Mike Evans

As retired business executive, who after many years away from home, including 30 years in Sheffield , has returned back to his native Rhondda Valley in South Wales to be a full time carer for his elderly mother. He first became involved with music at the age of 7 when his late father , a cornet player with the world famous Cory Brass Band, taught him to read music and tried to teach him to play trumpet. However, it was in 1964 seeing the Dave Clarke Five on Top of the Pops playing “Bits and Pieces” which starts with solo drums that inspired him to want to learn the drums. 3 years later , aged 15, he played drums in the Royal Albert Hall for a St David’s Day celebration organised by the London Welsh Society.

In his teens and early 20s he not only continued to play drums but worked part time in a local record shop until after college when he moved to London to start a career in marketing . During his 40 plus working years he was employed by many major household names including Currys, Hoover, Wilkinson Sword and Spear & Jackson. He always maintained an interest in music and his other jobs included working as head of marketing for Virgin Megastores and marketing director of Premier Drums.

He started playing music again during his time in Sheffield with it’s thriving music scene. And this interest lead to him venturing into the world of Internet Radio and starting his own radio station [UnsignedRadio.co.uk] with a friend and former musician Tony Godbehere. Unfortunately owing to Tony’s passing from Motor Neuron Disease and his own health issues Mike closed that station down when he moved back to Wales in 2024.

Now a few years later he is in better health and has not only returned to playing drums again with gigging bands in South Wales but is pleased to have revived his interest in radio and is happy to be presenting his “Lucky Dip Show” on Daz in the Hat Radio.

Career

After working in marketing for 40 years I took early retirement in 2016 after a few incidents of ill health. I was living in Sheffield at the time and as well as playing regularly in two bands (The Electric Luddites and The Alex Oliver Band) I was also running internet radio station UnsignedRadio.co.uk as a hobby. Me and a friend ,the late Tony Godbehere from Bakewell , identified that there was so much high quality music being produced by bands and artists on their own without support from major record labels that we felt there should be a radio outlet specifically for their music. Even though he was a long term sufferer of Motor Neuron Disease , Tony took the initiative and researched how to go about setting up our own radio station and became very knowledgeable about it . However, because of his diminishing physical capabilities while Tony was able to handle correspondence and dealt with artists and bands sending in music I took on the role of back room boy , setting up the website and presenting and putting shows together, uploading the music and scheduling the programmes. In a relatively short time we made contact with other people who were also producing radio shows championing independent acts , such as Daz in the Hat, Emma Scott of “Plugin Baby” and Mark Glazier of “Indies with Markie” and a few others and we were able to add them to our roster of shows.

Unfortunately, Tony eventually succumbed to his illness but did amazingly see out his 80th birthday and was one of the longest ever survivors of Motor Neuron Disease. Shortly after, I started to encounter other health issues and moved back to Wales to be near my family and help look after my mother who is now 96. It became obvious to me that I just did not have the time to devote to running the radio station on my own so I had to take the sensible decision to close it in 2024

Present

They say when you retire you wonder how you manage to fit work into your life LOL. Well, that has proved to be the case for me. I have revived my musical hobbies and play drums regularly in pubs and clubs in South Wales with various other musicians (some of who I played with as a teenager ) plus I have recently decided to get back into radio . I approached Daz who has accepted me as a volunteer presenter of my own “Lucky Dip Show” on Daz in the Hat Radio. I have decided to create shows covering all genres of music and all types of artists from mainstream acts that people know and unsigned and independent acts they probably don’t know. I’ve done this specifically to show there is no difference in the quality of the music being produced but not everyone is lucky ( or maybe unlucky) to have the support of major record labels. Frankly, often the new music being produced by the independent acts is more exciting and interesting that today’s chart acts who are often tightly controlled by organisations more concerned with making money that music. This is why I am pleased to now be part of an ethical organisation like Daz in the Hat Radio CIC.