 Hey guys, welcome to another episode of drum history news today. We're talking about chick Evans. He is kind of an elusive character Obviously he is the founder of Evans drum heads way back He would battle it out with Remo Belly of Remo drum heads for who was the first person to bring Synthetic plastic mylar drum heads to market because obviously at that point they were cap skin and that's a whole different topic Which has been covered on the podcast all include that stuff in the description So these really cool news articles were sent in by my friend Andy Dwyer of ADC drums in Liverpool, England and They really paint a pretty good picture of who chick Evans was he kind of had a bit of a bad boy background And I use that term because the name of his band that you'll see in a picture soon is chicks bad boys and So we're gonna read this first one that has a really good description of his life Which I could not find anywhere else this this article actually put together more information than I think anything else I could find online so that's cool, but after that we're gonna look at some shorter little articles that are kind of like when he got In trouble as a 21 22 year old guy It's just interesting because it's it's really there's some robbery that we'll read about and then Some problems during prohibition of selling alcohol. So very interesting. I want to say up front that this was a long time ago Chick Evans hasn't really been involved when the company in a very long time. It got sold multiple times So I this is all with respect and I just think it's interesting to read about this stuff And he kind of plays into the bad boy persona a little bit obviously by the name of his band Finding information about chicks birthday was actually not easy. I couldn't find an obituary or anything when I googled it So I asked Andy Dwyer who sent all this stuff in if he knew chicks birthday. He sent me a 1940 Census report where chick Evans or Marian Evans. He went by chick Filled it out in 1940 at the age of 33. So that would mean he was born in 1907 It says he was a proprietor and manager of a nightclub So he was always working in the industry as a drummer and in a nightclub Which we'll hear about more with the prohibition thing that I mentioned later our first article is from 1988 And it is from the Santa Fe New Mexican to start with in the middle We see a picture of chick Evans playing the drums I don't know when this photo was taken, but I know that in his 20s He did have a bit of a kind of a rough and rowdy side Which is interesting and it's kind of cool that he went with it and named his band chicks bad boys The article says drummer sells own product Evans formed his own company and took to the road to promote the merchandise He went to Chicago the Gulf States Salt Lake City all over the country drummers and band leaders were eager for the improvement plastic drum heads represented as Evans folder full of yellowing endorsement letters and requests will attest Florence his wife stayed home raising the Evans two children and making drum heads in the garage Evans experienced a setback in the late 1950s when they discovered through an article in Downbeat magazine That a former customer had started manufacturing the drum heads under his own name a lawsuit followed and Evans said the company settled with him out of court. Obviously that is Remo I should have held out for more he complains that guy has made millions from the idea But I had other things to think about at the time So maybe I wasn't as persistent as I could have been Evans eventually went into partnership with two people from Dodge City, Kansas He got tired of Dodge City sold out the business and move back to Santa Fe Then I tooled up and went into business by myself again pretty soon I was making so many Dodge City called me and said we want to buy you out again So I said sure and I sold out again That was the end of the drum business for Evans at least for a while now that his and Florence's five grandchildren have all grown up And given them nine great-grandchildren Evans says he needs something to keep him busy He plays a few hot licks on a snare drum in the study just to show a visitor He still has the moves then he indicates a corner table cluttered with hoops circles and mylar and a drill I'm just making a few now. He says and just 14 inch snare drum heads instantly He's chick Evans drum salesman again I can sell him less than the stores, you know, because I don't have that overhead if anyone's interested in looking at him They can call me. I'm here all the time then he gestures to his wife But don't count on Florence helping. She said she'd made just about all the drum heads She was going to make in this lifetime Florence just smiles and nods really a cool look at chick Evans life kind of summed up Very quickly, but yeah, it's interesting There's there's a lot still to learn there about his particular, you know, what happened when so hopefully I can do a full Evans drum head episode to cover it all now the next few articles are more of a look at that bad boy Persona that he really embraced obviously by naming his band that these were from almost a hundred years ago So pretty interesting to read this the first one says the Lamy case I think that's how you pronounce it to indictments in an alleged post office robbery at Lamy also will arouse interest The defendants are W. A. Evans alias Gus Evans and Marion L. Evans alias chick Evans Warner both defendants appeared to be of high school appearance and age when a reindeer before United States commissioner last fall They are charged with stealing postal funds from the post office in the store of Tom Hanna Well-known Lamy merchant the numerous robberies of the Hanna store at Lamy and the final successful blowing of the huge iron Safe aroused keen interest in this part of the state a few months ago pretty wild I mean there's safe blowings and stuff like that But as we'll find out right now because I don't want to like make it seem like something It's not there is a later clipping from a couple weeks later Same newspaper that says Gus Evans is not guilty jury finds W. A. Evans better known as Gus Evans was found not guilty of robbing or getting others to rob the post office and Tom Hanna store at Lamy the jury retired shortly after noon today and after dining began deliberations It is said the jurors quickly arrived at their verdict the robbery of the post office at Lamy occurred during the night of September 14th Or 15th last year a master safecracker performed the job Blowing the safe so quietly that the explosion by nitroglycerin did not disturb the neighborhood pretty cool Obviously, this means that they were not guilty Their name was in the newspaper for something pretty wild so I wanted to mention it But obviously this was something different with like a master safecracker Which what was in that safe that made this person want to use nitroglycerin to blow it up? Chick is still kind of a bad boy for being included in the newspaper for robbing this place But he didn't do it. The next one though is also from the Santa Fe, New Mexican in January 1929 It says chick Evans goes on trial Roswell, New Mexico January 18th ML chick Evans of Santa Fe went to trial and federal court today on a charge of Possession and sale of intoxicating liquor Evans was charged to have made a number of sales as a proprietor of the borough alley cafe So this was during prohibition which went from 1919 to 1933 I'm not sure if it was taken less serious in the later years of prohibition. It probably wasn't I mean it was the 18th amendment. So it very likely was still very serious Andy Dwyer from ADC drums who sent this to me Mentioned that this would probably be during the time of the anti saloon league Who were the people that really I guess enforced this prohibition law in Santa Fe and were the ones who were probably involved with busting up chicks Bar and his operation then the last bit of information I have on this that also kind of ties this one up a little bit a little less Final than the previous one, but it says chick Evans and Billy mentee not guilty is plea federal court at Roswell Is I think it says still busy with prohibition law violators Going all the way down to the bottom because a lot of this other stuff is just other people It says ML chick Evans of Santa Fe pleaded not guilty to a prohibition Charge and William mentee of Santa Fe also charged with prohibition kind of gets cut off Says they're pleading not guilty the trial will be held later in the week He very well was probably not guilty of that as well But it's just interesting that chick Evans of you know the original Evans drum heads Was involved in some kind of you know risky Operations that made it into the newspaper at that time. He was a young guy a lot of the stuff He did with the drum heads was in the 50s. He was born in 1907. So again, he would have been older at that point He was still pretty much a kid at this point. That's about it for the chick Evans articles for today Really cool to see this. Obviously. He was a much younger guy The the mylar kind of battle between Remo happened later in like the 50s So this was a while before that like 20 plus years pretty interesting He kind of had that bad boy persona and and played into it with his band at that time So thanks to Andy Dwyer for sending me this stuff. Like I said, I plan to do a full chick Evans episode I think that would be awesome or just Evans drum heads in general because I think chick Evans would be kind of a Sliver of it and then it became a whole different company. So very cool Thanks for watching this episode. Be sure to subscribe and check back and you can find me on patreon I'll put links for that in the bottom if you want to help support the show and get involved So thank you for watching and I will see you next week