly drum heads But like I know that that chemical that would be found in people's pee and stuff like that Could be used in tanner ease and I know it would smell terrible and it was a job that people didn't really want So I know there's something there where I don't know the details I don't either and I haven't seen that What comes to mind is there was always a rumor that the British drummers in the back in the day when that when Everybody was playing really hard They said the the British secret was soaking hands in urine to toughen up the skin to get ready for a big tour So I didn't plaster but I mean I know that there was I was like there's a cool show I've watched I've talked about it before but they talked a lot about how in medieval times Urine was used for all kinds of things and I know there was a job where an old woman who would be like she'd have no Job or money like in that point. She was probably 50, but you know what I mean in medieval times You're like that's like being a hundred she would walk over bent over all day cleaning up animal poop And take it to the tannery and get like a penny and that would be her job would be to take it there And they use the chemicals to do something But they were also making like all kind not just drumheads, but different Uses for it, but anyway, there's something there, but that doesn't might not apply here Yeah, I'm speaking of Jeff and I he may have gone through it in his episode But I was encouraged people to go back and listen to Jeff because he's got hands-on and doing it and yeah And I think rather than drumheads specifically he already had his the stern tanning was already a business Before they got into drum heads in a big way But the guy that I used to buy a calf heads from when I first got into business was Steven Polanski at United Raw High And that's how Jeff got into it when Mr. Polanski retired he sold his business to Jeff And so Jeff has kind of a time honored tradition because at one time Polanski was making OEM heads for virtually all the manufacturers He'd go back further and Slingerlin and Ludwig I had their own tanneries They would just buy the the raw skins hustle them over to their tanning facility and process them there But eventually there were fewer and fewer of them that were doing that and there was like a Worko white eagle raw hide and United Raw Hide and they were providing the the skin heads for Gretch and Slingerlin and Rogers even because Rogers said when by the time they became an actual drum company they weren't so much of a drumhead Produced anymore So Mr. Polanski passed on a lot of those original tools and And processes and everything to Jeff So if a purist is really trying to get something restored to sound and look like it did in the 40s when it was produced They you know, they might want to consider Jeff's skins and definitely yeah, let's jump to when I first started messing with calf skin heads and trying to Do something with them myself and go through the processes of mounting them and and and so on I Had a music store cooks music and that rebies was kind of an outgrowth of that and so I had customer lists and a customer base So when I started finding out about calf skin heads and that it was possible to actually produce them yourself and And or to buy them and resell them I got into that as a lot of my customers that were into drum history and and were serious percussionists Already knew a lot of those things, but they were also looking for a place to buy them and and even some of the newer drummers I remember one of my good customers for a long time was uh, bernie dressel and he was uh Using calf skin heads and Uh The the reason I laugh is he found out at one point that mr. Polanski had Uh a more expensive head other than the standard white head and it was a translucent and it was uh more expensive Uh I guess it was harder to produce Uh And bernie assumed that being more expensive It was going to be better and he wanted the best and they are more resonant When they're in that translucent state before they're they break white So, uh, he ordered some of the the translucent heads. I can't remember what they were called at that point, but Then the first time he used him He was on a tv show and put a stick right through So they he found out they were a little bit more more fragile and and uh more money doesn't necessarily mean more more durable And although it did probably sound a little better at lower volume and uh, it kinds of brings us to durability Sure. This is kind of a shotgun approach. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just a general talk. But yeah, uh the I had a an old calfskin head that I put on a supraphonic once and I really liked the sound and I played it for I mean, I wasn't giggling out, but I I played quite a bit just for fun And the head was already like 40 or 50 years old when I put it on the drum And I never worried about breaking it like plastic if they're played correctly You know, they're they're tough and last for decades Now like any head if you Hit it with something sharp or lay it down on something sharp or you come at it with a bad angle and too much I mean, yeah, the laws of nature take over you can only push a drum head down so far Yeah, and any far any force to try to push it further is going to cause damage Uh, but but they can be very tough That's that's a misconception that you hear regularly and I remember Ryan with bovid drum heads telling me that people think that they're Not durable or there's a reason you would they would break or they're not as tough as plastic but it's it's generally the opposite because The I mean they will if you get an old drum that has one on it It will last a very very long time, but let's talk about the like my grandpa was a drummer and um You'd hear the horror stories of playing outside and the temperature and the the oh it'd be sagging and you'd have to tighten it and There's there's sometimes where you wonder if a little bit of it is like over dramatic Like, you know remembering things like your grandpa will tell you a story like oh, it was hanging off and it was like dripping What's your experience with with weather Affecting the head to to a certain degree and and all that stuff with the climate because it's skin Yeah, it it definitely does and you have to pay attention to The The weather they Humidity the temperature affects on your drum uh To an extent what's going through my mind is right now I have a set of uh calfskin heads the earth tone heads on a 60s Ludwig kit and They're in at the rebates tower and it's climate controlled there that and it's The the room it's a 24 by 20 room and it's pretty much airtight I've got a a small air conditioner for Cooling and two little wall electric units for heat and that's all I need to keep it 70 degrees year round and the heads on that kit Stay in tune really well I I brought one of the earth tone heads home and put on the floor time on the little dw kit in my basement and I thought things were pretty uniform down there the temperature is always uniform down there It's a finished basement and I've got a dehumidifier down there. So I thought it was pretty constant, but that it's like a totally different environment than the tower and Every time I go to the basement that one tends to loosen up now I'm paying attention because if we get some hot dry weather, which isn't It's it's going to come up fairly soon now in michigan when it's cold outside our gas furnaces start up And I'm going to have to pay attention because now that I've got it reefed up for maximum humidity If it gets really dry Um, it's goodness. I'm going to have to start backing off Yeah, otherwise it would break because it's yeah tighter tighter. Yeah, okay. Yeah Yeah, um one of one of my uh, Favorite uh, calfskin heads. It's one of the oil painted heads and it's on a kit that came from a relative and Uh, it had a black beauty with it and so on but For years I had that on a shelf at my music store Unfortunately, it was on the top shelf and it was in kind of a storeroom and it was a high ceiling room and I split the head because It got so hot in there in the summertime and I had some tension on it. I hadn't been playing it or anything, but um, but yeah, you do That was one of the big selling points for mylar when it was developed. There's no more constant retuning and fighting with your Your head and so on. So that that is a down flip side of skin heads The big upside is the tone in my opinion in the feel I mean, there's just something about especially a wood tip stick although you can use nylon tip sticks Obviously, but there's something about wood on leather that is very round mellow earthy powerful And you can almost feel it in some of the old, you know, the sing sing sing and everything, you know, that's wood on leather And it's not just the head. It's the big round bearing edges. They had back then and and so on but um I would encourage people to try it if they're curious and uh, not every Drum is going to be a great candidate for it. But uh, man, I'm just really having fun with that Ludwig kid I mentioned although in the 60s, you know plastic heads were starting to come in they and that would have come with With plastic heads new But I'm just having so much more fun with it with cap skin heads that to me. It just sounds great Yeah, if someone were to buy, you know, they're not cheap They're they're like artisanal kind of like now they're hand crafted and they're they're not being pressed out by a Machine as much like a mylar head Would you say that like a snare or a bass drum or snare and or bass drum would be a good starting point? Instead of doing your because you're full kit. I mean you're you could spend a thousand dollars if you're doing the full drum set easily Um, do you think that would be a good starting point? Maybe you get a snare head? To get get introduced to him I almost would try a tom first because I think uh, I would go with the rack and floor toms first and bass drum Yeah, but I think given the price and the tuning and everything I would take my chances with uh, maybe getting a fiber skin or something there um, and and the snare uh you're quite often going for a a crack that um Kaft skin will get you there in a different way than the mylar, but But back to your question. I As a starter, I would say rack toms and floor time pushing and Right in the middle of the ballpark Yeah, and especially if you happen to have a 14 inch floor time then you could You could experiment a little bit you could put that on the snare drum and see what you think of it and Yeah, hopefully you don't have a 20 inch floor tom and then you're playing but maybe if you have a 20 inch bass drum You can float around there Um, can I ask you another question here that's kind of coming to mind? I feel like you have so much knowledge about the history of the industry That maybe this will bring something to mind. Um, maybe we talk a little bit about the change of like the industry and I mean these companies it was literally like uh The first thing that comes to mind is like, um You know big old honkin wired phones and then the cell phone comes out and those are no one uses that kind of phone anymore or You know what? I mean just a complete shift in technology any anything comes to mind of like What the industry was like in the mid 50s for like the manufacturers and the companies and the players and all that stuff um Like I said, I I think uh the A lot of the companies that had their own tanneries didn't necessarily get away from the tannery Because of plastic heads. They already they did that earlier and for other reasons, uh, uh, we saw upheavals in the industry. So, uh Ledy and Ludwig both having problems mainly because they got into ban shows and then of course the stock market crash and everything so uh The con company ends up owning both of them. And so there goes The leady tannery and the Ludwig tannery although John Yuka the uh, the fellow who ran the the leady tannery for years and there was a they had leady produced several different levels of Skin heads and their premium heads were the the yuka heads because he was a master craftsman And he did the the translucent heads for especially for timpani and so on but I think by the 50s For all those reasons a lot of the companies were relying more and more on white eagle rawhide and united rawhide and They they must have been going through boxcars of of raw skins because The uh, jerry rhyman is it reamon or rhyman the fellow that makes the books about the with the newspaper? Yeah, yeah, I think it's rhyman. He's he's been sending me those notebooks and there's some really neat stuff There's stuff that doesn't show up in any uh books when you're research it Yes, and it's it's led me down some really interesting rabbit holes, but There have been a number of uh references to rogers, uh in in those clippings and uh One was an ad for rogers selling off some cattle. They evidently had Uh an operational farm of some kind probably growing their own cattle for the skins or something But uh, they they posted an ad in one of those Classifieds for some cattle they were selling off, but what what Really struck me with some numbers that came up in there when they're talking about Getting an order from the military for 8,000 drum skins and so on and I thought oh man I mean I I had been thinking in terms of What I was doing in my shop I'd I'd get in skins that were unmounted And I felt like a manufacturer because I was soaking them and tucking them on a flesh hoop and And so on and I thought this is just like those guys were doing Not and it and it kind of was but when you think of somebody producing 8,000 that It boggles my mind to think how many guys did they have working there and And so on and and when you get a boxcar of of hides in You've got to do something with them and they they tended to freeze them. Lady has pictures of the the freezer Because the the clock is ticking as soon as the animal is dead And the the height is going to start to decompose So your your window is shrinking and you've got to transport them freeze them Until you're ready to actually You know Start start using them But wow and can you imagine the mess and the smell and that? That's enough reason to go to plastic heads right away but one of the the stories that one of the lady children the Son the youngest son of the founder. It was a ug lady Was holless lady and he lived in michigan and I went up to visiting several times when I was doing the lady book and He he and his brother Didn't really work at the at the factory much as The old man kind of made him work there as a summer job to You know and still a little disciplined and so on but So so holless. Uh, it wasn't his choice, but he was assigned to work in the Uh calfskin headworks and he said the smell in there It was all he could do to to function and it was summertime and it was hot and And he couldn't believe that all these guys around him were actually Working and he could barely keep it together and he was he was he had brought his lunch And he was praying for lunchtime to get there so he could go out and get in a little bit of air But he didn't think he was going to have any appetite to actually eat Lunchtime comes and they telling me okay, we're going to break for lunch And he's about to head out the door and they all just pull out their lunches and sit down where they are And start eating I guess you get used to it. Yeah Yeah Oh my gosh That was kind of the point of his story. He said yeah after a week It was a different world, but man that first day it just took my breath away Yeah, it's a dead rotting animal. I mean, I've I've had a music space. It's near I guess a like I guess pigs or something like a rendering plant or whatever where Whatever details of that. I've never actually looked it up But they do something with the the animals where on a hot day you can smell it like half a mile away It's disgusting. So Yeah, a lot of respect for people who work in that You know yeah field, but We're we're drummers As and i'm asking you like you were there. I mean you must you were you know, probably a kid around that time But like was it accepted? Maybe the like change in technology like pretty quickly that like oh this is better And I know that's kind of come up on other episodes, but like was it pretty quick or did it take some time? It took some time, but once people started hearing Mylar has been played and the the big appeal was obviously Had a like the the cost but the the weatherproof You know being able to put them on marching drums and go outside and and some people have been struggling with for a long time they they I've got ads of heads that were made out of cloth that were painted with varnish and and stuff to try to treat them to Make it tougher than than cow hide And somebody even patented I have somewhere An actual patent for a drum head That was touted as being Weatherproof and everything it was made out of sheet metal And the how Okay, well I So you could tell what was driving the the uh innovation, but yeah The idea of playing a drum with a sheet metal head is uh, it seems pretty ridiculous today But really though, I've never thought of that about of course any industry you kind of look back and there's wacky kind of fringe ideas but cloth That's treated and hardened in a way Isn't the worst idea in the world? I mean that someone now would make that and it'd be like a cool little like because I know there's like wooden drum heads It actually sound pretty cool, but um Yeah, that's that's pretty wild. People will people will try anything, you know They the range of skins that are out there and available now Are pretty much the same as when I first started getting into cap skin heads probably in the late 80s something like that And to kind of break that down a little bit the the kinds of skins that people are are apt to see Uh, and I'm talking about just skins before they're mounted As some of these you can't just go out and buy I had what what comes to mind first is the there's a region of Pakistan Seal cot area and for some reason there are multiple tanneries there. It's almost uh Like particular to that geographic area and generations of people, but there are many companies and I I used to get a A blurb from or advertising from them on a regular basis and it'd be different companies But it would always be from the seal cot area of pakistan most of those were uh I believe sheepskin But uh, they were in general very low quality. They would be real stiff and Not very uniform in thickness. They might on a You'd start with an 18 inch skin for a 14 inch drum and we'll talk about tucking in a little bit and Uh putting the skin onto a wooden flesh hoop and so on But in general, it's an 18 inch skin you want to start with for a 14 inch drum So I I ordered a bunch of these skins because they were they were cheap They were like two or three dollars landed or something But you get what you pay for and uh, they were not only real uneven in thickness uh, but They had very little natural glue for some reason in them and What you do to put that 18 inch skin on a 14 inch drum You have a piece of wood that we're going to call the flesh hoop And you soak the skin so it's flexible lay the The skin out on a flat surface Take your flesh hoop and center it and then tuck The head onto the flesh hoop So you're bending the flesh hoop or the skin up over the flesh hoop and then back up under itself The the natural glue Properties of the skin head once it dries holds it in place Not that they can never Pull out and sometimes you have to you know retuck you can Soak them again and start over and do the same thing but these these uh, uh, pakistani heads Were just a real problem for you could soak them forever and they didn't get all that pliable But they finally loosen up a little bit enough so you can kind of get them on A long story longer. I pretty much gave up on those except for Situations where somebody just only wanted to put a very limited amount of money into it because they're going to Put this old drum up on the shelf and they want it to look complete But as far as playing with them and and it was very Frustrating and would be frustrating for somebody to get started talking with One of those really rough heads because it's When you go from that to a really high quality head, it's just night and day that The better heads almost tuck themselves. They just slip up under there But um interesting it gives you an appreciation for this the tucking skill to do one yourself because Um You get all these little wrinkles and everything and you you can't tuck too much up under there But you've got to get enough to get all the way up on the other side of the flesh hoop So that it is going to hold and yeah, so on well That's that raises the question then like let's say My grandpa for example tom con up who passed away a few years ago when he was younger Would he have tucked his own drum heads or would typically? Like he was in new york would he have gone to like a drum shop and they would have tucked it for him Or like when you bought them how did how did it how did that happen? You're you know, you're a young guy you're on a jazz player in the 50 or uh, well the 40s 30s How did you did you get it done already? Or yeah, and they uh When frank's drum shop opened in 1937 They they took a picture And uh, then they recreated that picture I don't know at a 20 year anniversary got the same people sitting in the same places and everything But in that original picture They there was a rack hanging there Uh, and there's a bunch of cow hides hanging on it And that was their drum head display So so yeah, you can go in and just buy one of those skins and take it home yourself and Shave the hair off it and and so on or They were in the business of doing that. So, uh, it's going to cost you more to have them spend the time to prepare it but but Yeah Why do you go rawhide and united rawhide? Did not just the oem stuff But they produced heads that were put in cardboard boxes and sold by music stores and got you a lot of skin heads were sold already Prepared to go right on the drum with already tucked already on the rim. Okay. That makes sense because yeah, I mean that's that's a bit of uh technical That would be like equivalent to like buying a snare, but you have to like put the lugs on like it's not that hard or something but it's um It's easier if you don't have to do it kind of a of a unique skill and uh a story that comes to mind is uh We haven't done a roy nap episode. We'll have to do that sometime But he was kind of the godfather of chicago percussion in a lot of ways. There were some other guys ed straight and and so on but But uh, quite often old chicago guys are going to talk about, you know, uncle roy and roy nap who had the the only Percussion school in the country that would accept the gi bill. So there were a lot of gis Uh going to learn how to play drums and those that group included a hell-blame But then he also taught Gosh everybody from gene krupa and louis belson and and on and on and on so to brag on roy nap a little bit, but one of his price students was uh Phil stanger and uh The late phil stanger he just passed a few years ago But one of the stories he used to tell me about going to study with with uh, roy nap Who it is prime? Didn't take just anybody you couldn't walk in and say i want a drum lesson or a series of lessons with with roy nap He would audition you and then he would assign you to one of his teachers Occasionally he would add someone and i have a lot of uh the the papers from the The drum school and after he retired where he kept track of his students and he was so proud of him because he has lists of uh these people and what they're doing now and and so on and He was a total Educator and he wanted People to understand the music. I mean he started right out with the circle of fifths and and music theory because he felt drummers and percussionists needed to understand the music I mean when you think about it, it brings you right to Charlie and ringo and all these people who weren't necessarily the fastest or the flashiest but impeccable timing with what the band that they were in was doing And so on and that was kind of where uncle roy was coming from is trying to Give a a complete music education to the percussionist that he was training So that that's a long-winded introduction to what phil was telling me I I never heard it from anybody else and I've met a lot of people that studied with uh, roy and they always It was a custom Program he always wrote up the lessons by hand for each student because he could see where they were going What they needed and so on but with phil every saturday when phil would go to Roy's studio The first thing that roy would have him do While he was teaching another lesson or getting things organized for the day or whatever phil would have to get a bucket of water and take the The heads off of the timpani that were in the studio and relap them He'd have to go go soak the heads off of the flesh hoops Remound them and so on and and and phil made it sound like This he was in the army and this was part of his kp duty or something And and I don't know if roy was just trying to kind of test him to see if he was going to stick with it as well as he thought he Roy was That phil was going to stick with it as well as roy thought he would if he was given the discipline and the challenge and so on But he did stick with it and it was a life skill I mean to be able to tuck ahead and and especially to do it quickly Yeah, uh in the days when all They were using with skin heads. Um, I thought that was kind of interesting, but I don't know why Roy didn't make other students do that. He probably did but I never met another one besides phil Yeah, he's like traumatized from doing that on a big timpani head Which you don't even think about that really that didn't pop into my head about the different applications like a timpani and a banjo Like you mentioned earlier, but everything would be would be that I mean, it's it's kind of uh, It's interesting. Do you think that if you find a drum set? Now that has the original calf skin heads on it. Does that add a lot to the value? Um, like a vintage kit from like let's say pre 50s Like a 40s kit that has calf skin heads that are still intact just loosened up or something. Is that more valuable? No, but it seems like it should and maybe it will in the future when I mean, they've already gone up from 45 or 50 when I first got into it to They're probably a 14 inch stern head is what 80 or 90 now Maybe when it gets up to 300 it It'll make a change, but yeah Yeah, you would think it it would but I don't I don't think it does at this point Okay, much difference. Um, and then on kind of in that same vein I have a I got an old bass drum at a flea market that was I think it's probably a 20s I would assume it's like a ledie because I know ledie like kind of white labeled a bunch of bass drums for other people And from what I've found with the type of rod and everything The single tension thing I think that's what I was but the front head has split Which as you know as it does it probably got put on something or something set on top of it Is there any saving those old heads or patching? I think mine's too far gone but can you patch or save an old animal skin head I think you can and I've and I've read of people that do and uh With that head that split on me that painted head what I did was followed the advice of that I read somewhere and that was to take Some nylon stocking material. There's probably not so much of that around anymore I guess there's still pantyhose you can cut up. Yeah. Yeah, but um and uh use that and rubber cement and that Took the stress off of the where the crack was but still retained a little bit of flexibility um And I've I've heard of people gluing leather on too but I I asked that question once Uh, I was I was at uh bill Ludwig's house the chief to bill Ludwig too and bill crowden happened to be there and uh Both guys had had a couple of martinis and you know got to be supper time And they they tended to have two or three martinis and loosen up before dinner And I thought this is the golden opportunity to this question that you just asked that I've been wondering about And I had this I had recently split this oil painted base drum and They they laughed at me they both said Virtually the same thing They had laughed and said yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's what you want to do Uh, give it a funeral and bury it And start over and then buy a new one from Ludwig. Yeah. Yeah Wow Man, I would like to have two or three martinis with bill with the chief. That sounds pretty fun It just to hang out and uh Was it all drum talk at that point or did they kind of just to talk about other stuff? other stuff at the table, but uh The chief had is a little museum in the basement and that was part of the the video that I did that first got me into the the vintage drum thing I I took a cameraman there and just asked him every question I could think of and then did that with three or four other people And then we tried to edit it into something that that made sense but he had all of his pedals and and these civil war drums and the The early black beauties the DFS drum and all that stuff all shelf by shelf. So that's In the basement where there was also a billiard table and a bar and stuff. So it was kind of his drum cave Yeah, that's awesome area and then very cool Um, all right, and then so this is this is going to be totally out of left field. It was for me I had a person A very nice Older lady. I did like an interview kind of on the local like PBS channel here last year two years ago Where it was like a spotlight on you know, someone recommended me because of the podcast and um, her name is barbara keller Very very nice woman, but she asked a question. I think I said Something about or she might have asked about animal. It came up It came up about animal skin drum heads and that would have obviously I mean she was probably in her late set She's probably in her 70s and so it would have been a thing when she was younger But she said she was like amazed that animal skin heads were used And said what I wonder what pita thinks of that And I was like, I was just like what? I don't really know what you're talking like I get it, but I'm also like, but it's like that's the history of like percussion forever Uh, isn't it? I just thought that was interesting Have you ever heard of anyone kind of questioning that in the in the industry or anything like that? No, and I'm a little surprised too that I haven't I was thinking about that the other day particularly with slunk, uh now now traditionally, uh, the The regular white, uh A calf skin head is going to go on the batter side and And a medium thickness a medium or heavy thickness depending on You know that was a player's choice But on the bottom side, they'd use a very thin head and generally a translucent head that was made from the skin of an unborn calf And there must have been a lot of them because slunk was a thing I mean and you can I think you can still order from Jeff It's stern today a slunk head for the bottom side So yeah, that's a lot of aborted Cabs that were cut up and that's that's kind of gruesome. It is or there's a lot of like I know that You know, maybe they don't all make it or they're there's ways they're born But but that's a lot to be producing but um, yeah It again and it came up about I think I mentioned that what steel was doing In Australia with the kangaroo heads and it was just like kind of Shocking for her but from what I've heard is like from a friend who lives in Australia is like, oh, no, they're everywhere Like it's not like, uh, you know, we go to the zoo and are amazed at kangaroos It's more of like us seeing like a deer where it's like They're everywhere. So it was a little less, uh You know poor little kangaroo. It's it's kind of like but again I see people's sensitivity to it and I'll explain if maybe I think pita is known internationally But if you're listening and it's kind of the people who uh, I'm gonna skip looking up the acronym It's people who are animal rights activists. So that's the question if you're not familiar with who they are But anyway, that that definitely caught me by surprises. Like I've never thought of that Um ever but to transition away from that real quick. I've also heard. I don't know if you've heard of this There was someone who mentioned a while ago about early early early drum Head type situation. I think that someone's mentioned a a fish skin of some type Stretched over like a turtle shell Pretty interesting fish, you know, you don't hear about fish skin being used very often Yeah, uh, well as far as uh, uh, fish skin or Yeah, snake skins various things and I'm not even sure what this is, but I believe it's a fish skin Oh, wow And it's a like a Chinese violin I got on a trip to hong kong in the Late 80s something like that and I presume they're still making them. Uh, and there's no tuning it. It's it's tacked so It's not like I play this thing every day and I have to be concerned about the the tension And and you're not playing actually on the the uh The head it's uh, it's missing the bridge right now. Yeah, but uh, it would be like a resonating kind of chamber Yeah, yeah, wow, very cool. So let's go with uh Back to the my my tucking adventures. I ended up with uh uh Get into a point where I was I was doing uh three or four a week and I thought that was a A lot, but I I had a nice surface a glass countertop and a couple of plastic bins of Of all the clamps and everything that I needed and and people can kind of follow this by going to a youtube video uh, and I can Actually, you might have a way of putting these uh Uh QR codes up that are in the book that I sent you in pdf form Uh, because I'm I'm not going to tell people they have to buy the rebates calfskin head book to See the the youtube videos I in the the first version of this book I I had actually produced a dvd. So every Every book came with the disc in it and so on. Yeah, but uh when I updated it this last year I I put those up on youtube so that everybody can have benefit of it without having to buy the book. Yeah, but uh one the first One I would point to is My demonstration of laying up a wooden flesh hoop Uh, go go back to where I had the calfskin head that's been soaked So it's flexible and it's laying there in the surface You put the flesh hoop on top of it and you you get ready To tuck it You have to make sure that you're starting with a flesh hoop. That's the right size if it's Too small you're not going to be able to Put it on the drum by the time you get the calfskin head So if it's too if the flesh hoop is tight to the shell Um, you're going to have a problem go a little bit. Yeah. Yeah Uh And how do you know how big to go? Uh, the best thing is to What I used was cardboard a thin cardboard like, uh Uh, almost like a A book cover or something like that not as heavy as like a cereal box But uh board kind of yeah and and put That around the edge of the drum use strips of it and masking tape and and uh, so you're building up a little bit of a layer around the drum Then then put the flesh hoop over that and I'm presuming you have a flesh hoop that is not been glued yet It's open. It's just a round piece of wood and you can get those from Uh, Cooper men, uh the last I knew you could get them from Cooper men Or if you go to a woodworker and explain what you want You want a round piece of wood that's open so you can glue it to size So you put it over the The cardboard that you've laid up over the drum shell And then put a little bit of glue in it and clamp it Uh uniformly uh clamps every four or five inches all the way around And and let it set then you have a properly sized flesh hoop The cardboard represents the amount of space that the calf skinhead is eventually going to use up So, uh Let it dry, uh scrape off any uh glue that's Adhering there you might have to take a knife and and uh skin a little bit of wood off the where the joint Was that you made So now you've got the properly sized flesh hoop Put it down on the damp calf skin And start tucking Now if you're doing a big one Like a a base drum A common problem or mistake is to Tuck it like you would a 14 but By the time you get it tucked so that it it isn't sagging Then it dries It's way too tight. Uh, there's there's no there's no slack to establish a collar. Got it. So on anything over 18 inches I would always take uh like a cereal bowl or something that size And and put it on the table first Then put the skin over that then the flesh hoop And proceed to tuck that that that uh slack that the cereal bowl Gave you make sure that you had a little bit of slack because you don't want to pull it real tight while it's damp And you're tucking because then when it dries it's it's going to pull things Out of shape And back to the flesh hoop again You can reuse flesh hoops often. I mean very old drums depends on what that poor drum has gone through over the the decades Um, maybe it's been cared for in a way that the flesh hoop Is in perfect condition and you can reuse it But quite often since it is wood it's going to warp and twist and You get it removed from the calfskin head and this Garbage in garbage out. I better set that aside and get a new flesh hoop and you can buy uh steel flesh hoops and aluminum flesh hoops Then the price really starts going up. Um And there are there are people like, uh, carl dustbin at professional percussion in uh cleveland that, uh has Steel flesh hoops made up Maybe they're aluminum Anyhow the the metal flesh hoops are are considered desirable by the purists a lot of the orchestral guys and so on They're generally smaller than a wooden flesh hoop because they're stronger. So it's a little bit easier to To put with the tolerances on the drum. You're not using up as much of the space with wood Yeah, sure the flesh hoop as you are with the metal Uh, but it does get expensive. It's it's expensive to have those made and to they You're getting them from a third party. They've got the hand labor of produce him and so on The calfskin headbook does have a list of sources both for the the skins themselves and for Uh completed heads that are all put together Uh pro drum comes to mind. I I think they do other things besides the stern But of course there's stern tanning and pro drum and pro percussion uh probably many more that i'm i'm Not thinking of right away, but it is possible to go out into the marketplace and get calfskin heads or the The skins themselves are the flesh herpes and Yeah, go at it yourself. Well, and I have the um, I quickly found the youtube videos you mentioned So I'll just put them in the description. It's an interesting process and it's just kind of cool and it's it's it's You're doing it and I feel like stuff like that makes you a little bit closer to your drum set. Um And you know, you feel more exactly in touch with it and things like that. So I think that's really cool. Um Exactly, you know one one that I I did Just just for fun when I was uh It was an old pakistani Uh one of those kind of rough pakistani heads um But I I needed to put a uh skin on The first drum that I ever got or in great school. It's an old I think it's a gretch. It has no name on it but um, it's it's a Kind of a piece that I I don't play but I kind of like to see it now and then so I wanted it complete But but yeah, now it's it's the old It's my first drum with the cap skin head that I took on it. Yeah, but Yeah, yeah, it's not it's not what I'm gonna pull off and play very often In fact, it's probably not even playable at the moment. Yeah So those qr codes are the the youtube videos are they Uh one is on the lane up of the flesh hoop to get at the right size And another is tucking scat cap skin onto the flesh hoop And the third is uh scotty du set the late scotty du set Uh great guy and a lot of a lot of people uh collectors out there remember dealing with him on catalogs and so on for years He worked at uh jack strum shop in boston And on one of my visits there. He was tucking a A slug head for the bottom side of a snare drum And uh, he was kind enough to let me videotape that and that's that's the third youtube video Um, they I something that that scotty did that was a tip that I picked up on was he used a baby powder Uh, I think the the head had been soaked a little too long. It was a little bit slick He needed some a way to make the The skin grab a little bit more. It was it was too too slippery So he was he had baby powder at hand and was uh And using that to make it go but it was a It's an amazing thing to see somebody with a lot of experience and a talent for that Like scotty. Yeah, uh, how quickly he did it and how polished and professional it looked when he was done It was really amazing. Yeah, that's that's true with anything Drum related or not. It's like if if you do something like like drywall or something like for you for me to do it It takes four hours, but for someone who's quick It's just it's there almost there's almost no fear of messing up because your hands are so fine tuned to do it Which is awesome, but Well, rob. Yeah, I think this is awesome, man. I think this is a pretty cool again general look at um at calfskin animal skin whatever you want to call it heads so Is there anything we missed? I mean, I think we've got a pretty good. Yeah a couple of things I would want to call attention to one is The marketplace seems to be seems to have exploded a little bit in the demand for painted Oh, sure painted based drum heads And you had on the fellow that has the museum and I was tim. I should know is yeah Yeah, now he referred me to two or three other guys that have massive collections of these and That they've just gotten together in the last Uh 15 20 years so when I first started getting into the stuff 30 years ago um I I had no idea that that would become a thing. I would have been Uh watching more carefully and picking them up because they're getting kind of expensive now But I would encourage uh people to go back and listen to that episode And that's something else I put in the the new version of the calfskin head book is A lot more color uh reproductions of all those different oil painted heads in fact on the on the cover The image that I use there is one of the leady Heart artists at work And I took the liberty of colorizing that was a black and white photo, but Photoshop Colorizes pretty nicely. It does you told me about that and I ended up actually doing it for Uh, some like family photos of like my wife's grandma and isn't that something to see them come alive Yes, and it's just like two buttons. It's two clicks which Photoshop the the stuff you can do now is Amazing and I'll also refer people on that note to Jim Messina's episode Which I believe was really early on, but I think it was the history of painted drum heads Yeah, so everyone can check that one out and the other thing what was the there was another thing. Oh bovid I I put in a couple pages but uh Ryan McKay, I want to call attention to what he's doing. He's he's a young guy Uh, but he's doing some remarkable stuff with calf skin heads. He's uh for for one. He's doing a lot of these Skins that have the hair still on them. Yeah, and uh, you can't order a particular design obviously because You know That is what it is The hair is what it is on on those heads, but it does change the the sound It's kind of a Muffled thing. It was considered kind of a novelty for years The only ones I ever sold were people that wanted to do like uh Elvis's uh, drummer had had one on the famous black and white head, but uh Some of the other stuff that ryan is doing Amazes me. He's doing some two ply Skinheads and I don't get that with all the challenges I had tucking calf skin heads um I kind of figured two ply meant he was going to bond it like a pinstripe or something But I when I talked to him about that. No, he's actually tucking two skins and he doesn't need to put a Adhesive between them or anything. It's not like they're going to flap because again the natural adhesive That's built into the the skin When you get two of the damp skins Uh together They're and they dry they're going to be glued. Yeah together naturally But he's doing some remarkable things and you can you can order a calf skin That's got a second ply of goat skin or you can do a two ply A calf skin and uh, it's it's going to enhance the durability remarkably. I mean that's going to open up a whole genre of music that otherwise couldn't play calf because They of of the way that they're playing. Yeah, but it's worth mentioning Uh, uh, ryan's doing some remarkable stuff. Yeah, the other guy that comes to the chicago drum show that does skinheads Is from austria the austrian drumhead company peter And uh, it's great to see these young guys. I I think but I don't know the ages But I my guess is these guys are both in their 20s Um, so I I think the the skinhead business is alive and well then And being nurtured by some, uh, I'm amazing people out there Yeah, I would agree and I ryan and I have been talking and like I mentioned before we hung out in chicago And we would drive from our terrible hotel to the chicago show and talk about all this stuff and um I think it'd be cool to have ryan on to do Uh to show his process Basically from start to finish on like a youtube video or something like that. I think that'd be neat But awesome rob. Well, this is very cool. I appreciate you taking the time to do this But I I want to mention real quick before we end my friend barry james who recently passed away He sent me this super cool picture of him, uh last year I met him through the podcast barry was the last living student of george lauren stone Which who was still teaching the uh teachings of stone and barry was a Really a disciple of stone and was a great teacher and lots of you guys who were listening bought his book and all that stuff So, um barry just passed away the same day Well, it was the next day same 24 hour period as dom who recently passed away So oh my god two amazing teachers, but I just wanted to kind of give you know dom was very very well known barry was very well known to a lot of people, but um I just wanted to make sure barry got his his mention and everything and I just love having this cool picture of him And he became a great friend. We talked all the time on the phone at least once a month. Um, so Rest in peace to barry. Um Who you know, there's so much history out there. I'm glad to have two interviews with them recorded just for that For that reason means a lot. Yeah. Yeah wow, yeah Yeah, I spoke to barry at one point about maybe doing a uh, uh A different edition of his book that wouldn't Require so much. Wasn't he doing it at a quick printer or something? He was he was it's not easy to print a book and uh, his yeah his good friend and student tom cook and his wife elaine are going to continue to sell the book but It takes a lot to get a book out there and I think amazon is an option and with rebits, but Um Who knows they're going to try to still continue to publish his book So maybe there's still something there, but um, because you don't want it to be like, oh barry has passed away Now his book is gone. You want it to be the opposite? So, um, yeah, the plan is to keep it going Yeah, I I enjoyed talking to him. He clearly had a passion for it and Man, what can you say about dom that hasn't been said by everybody in the world, but uh he Original plan was to have him do a clinic at last year's show and uh, there were his health was just unpredictable and and uh, I didn't even get answers to the to the number of contacts messages. I sent and I thought well Things aren't going so well But then a few weeks before the show all of a sudden he said hey, I'm I'm uh out and about and I did Just did a thing at nam and yeah, I'm up for the show and And I said well, oh that'd be great. Yeah, we'll we'll get you there and uh, we uh, we got him in and I I couldn't advertise a clinic slot or anything and he wasn't playing anyhow But just to have him there and and to To have him hanging with us at the registration area there Everybody that walked in when they realized who it was their eyes light up and and literally any room that he walked into Yeah, we and and he said what do you want me to do and I said well just be done. I mean Yes, it it'd be great if you could Come over and help em see the clinics a little bit and maybe at the 4 o'clock sunday We do the raffle and you can help me with that and boom he was there uh to introduce uh The the clinics and and all the clinicians of course knew him and knew of him and were hugging him and So glad to see him and yeah, and we talked about you know having him back next year, of course, but Man, yeah, talk talk about a legacy. Yeah, I saw him there too. We hung out up at the symbol Symbol makers hang out up on the second floor and I was talking to Dom there and um So there's great episodes I can't fill the description of this episode will be full of like 50 links just If anyone's ever curious you go to my website search or youtube or whatever Dom famiolaro Barry james search those two guys and you'll find two episodes each Which has really proven to be a thing that I over the five years of doing this where a lot of people have unfortunately passed away But you can go back and listen to them and those two guys have particularly good episodes dom's episode Is incredible not only the the knowledge and the the enthusiasm and passion they presented it with but Just such a nice guy Is it like louis belson and that you never heard him say a negative word you could And if anybody were I imagined to throw something at him and and say but what about him and you know about And it's very non-judgmental. It's he always had a kind thing to say about Absolutely, absolutely and dom's episode was molar gladstone and stone. That's what I was forgetting before But anyway, those guys are awesome rest in peace. Barry james dom famiolaro. I mean It's a big big loss, but uh, it's fun to talk about him and uh, we will miss them greatly so Rob as usual. Thank you for being here. Uh, rob's got a ton of episodes. So if you like this one Um, check out the link in the the links in the description I'll put his other episodes or you can just search rob cook probably on youtube or wherever and his episodes should show up Rob, I appreciate you being here man. And and if there's anything special link wise you want me to um Share we can I can put those in the description. But also, um We'll have you back on another time. I'm sure roissy nap and then um, we'll do that And then we'll also do some other ones about maybe next year closer to the chicago show or whenever you have anything You want to announce I'd be happy to get the word out there for you. So um Appreciate you being here rob. It's always a pleasure. Great. Thanks so much. I appreciate the opportunity man. Keep up the good work