As you can see, Zickos didn’t pull any punches when it came to hardware. The massive steel hoops - on all the drums, including the bass drum - are attached by claw hooks (later kits have conventional hoops). Even the 1/4-inch tension rods are thicker than usual.

“Each lug contains a rotor which swivels and is tapped to accept the tension rod, thus eliminating the need for noisy, troublesome springs,” boasts the original Zickos literature.

“The tensional hardware is quite massive,” continues Winnie. “The bass drum, the toms and snare drum tension-rods all use claws to grab the hoops, so you only have to release the tension a little to turn the claws outward and remove the rims and heads.

“This is one of the features that makes Zickos unique, although the Italian Meazzi used a similar idea. This makes the drums much heavier than other brands, not what you expect of a little jazz-sized set like this.”