Welcome to the drum history podcast, I am your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Mr. Wes Faulkner of Explorers Percussion. Wes, welcome to the show. I'm very glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Sure, my pleasure. So today we're talking about Ziko strums, which is, I would say, a well-known brand in the drum nerd community, but maybe to people who aren't as interested in this stuff. They may have never heard of Ziko strums, but it's definitely something that's affected through the acrylic drums really that made a huge impact on drumming. Back during the time, I think the very first time I got to see one of his drum sets is probably like around, it's probably close to around 72 when they did the newer lugs and stuff on them and everything. And they were very futuristic looking because we're now getting into more of the more plastic, acrylic world. And we saw them, it was very futuristic. Seeing them there, they was like a very new cap and material. You see something made out of it, you can see through it. And that was like, wow, you can see through these drums and everything. So it was really cool to see them. And I remember the most popular set I always saw was the they call it the 400 drum set, which was like 214 rack toms and 18 inch floor tom. And then the deep long bass drum. And that was like $750 and brand new. That's expensive for obviously for back then. I mean, and those are huge sizes. But all right, so as you kind of alluded to, these are very early, some would say the first acrylic drums, but why don't we rewind a little bit and let's talk about Bill Zecos, the inventor, founder of the company, who this this was in Kansas City, you're in Kansas City, Missouri. So this was kind of in your the suburbs around you, correct? Right. Yeah. Like I said before, we talked in the past that there's a kind of a dual city in Kansas City, Missouri is the main metropolis, but it's also Kansas City, Kansas. So all the big suburbs around on the Kansas side are really kind of suburbs are still Kansas City, Missouri. And that's where he kind of settled in at in the early to mid sixties, where he did a lot of teaching, but a couple of the big school districts, they're like Shawnee Mission School District, and he worked with all the school bands, and he composed music that they played. And Bill Zecos also worked with like little percussion ensembles back in the schools. He had lots of students. And they even did like sometimes halftime shows at the Kansas City Chiefs Games back in the sixties and everything. So he kind of had a little thing invented kind of like four or five drum sets together. They did like, you know, kind of a quartet drum sets. And I think it was later on went to Jim Casey, Jim Casey Conservatory that was used it over there, over there a lot too. And he would like take breaks solo, where you kind of get them a little motif going and everything. But yeah, Bill, though, I think it was mostly a big band drummer, he played in the same kit and band and a couple other bands as well. And before he came back to Kansas City and he just grew up in Fulton, Missouri, which is not too far away from here. That's great. So obviously his background, like you said, as a performer, I'm sure he was like tinkering around with drums. So you said he was building some kits for his students, right? Those were not acrylic though at that point, right? Yeah, not that I know of. I know that he had like a little small, where he taught drum lessons at. Like half the shop was kind of mostly drums and half the shop was guitars and other musical instruments. And he was really into sonar drums a lot. And sonar was really, he really loved sonar drums. He played, that's what he was playing for.  But I did ask him, would you first think of, you know, the clear drums and everything, you know, clear drums would be cool. And he said that he's like late fifties, what he told me. But one of the first things I heard he started doing was he was ordering, we had this little shop, he was ordering drumheads from Bob Beals, who ran, you know, Heaven's Drumheads, which is out in Dodge City at that time, Dodge City, Kansas. And he was special ordering drums. He was actually, I think, taking the coating off the coated drumheads, which would then be clear because they were just sprayed, the coating was sprayed on the clearheads. And he was asking them to especially, you know, just send the heads about the coating on there. So he's one of the first guys that actually kind of kind of invaded clear drumheads to a certain extent too. And later on, definitely was a big influence on the hydraulic heads, the two ply head, but the real oil in the middle, not the, a lot of people kind of thought, you know, pinstripes and emperors or oil too. So he had a big influence on that as well. I think made the clearheads, some think, might've gave him the idea at the time to go into clear drums. But he, like I said, he told me that he thought of clear drums back in the late 50s and everything. So, you know, and I mentioned it, I did an episode about just kind of broad acrylic drums, which we didn't go deep into ZECOS or anything much on that. But I remember mentioning that like, there's also the like whole thing where like plastic became more readily available. And you think of like, I think of like skateboard wheels, where they turned into like, you know, they went from being hard to like this more like, like softer rubber. And it was all around that time of like the late 50s, early 60s. So I guess it's, it's the materials became more accessible. And he saw it as an opportunity, which is pretty innovative. That's very true. Yeah, I think I can remember as a kid, like around, you didn't really start seeing even plastic in cars, like around 68. It might have been very little for that, because it was all metal, you know? And it's a plastic, I might remember my dad got a new car in 1968, and he started seeing the plastic. Then by like, you know, a couple years later, 70 or 70s and everything, you saw a lot more plastic in the cars and taken away from the metal and everything. So, so I always say, I said, because a lot of acrylic drums were looked very futuristic back then. And of course, I think Ludd would come out with their clear, the vislides like around 70 threes in the catalog, but they weren't, I don't think they're very many in the, in the stores yet. But yeah, these drums were very, very, very futuristic. I think the first that he made, by the way, did have Sonar hardware on it. And Sonar lugs and everything. That's neat. I know Sonar, guys, would like to hear that. It's always neat to piece together little bits of history like that. But all right, so do you know more details though, like that first time he was in his shop?  Yeah, I'm not for sure exactly how they first made that first kit. If they were, I think they were, it was pretty crudely done before they got the big oven, which was like a big pizza oven. I think it was like around eight feet wide and four feet deep. And I think that what they did, what they did at first, it was very crude the way they did it. They didn't have that regular, you know, obviously full size oven or anything. But I do know that they did make their shells. He made them. He had like these molds. When he heated up the acrylic, they went around the molds. So it was kind of from the outside around the mold. I do know that Ludwig made theirs from the inside of the mold, but there's an inside. But he did have in mind, when he did his shells were eight or a quarter inch thick, they were thicker than anybody else's even in the future. I think the Ludwig Grums were like around three sixteenths thick. So he advertised that too. And supposedly he did get a patent like about 1970. So now he's always advertised in his little pamphlets, you know, they're patent because they're so unique and everything that patent on like clear acrylic drums. I mean, how did that work with like Fibes, Ludwig, you know, various companies doing because other, I mean, most companies had acrylic drums not too far after that. Was that a big problem for him? I think it was at first. I think they did call Ludwig or hadn't, you know, send an attorney, send a letter to them and everything. They just pretty much laughed at everything. They said, you know, we don't care, you know, we're just going to keep on doing what we're doing. And I think they didn't, they made a few sets, Ludwig hardware too, just only a few of them. It's because the first set was, had the Sonar hardware on it, Sonar lugs. I think it had a camco. They used a camco double tom holders a lot. And one reason why too, because camco was then out in Chinook, Kansas, which was not that far away on the Kansas side. And they were pretty good holders back then for that time. So the first set was made for Ron Bush, you know, the iron butterfly drummer. Wow. That was the very first, the very first drum set. And then second set was made for Keith Moon and he used Slinglin hardware on that, Slinglin lugs. And then the third set was a demo kit that had Slinglin lugs as well, that was supposed to kind of go with the Bill Ward of Black Sabbath, but he never did supposedly buy it. But I think I did see him playing the clear set of, you know, Zico's there around the mid-70s. I think it was like the volume four album. Man. I began it inside that album. He's playing a clear set of Zico's drums. Those are like, I mean, I think there's a lot of independent drum builders today who, I know it was different in the 60s and 70s, but like, man, I mean, your first kind of, I don't want to use the term endorsers, but you know what I mean. Like, your first guys are using them are, let's say Sabbath and the who, and we'll throw iron butterfly on there because they're maybe not the biggest band in the world. But Inagata DeVita is obviously a part of like rock history. Sure.  Very true. Very true. And this is like, you know, like 69 was the was the Rambushi set. That was the big Inagata DeVita drum solo. That solo there was, they had a lot of influence on people. You know, that was it. That was the solo.  But so in 72, then he had, they got their own luck casing. So their own, you know, design and everything. But back up a little bit though, one little thing a lot of people don't know about Seaco's is that he had a little bit of a, him and this, the guy that had the other side of the music store, I think was Mike Wagner, he had, they formed a production company called the MWZ production company. They brought some of these bands in to Kansas City. And when they came in there to the venue to play, which is usually at this place called Memorial Hall over in on the Kansas City, Kansas sides, he would bring a clear kit down there and show them the drums and everything. And that's how he kind of, you know, kind of, I guess you could say, you know, homegrown direct advertising there. And a lot of times when they did this, they had these stamps they made, but they would stamp their names on the drum heads, wherever drum that was, they brought the drums down there. So the Bill Ward drum set is still around Kansas City. Oh, cool. And you see, I've seen it before. And it's just a nice little stamp on that. Nothing fancy, just a little of his name, you know, Bill Ward on the clear, clear heads and everything. It's kind of cool. That's really kind of nice homegrown, you know, playing. In fact, the first time, it might have been technically the second, but I think it was the first time that when Zeppelin came, Led Zeppelin came to Kansas City, they rented, they actually played Bonham played as Ezeko's kid. Whoa, that is deep on so many levels, because obviously like Zeppelin, you think Ludwig, but on top of that, you think the amber Vista lights. So yes, nuts. That's awesome. Actually, they did two shows. I think the second show not to go off record here, but I'll have to beat her, but he supposedly got to get really sick. And to my third, second or third song, he just like threw up all over his drums and one of Bill Ezeko's students finished the show with Zeppelin. Yes. Oh my God. I don't know. I can't really, I don't know the kid's name that did it. But yeah, in fact, he was using, it was actually his drum set. I think he was like, this is like for, this is for John, John Bonham was a big legend and everything. But he's like really excited. It's, you know, Rockstar was playing his drums and everything and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, then John got sick and threw up all over the drums and everything. Man, you think of those like the stories of Keith Moon passing out from like horse tranquilizers. It's like, I wonder if John Bonham was like, he had food poisoning, or if he was like completely partied out or something, you know? Yeah, I think it was in between the shows. I think he was just drinking a lot and someone said it was his birthday. He was celebrating. But I think I look at the date before, I don't think it was his birthday. I don't think I had any continuity there between his birthday and the day that they were in town that night. But I will say one thing too, Bill Ziko's wife, her name was Barbara Ziko. She was quite instrumental in a lot of the book and all these bands and stuff too. And also working within the Ziko's company and everything. So it was kind of a... That's awesome. Can we, I just want to clarify our dates here a little bit. So what would you say was the like... When was the founding of Ziko's drum company? Like in the history of the company, if someone goes, oh, I love Ziko's, it started in like Ludwig, 1909. What was Ziko's starting date? I'd say like 1969, probably when they made that first drum set for... But it became Ziko's corporation though in like 1972. Wow.  And you had the other ones with the very few that had slingling lugs on them. But they also made some sets that had the camco lugs on it too. I think there's like around 20 kits were made with camco hardware on them. Those are very, very early kits. Again, that was like 69 to 71 or so, you know, with all those mixture of these different sets, different hardware, you know, was made. But I know there were the 20 kits that were made with them. And I think, like I said, a few sets that were made with Ludwig lugs. And Ludwig said, no, we're not going to, you know, they're going to come out their clear drums.  And then, of course, they had their disagreements with the patent and all that stuff as well. But yeah. So 72, the corporate, it became a corporation. My understanding is that one of those students' father helped and he made an investment into the company. So he was like, you know, say, stockholder or one of the big investors. And that was kind of one of the maybe errors that maybe Bill might have made there, because he let them have 51% of the company. Oh boy. So down the road, there was some issues with, you know, I guess, some conflicts with money, you know, they thought they were, he was like, but the money was being used or some other type of conflict. And one day, those Ecos came to work and they pretty much told me they didn't need him anymore, you know? Oh man. It's kind of like the George Way thing where like he goes home for lunch and then they just send him a message. What is it? John Roshan, they're like, don't come back from lunch. We don't need you here. Very similar to that. Yeah, it's very similar. And I think it, next, that's when it became Ziko's corporation. And I was told by one, the friend that works there named Dave Dyke. He's really a very knowledgeable guy that works for, he's kind of pretty much a very important person that played a big important part in the company. He said that they, I think it bought like 50,000, like the lugs, the tincture mods and a little claw hook. Like they bought 50,000 pieces all at the same time, you know?  And I think they were probably, I would say around 1974, you know, 75 was probably when they were at their peak, you know? But I did hear too that Bill Ziko, like late 71, very early 72 is when he let the company, but then he was asked to come back though too once it began, the corporation came back and later, later on in 72, but then he left again. So. Yeah, it's also similar to North Drums. Um, doing that story with Roger North, it was like a, the founder leaving and then coming back and then not having, you know, like they need him and all that stuff. Um, now on the camco stuff, so this is, I have, I have two huge regrets, uh, drum-wise in my life. And one was recently where I was selling, so long story short, I was selling a camera that I had that I used for work, like, you know, doing video stuff and selling it for like 700 bucks, expecting to get 600 right at the time. And I'm a big believer in if you sell like gear or a camera, then that money shouldn't go back into like, don't pay your mortgage or whatever with that money, take that money and like buy more drums or buy more. I was going to buy a computer or like, or put money towards a computer. Then on Facebook marketplace, a Zikos set pops up that had camco hardware that I believe he said was like 69 or 70. Say that we wrote earlier. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it was, I don't think I have, I should have like screenshoted a picture of it or something, just to save, which as I'm talking, I'll kind of look, but I kept being, it was like $650 for, I think it was the camco hardware, it was, there was no snare, I'm assuming they didn't usually come with snares, but it was two toms and a floor tom and a 22 inch bass drum, I think. And I was like, I probably could have just bought the drums and then taken the money that I sold from the camera and kind of replenished that in like a savings account, but I didn't. And I was like, do you still have it? I'm still waiting to sell this camera. The guys sold them and like three days later, I ended up selling the camera for the exact amount of money that I needed to buy this Zikos drum set.  That's very rare, for sure. Very rare. Yeah. And I think they were in like somewhere kind of middle of Ohio or maybe in Indiana. And if anyone's curious, the second one was a set of fives. The second giant mistake I've ever made was I missed getting this really cool set of fives for like no joke, like $75 for the full set, clearly a person who didn't know the value of what they had. And he said, you just missed it. And then he also texted me and said, I've gotten like 90 messages about this. So those are my two. And you know, you think about it, everyone. So you're like, man, that Zikos kid. Well, you might get the chance again. You might get the chance again. Yeah, it might come back up again. We'll get back on like the history stuff, but what do they typically go for? Like that set, I mean, obviously, I just said, I think there was some scratches and it wasn't in perfect shape. It had the original bass drum head with the Zikos, but like what do they typically run for nowadays if you're trying to get your hands on old Zikos? I think it's all over the place. I mean, again, it depends on what the person, you know, if they know what they've got, you know, a lot of people these days, they look on the internet, they'll see someone's asking whether they're asking for a drum set. That's a price they'll think, because what things are going for. But that's really why people are asking for something. So it's not really what it's sold, it's probably still for sale. So it might be on a really low inside, might be on a really high inside. But I would say the average Zikos set now is probably, you know, and it's been a really, really clean condition, maybe like $800 to $1,200 and you might find some sets for around five or 600. You know, I think about clear drums is that they can, they get scratched up pretty easy. You know, it's almost like satin flame type finish drums. It shows a lot of scratches are easy or chrome drums. They look great when they're, they've been taken care of and they're clean and everything.  Zikos drums, you know, too much to have. There is some, there's a few plating issues once in a while.  Like a lot of people back in the 70s took their front heads off the bass drum. They took their heads off the bottom of the toms and everything. But for clear drums, it was usually better to get a lot of tension to the very top of the head to have both heads on top and bottom because especially we have a seam there. It puts me at the tension point from the very top side. It wants to split open the seam and everything. And they happened a lot on bass drums.  A lot of times the bass drum would split open or something, you know, so. Well, it's like, it's like a guitar where if you have a guitar with like the strings off of it for a long time, it's like that's really not good for the neck. That's true. I never thought about that. That's probably very true too. Yeah, it starts going their direction kind of maybe or too much tension or too much tension could probably do the Zach and maybe, you know, bow it in a little bit, I guess too. But I mean, there's, I think some drums, it's just been out of it. They're taking care of, you know, they're in cases for a long time and not taking out for gigs a lot. They're going to be probably very, you know, clean. They're stored in the right places, but I said the average price on them again, but it's probably like, you know, exit 800 to 1000 if they're, you know, pretty clean. So not a lot. Yeah. Not crazy money. I mean, one thing about the sale of all these drums are things like in the late 70s, I think I think it was kind of clear drums, maybe because of Ludwig had come out to all different colors and everything. People just got, there was just so many, I'm out there for a while, I think it kind of hurt the price of them a little bit. So we went into business in like around 1984, people were getting rid of like clear kits like crazy. And I think wood kits were really in style. I could, you know, Tom was coming out with their superstar kids and, and of course in prehistoric, more, more covered kids, but, but they had, you know, Billy Cobham and Neil Thurbs advertising all these wood drums and silent films and stuff. So people just went like from clear to wood to totally, you know, opposite direction. And so we got, we took in a lot of clear kits back in the 80s and they were, they were probably when they the price of those drums were kind of bottomed out, you could say. But it's kind of interesting. You've made me feel better though about not getting that kit for, because I thought 625, I was like, oh my God, this is the best deal in the world. But it sounds like that's honestly about right. Like he did his homework. Yeah, probably so. And then, you know, you get the sets with the Ziko's lugs on it, you're going to get all those other features too that he kind of like advertised a big deal, which they were kind of futuristic in a way as far as at the time, you know, compared to other drum companies, you know, he had the bigger tension screws. They were thicker, supposedly thicker and stronger and everything. Of course, only his tension screws work on his drums. There were no springs in the lugs or anything. You had the little plastic sleeves or gaskets behind the lugs, you know, to isolate. I mean, of course, the no springs, everything cuts down all the, you know, vibration sound of the springs and everything. The buzzing sounds used to have a lot on the drums in the studio and everything. But of course, they came with two ply heads back then and then when they got him going to 72 and the quick release poops, which was cool, which was very similar to the Miyazi drums back then. The Miyazi out of Italy was a kind of, the lug was very similar to the Miyazi lug. Can you explain that quick release? Because I'm looking at the pictures online and I think I, I mean, I, it's, if you see it, you kind of understand it, but how does that quick release system work? Well, basically there was like a little round roller pin that the tension rod went down into. And then the tension rod, you know, and like for the, probably the washer would be, it has that little claw hook and that hooked into that little slot. There was like little cut out slots around the counter hoop that it hooked into.  Yeah. It's cool. It's smart. I feel like I've seen that elsewhere and it's kind of escaping me, but that, that technology. Yeah. Tom, I brought it back in the late 80s. They had a snare drum that they brought it back. I think, I think it was around 87 or 88. It's been, I remember right. They brought back kind of a glass stone drum too. It was kind of a different concept. They were kind of looking at other people's drums and everything. And I think they, they brought it back again though. And it was kind of popular in some of their drums in the 2000s too. They, they're the only company that actually, they did that. And the roller pin, of course, would come out very easily too. You had to kind of line it up with the hole and everything. But it's, you had the curved spurs, which is before Ludwig had, they even had theirs out, which was definitely an idea from the camco style. Yeah, for sure. And all the lugs and tension rods worked for all the drums, which made it really simple. You had to have different lengths or anything or different sized lug casings. You know, it's like the toms, the bass drum or snare drum. So they were, they were all the same size. Of course, they had the stag drum on the snare drums, because they're too big, which, and there's not a lot of non-executive snare drums out there anyway. So they use the, they use the same claw and hook design too on the bass drum rims too, because they had to use those metal hoops. So there's no wood hoops or anything. So now why were there less snare drums? I mean, because when I think about it, I think like typically companies like maybe they make more snare drums than drum sets because people, it's easier to buy a snare than it is to buy a set for the most part. Why didn't they make more snares? Yeah, that's a good point. Give a great question. I don't really know why. That's another reason why you probably could have like marketed the drums with the snare drum, get the snare drum out there and later on, you know, buy the drum set, you know, kind of motion on that too, but it didn't do that. Usually when you saw his drums in the music store, he had the three toms in the bass drum. And I know that I could say, well, maybe because they didn't have their own throw-off made or the other snare strainer, but they usually use, I saw quite a more slinglin' zoom addicts on their snare drums and the iter model views, but that's a good question. I don't know why the snare drums weren't, there wasn't more emphasis on the snare drum because a lot of their tomtoms were 14 inch, and the hoops snare everything. You know, they said they cut a hole for the snare wires and put a snare bed in there and you get, you know, snare brunt, snare drum is born, you know, besides the drum getting right through the office pick, but yeah, it's a good question. Also similar to North where you don't see many of the North snare drums with these, and I'm only kind of using them as parallels because they're sort of independent smaller companies that got bought up and then that, you know, grew and were more homegrown, like you said. Right. North snare drums are probably more rare than Zico snare drums. Those are super rare. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, the snare drum is one of the more complex drums to make too, in some ways, getting it right, you know, but still, you could have done it very easily, you know, and the ones that you have are pretty decent. This episode is brought to you by Dream Symbols. Dream just sent me over five symbols to try out, including the Dark Matter Bliss, paper thin crash in 17, 18 and 19 inches, and two Dark Matter Bliss crash rides in 20 and 22, and these symbols are awesome. They're dark, they're gritty, they're explosive, and they're just super unique.  They just look so cool, and I highly recommend them. Learn more at dreamsymbols.com and find them on social media at Dream Symbols. All right. Now, looking at the timeline here, so founded 69-ish, 72, they became a corporation, 74 to 75, you said was the peak. So that's when they're just like, you know, what was their, what was the shop like? Was this still being, was everything? I know we were outsourcing like lugs and hardware and stuff, and I guess you said it, but they started making that at some point. What was the factory, if you can call it a factory, you know what I mean? What was that looking like? I think they had regular drill jigs and everything for their drums to make things more precise and take less time and be more accurate, and actually a lot of people that worked there, a lot of their employees were drummers. You know, I've talked to a lot of people over the years. I used to work in the ZECOs, drum factory for a while. I've heard that from a few people, and so it was really set up like a regular factory. I know that back in the early 70s, like 72, they might have been like maybe making four or five kits a day, but I think around 70, like around 74, it was like around 10 kits a day or so, probably, which was like on a big scale, wasn't a lot at first. That's a very small boutique company compared to what someone like Pilot would make a day. I was also heard that, talking to Dave, that worked there, he told me that they were considering, they were talking to Jasper, and they actually for a short time period were considering making some wood drums for a while. Makes sense. They actually considered it. Yeah, they considered it as just a widen their scope on drums in their market a little bit, but it never did happen. Yeah. Now, I'm always interested in this. If you're making 10 kits a day and the demand is pretty high, how does distribution typically work for companies like that? Because the ones I was looking at, that was in Trenton, Ohio. How does it spread around for distribution? Did they typically send some kits to major stores around the country, or how does that process work? Yeah, I think it's pretty much how it worked. They didn't have any distributors, want to understand. They had no distributors in Europe or anywhere else, but just their own home office here in Kansas City. Most everything was made in Kansas City area. Only a couple of things were made out of Kansas City. A lot of people, I think, that brought them over, I've heard of Great Britain or Holland or whatever. I think it was someone that would actually call them up and just order some drums and bring them in to, or they would bring them into their country by handing out handful of kits, and that's how they got brought into them. So it was a very small scale thing. It went like a distributor ordering 30 kits or 50 kits or something. It wasn't like that. It was never a distributor. It was mostly stores and everything. So he told me, I kind of funny story about Keith Moon. I told the guy his first kit, I guess when he paid, I guess he, I guess they, he had problems getting paid for the kit. I guess they were buying the kits back then, where instead of getting endorsed, like they do at Nat, they do now. And I guess they called Keith Moon a couple of times. Every time they called this house, his wife would say, he's down and he's not the pub. He's not the pub. A couple of days later, hey, well, he's down at the pub. So he's kind of hard to get hold of. It's kind of a funny story. And that is funny. But it's kind of a, it's funny, but I'm sure Bill was like, okay, yeah, need to get paid for this because I'm sure shipping, I mean, you're looking at like putting it on a ship. I mean, shipping was very expensive over there. It was a very shipping ship that gave me all these drums over here as well. And very, very expensive. Geez. Well, hopefully he ended up getting paid. I mean, and you know, it's funny too, because like Keith Moon, Bill Ward, both English drummers, so that pretty cool. I wonder how many Ziko drums there are floating around the used market in Europe? Yeah, it's kind of interesting, but probably not very many. I don't think it would be that many, you know? Yeah. They treated this kind of how many, you know, Haman kits over here, you know? Exactly. At the Chicago show recently a couple of months ago, I saw one or two which they're like oddities almost, you know? It's more like you just don't see them, but they're really cool. They're beautiful drums. So, all right, 74, 75, you got a peak, but typically with a peak, that means you're going down after that. So what happened as the peak dropped off? I heard it went like around, like there's so many drums, it's like my 1977 or so. And then I think they were just like down to like just selling parts and stuff after that for the next few years, you know? So I do remember seeing Ziko's corporation in the phone book here locally, like around 1981 or so, but they gave it to someone just selling off the rest of the parts and stuff, but so that's kind of, you know, then of course they'll build for making drums again back in the 90s and then they come back, but that's kind of going forward. I guess the one thing that we could maybe mention here in the history was the supersonic drums and artistry drums back then. I guess, you know, Bill Ziko's had a non-compete agreement with the guy who owned 51%, which was the kid's name was Fred McGraw. We can draw the same names here or not, but like that's Bill came out that artistry kit was called the egg drums, you know?  Now, I have to look it up. Yeah, and they're like eggs and it wasn't very many of them made, you know, I mean, like 20 or 30 kids. And so in reaction to that, they came out that supersonic kit, which were the kids that had like, I think a 13 to 15 inch rag Tom, 18 inch floor Tom, and then the other side was a smaller head, like 18 inch had a 14 inch smaller head, the 15 had a 12 and a 13 inch rag Tom, big rag Tom said it had 10 inch on the other side, so you could play both sides if you wanted to. The 22 inch bass drum had a 16 on the other side was reduced down. These were fiberglass as well. And that was a reaction to these artistry drums just made those they made, I guess on 150 kids, those white, blue and red, I think. And that was kind of interesting. You see them out there, they're kind of rare to have you type in Zika supersonic drum. Yeah, they're they're very they're just interesting looking. They they almost like I know they're different, but like they remind me almost of like the like the PV drums or something.  It's almost just like kind of like Jetsons. Yeah, it's like a Jetsons thing. And I just explained it, but like so you said you can flip it over and play both sides, but like you could. Yeah. Why do they look like this? And everyone should just Google Zika's Z I C K O S supersonic and you'll see but like what is the benefit of this? I don't know how much science is really behind it. I think it you know, because it's like in a way it would be it make more sense to be other way this smaller head would be your main, you know, better side and a bigger head on the bottom side for your resonant head. But that was just you know, what they kind of thought of then, you know, a lot of people would look at those drums to and they called them that would look like kind of an old washer, you know, yeah, make that washer, you know, I mean to if someone's like driving and can't look it up that to describe it, it's basically it kind of looks normal at the top, normal head. And then it goes down. And then I guess the fiberglass kind of bevels in maybe an inch. And then there's a rim that's like like inset. But it's not flush. It's kind of sticking out like it's almost like it's sitting on top, but I'm sure it's connected and has like an edge and all that stuff. But it does look like an old washing machine. It's it's super Jetsons ish. And it had all those regular Zico's lugs on it and Zico hoops. And they know the call quick, quick release, you know, tension rise and stuff. So that was kind of cool. The artistry drums did not have their own those egg shape, the egg drums that they call them. They did not. And those are really hard to find a picture. We've had a kid of those before. But we'll say there's an Al Green drummer. I don't remember his name, but I think he was also a BB King's drummer. He's on a video. And then the song's called Love. And it's like L L dash, O dash, B dash, E. It's like 1975. He's playing one of those artistry egg shape sets. He actually does a little solo. It wasn't like what the soul train, but it's one of those TV shows back. It's just kind of cool to see that. Now, can you just real quick, like, so just to clarify, Zico's made the artistry series, correct? Or was that some, that was Zico's, right? Yeah, that was him. So that set was really, the Super Sonic, it was still by the Zico's corporation without those Zico's. Oh, I see. And that's where the non-compete problem came in where he said, you know, hey, Bill, you're basically kind of doing, you're not supposed to be doing that. Right. So it's a reaction to it. He just like made it all these other, you know, Super Sonic drums, drums and stuff. Okay. And as a reaction, instead of like, you know, pick him to court or whatever. I guess he wasn't really, you know, he was selling drums. It was wasn't selling clear drums. So I don't know what the particulars, what the particulars were in the agreement. So it's kind of interesting. It is. What was the name he was operating under as by himself, not as Zico's corporation, but what was he calling himself for the drums? You know, that's a good question. What's Zico's corporation? I think it's just Zico's drums, you know, because he's using his name. You know, he only had like a couple, one store, I know he was selling them. I've been in a couple of stores selling them, because there wasn't very many of those drums sold at all. Yeah. I mean, everyone's got to be thinking it, the parallel to like Ludwig and WFL with that but he couldn't, you know, WFL couldn't use the Ludwig name. So they must have had a different right. Good point. And it was a lawsuit with him because in a very small print that late 30s badge had to, you know, founder was, you know, William F. Ludwig. And then yeah, God, he got taken to court for having those badges and everything. Yeah, I think there's very many of those, you know, were made and a couple of people want to use those for like in videos later on, you know, like in the 80s, like on MTV, there was some ban I heard they did use those. But that only video I've ever seen is that Al Green drummer in 1975. It's kind of, it's strange looking, strange looking catch, especially for a strange and very strange nowadays. I'm sure it's super strange back then. Yeah. Yeah, that's nuts. And it almost seems like as the peak kind of dies down, you said like mid to late 70s, like 77, 78, then it gets to where you were also saying about how people were just getting rid of acrylic drums left and right, getting into the 80s. So it's sort of, seems natural, like it just sort of ran its course. Yeah, I think it's kind of slowed down a lot. I think when Ludwig came out with the Tivoli drums, the lights and they had all the different stripes and you had like, you know, like six or so different, you know, patterns to choose from.  You know, it was very busy in the mid 70s for those, for this light drums and everything, but I think they just kind of exhausted it, you know, to the peak. And by the early 80s, you know, it was kind of people kind of ready to do something else.  It's very trendy, certain colors, you know, where it's solid colors to burst or to fades. Sparkles.  We've already done this, you know, but again, you got new customers. You know, it's kind of bringing like always like bringing the bell bottoms back in the fast, fast industry every 10 years or something like it's new people, new, new generation has seen it. So yeah, that's how I have with clear drums, I think, you know, in the late 90s, now in early 2000s, and that, you know, Bill kind of brought him back. And when he started back up again, and never still kind of early, you know, and Fibes came back, you know, with when Tommy and Austin, you know, bought Fibes name and everything, but still wasn't really coming back. And, you know, of course, Pearls make clear drums, Tom brought the clear drums back, and now Davey's making it too.  Exactly. Exactly. I always kind of think about it where I'm like, you know, you can get a nice high end DW or Tama Kit for $1,200. And then you kind of got to think to yourself, though, like, okay, it's plastic. It's not really a DW like collector series or whatever. There's sort of that like, yes, it is what it is. I mean, that raises the question, which maybe you can shine some light on like, company to company. And I probably asked this in the acrylic episode, company to company, Z-Coast, Fibes to Vistalite. I know there's different manufacturing techniques and seamless and inside of the form and outside of the form. Is there any difference when you're really playing these drums? Because they're just, there's not wood. They're just plastic. I mean, difference between different brands, you mean? Yeah, like the sound. Is Z-Coast going to sound different than Fibes, really?   You got a little more candy sounding, they're kind of, I think, more thinner sounding.  They have a very hard surface, you know. I think they made a big difference in sound. I think Z-Coast with a thicker shell and his bearing edges were a little bit, a little, made a little more contact with the drum head weren't quite as lively and ringy as the like Ludwig drums and stuff. And Fibes is super loud too. You know, and then later on, when he came back in the 90s and making his shells, he had like almost a round overbearing edge, and which made a lot of contact, a lot more contact with the head. And you could even put a single ply head on those drums then, which is very unusual because most everybody that had played clear drums, when the two ply heads came out, everybody was sort of, you know, was using those. You bought a new Vistlite kit with silver dot heads on there, and you had the bottom clear heads on there. They were very loud. You know, it was 40 of them, the muffled bass drum heads and things like that. So sound was just, you know, just crazy loud. So there wasn't, I don't think there's like a really big difference overall in between them. I don't think so. It's just very minimal. Of course, his again, he goes had the two fly heads and then you could buy him with hydraulic heads too.  That's a good, good answer. And I don't think we've officially said it yet, but just to kind of throw it out there for the, you know, the sake of history. And I know that it's hard to determine who did what first because typically, like we said, things are going on with multiple places. And we may have said this earlier, but is it fair to say generally that Bill Zecos did invent the acrylic drums? I think so. I really do. I think he was the first one, you know, that made a very, I guess you could say first home run and first hit out there in the marketplace. You know, they had him. I mean, you know, I'm sure people was thinking about it. It's like, I mean, if you were thinking about, you know, going to the moon, maybe different countries back in the day.  And he really did it. And he did it thinking a good way.  And as I mentioned earlier to some of his lingo and some of the verbiage in his pamphlets were kind of very forward thinking, too.  Zico drums make a sound you haven't heard before that they put together thundered or fingertips soft, the heartbeat whisper or slick, stick smashing sound. Zico sounds a rich explosive experience. And he uses the word organic a couple of times, too.  Yeah, really cool. Explain the sound of the drums and everything, which is, you know, it's kind of kind of cool. Yeah, it's very hip. It's very progressive. And, you know, we love that stuff as drummers. We like that. Like, you know, it kind of gets you amped up about your drums. It's not just like, you know, acrylic drums. Here's the sizes. Here's the whatever. It's more like, you know, just thunderous drums. It's just it's really good writing. Well, I think the thing about, you know, Bill Zico's just known to myself, I mean, I know that with a lot of his students and everything, he was, you know, kind of had a very much a lot of times that it was a father figure, you know, he's kind of a mentor. Of course, he was a composer and vener and a great, you know, drummer as well. But the drum, he's a hip guy. I think he's I think a lot that came out is drums. You know, for that time, these are as they have drum coming, you know. So obviously, you mentioned a little bit about the 90s and stuff. I'm assuming that he had some fun doing it.  But what happened with that stuff? And then maybe take us through to the the end of his his life because he's obviously he's no longer with us, correct? Right. He passed away actually in 2020. That's a year ago in January, January 31st. And he led to be like, no, I think it was 90 years old when he passed away. So yeah, he actually bought back a lot that Zico's company, no drum can be within storage at the the drum shop there in Fort Wayne. And I think I see he used to buy a lot of stuff from maybe some like the throw-offs, the important parts from from them or something. But I can't remember exactly how it got there. But supposedly it was in storage here and they had them, they moved it to there because maybe probably cheaper. And actually, I got a phone call from this, the guy, again, the investor that owned 51% of the company. He called me one day. It's like around 1991 or two, if I had room for but 10 pounds, I said, no, I really do not. But, you know, but somehow he made around and made his way to the bill and bill actually bought the company all the remains of it back.  Yeah, made a full circle back. And so he, he didn't use some of the lugs. He started been his own lugs with out of aluminum and everything and a can make and everything. There are a little bit, the drums he came out with then the stealth drums, what do you call them, the lugs and some of the hardware was kind of spacey looking again. And he was making them down as we call it, they'll cook building downtown for a while. And he was doing it by hand. It was working pretty hard.  He had that and the molds is going fully, full into it. And then he brought his son into it, help him out, who lives in Canada. And he was a big, played a big part in to help him out, you know, make him everything. But think about the early 2000s, like around 2003 or so, he was just ready to, ready to retire. I think it was, you know, wasn't really ready to, you know, kind of go with the ups and downs of the music industry, which again, a lot more newer trends were coming in and inside to kind of call it quits. So I think there, he might have made a few more drums. I think, I think maybe his son did, you know, up in, like I said, up in Canada. And they finally, he didn't want, so I guess supposedly he did not want the drum cut to be sold to anybody else and, and harming the reputation of the drums or anything like that. So they, I think I already destroyed the molds and everything, why her boy, I took it to the scrap yard. So it's dramatic. It is kind of dramatic. I didn't know that till the Saturday. So yeah. So I guess that the stories took a 360 then it's pretty much, you know, kind of put a sharpen to things there. But yeah, if he can't have it, no one can try to destroy it now. I heard the same thing was happening with tricks on drums too, but I don't know. I heard that too. And someone told me it's not folkloric, probably stuff. I don't know. I've been working on doing a tricks and episode for a long time and I keep getting dead ends because people will say, I can't do it. You need to go to, I'm going to mispronounce the name, but Ingo, I believe in Germany, but he's not super confident in his English. And I haven't talked to him about in about a year and a half or a year, but people don't want to do it because they say he's the man. But I think I mentioned that at one point where, oh, I read that like the founder of Trixon got buried with all of his drums or something or he destroyed them all and someone told me, no, that's not true. But I can't confirm or deny, but I can just continue to spread that rumor. Yeah, there's a lot of folkloric stuff happens in the music business, you know, but yeah, and of course, other businesses for industries as well. I heard that he didn't, he was kind of mad because I think I heard like in the late nineties before he passed away, that I guess he, he didn't want to be able to make his drums or anything anymore.  Yeah, he threw everything in it. That's what, you know, I've heard, but, you know, yeah, who knows, not to go from a tangent. I heard that Ringo actually wanted to play a Trixon kit before he went to Ludwig. Yeah. And he went to that. I think it was Arbiter was a big distributor over there in Great Britain. And he just got Ludwig a few weeks before that. And, and I think he did see some in the window. Ringo was, you know, familiar with Ludwig too as well, and we liked him. But our first second that he was thinking about playing Trixon, so he's got, you know, a bit more hip to Ludwig and stuff, but kind of interesting how that, how that would have changed the whole drumming world and history of the Beatles and everything, you know, to a certain extent. It'd been interesting what would happen with that. Yeah, man, the world would be totally different. Yeah, all the Trixon drums that would be out there right now would be kind of interesting, you know. Yeah, but it didn't work out that way. I'm sure Trixon would have been extremely happy. And I know, you know, obviously Buddy played it briefly, but that's right. Yeah, that's when they had the Vox name on there. Yeah, Vox, exactly. They licensed the Vox name on there for a while. It's kind of kind of interesting. It's all pretty good. I mean, it's all good that he chose Ludwig. That's a good choice, I think. It worked out. Yeah. Well, Wes, why don't you tell people as we finish up here, you know, I'm sure you do online sales and all that stuff. So why don't you talk about your shop a little bit and then we'll kind of wrap up here. Yeah, sure. Yeah, we've been in business now, I guess, 37 years, and we're a full-aligned percussion shop. Of course, we sell drum set cymbals, cymbal stands, all the hardware for drums, but we also sell a lot of hand percussion, ethnic percussion from all over the world. We sell electronic drums, and we're really into cymbals, snare drums, and things like that, which are part of our specialty as well. We got a lot of that stuff in stock and a very good selection. Everybody that works with us is very passionate about drums, and we love music and love drumming, so it's always a good reason to go to your drum shop. We appreciate everybody that's done business with us before. Yeah, thank you for letting me mention that. Oh, yeah, for sure. And it's Explorz... Procussion and drums, yeah. Yeah, so it's X-P-L-O-R-E-S, correct? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Procussion and drums. What's your website? Actually, that's ExplorzDrums.com website. And you can type ExplorzProcussion.com too, that'll work as well, ExplorzDrums.com. Awesome.  But you made it through and... Yeah, it's been interesting times, for sure, for everybody as well. But yeah, it's been... Some of our online sales has definitely helped us out. We've been a pretty diversified shop. We deal a little bit with schools, and we also do repairs and recovering or restoration of drums as well. And that's definitely helped us out to be diversified like that. Yeah, I'm sure. And we do lessons as well too. Of course, the lessons during the pandemic was not very good at all. It's very strange. In fact, we had no lessons going on for a while at all there. All the teachers just had to do it all online because everybody was quarantined for almost 14 months. But by the first of the year, we started kind of getting back into it. It was kind of about half and half. There's a lot of parents that people have the younger players. I don't think they did want it. But they're child in a room, but the drummer is another human in that close-up. And we still exercise mask a little bit right now, if the customer has a mask and all that good stuff. Yeah. Cool. Well, then I want to also give a shout out to Mr. Andrew Moore, who suggested this episode and got me in touch with Wes, who Wes told me is a great drummer, but he's also a great dentist, which is two good things. Dangerously, he's really a great dentist and a great staff. Actually, I'd like to say something about his father. His father taught dentistry for like 50 years. So at UMKC, the University of Missouri here in town, because it's the longest teaching career they've ever heard from anybody. Yeah, 50 years. Yeah, 50 years teaching. It's a big dental school that's down here at the University of Missouri, but that's kind of unique. But Andrew's great guy. I thank him for mentioning this to you and it's been a great pleasure for you and giving me the opportunity to do this, especially talking about, I think, a subject in Ziko's Drums, which definitely deserves to be talked about for sure. Absolutely. And I mean, literally, we first talked in August of 2020 and now it's June of 2021, so I like how I would say these take a long time to just kind of like things fall off and then they go on. And congrats, your daughter's getting married soon, so that's extremely cool. Next week is an exciting week. Just stay out of the way. Yeah. Very crazy right now at times. Cool. Well, on that note, Wes, this has been amazing and one that's been on my list for a long time, so I appreciate you taking the time to share with me. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me. If you like this podcast, find me on social media at Drum History and please share, rate, and leave a review. And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future. Until next time, keep on learning.


Jeläämmäinen ei ole laajikin, mutta tämä on ... aivan koko nousee. Ja tämä on kyse pyrä Gracele omin vierään ... pensiapäämät, joita kuin on ... alla kylät. Laitakonnon on ennakkolin kärsteys. On ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... Emäksi... Ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... Ennakkolin... And it's important to understand the history of the written word, like in the beginning we were writing with tools, with a pen or a brush. And then currently we are like using type which is used as typefaces. So we design typefaces, they are like typified forms. This is what a font is. But how the future will look like we are not sure because with verbal fonts everything can change. And to understand that perhaps a bit better we could also look at society how this developed the last years. So in the beginning thousands of years ago when people were still writing with a pen I think it was a highly personal world. And this I think changed dramatically with the invention of Gutenberg. Because then it changed to this rational society which is based on knowledge, which is based on the printed books what we know. But how the future looks like we don't know yet. Only thing we can know is that it's gonna be variable. So in that way I think it's important to look at this change what happened when fonts become dynamic. And because probably the change is much bigger than we can perceive or understand at the moment. Because as long as fonts were static then what we actually designed were contours and those contours defined the letters. But at the moment when we work with dynamic fonts then it's probably not this contour what we design anymore. But perhaps it's much more this relation of this different contours. And that's perhaps the core of the design. And the whole design space. We have to have a control of the whole design space. Not only like static fonts inside this design space. So in that way in the 20th century our thinking when designing fonts were very much based on this contours. And we believe that in the 21st century this will change into this new perception of interpolation. Because again that's I think the core what like a variable font is about. It's a font in time with dynamics. And therefore those interpolations are very very important. And yeah you could question like why we are talking about interpolation. Is it really so important? And I think it really is because right now the font editors are able to make a linear interpolation. But with Hoi we are going to prove that actually what we really need is curved interpolation. What we call as Hoi. So in that way I think the problem of the 20th century in the beginning like in the 1960s when we first made the digital typefaces was how can we make curves on the computer. And you know like today it seems to be like totally clear to us and logical to us like of course we have the BCA curves. But we also have to remember that there was a development. There was a moment in the beginning when computer engineers said like yeah we cannot make curves. Because the computer can only think in zeros and one and so those are straight lines and how can we make those curves. And in the same way like that it's totally natural for us today that we need the curves to design our contours. I think the challenge of right now is that we have to realize like how can we get our interpolations which are actually at the moment straight. How can we get them into curves. And there seems to be this kind of wicked typographic problem within like this interpolation of funds. Because like we use interpolation already like for the last 20 years also to generate our static funds. And there the workflow works like that that first you design your masters then you do the interpolation. And quite often people have to fix it afterwards. And once the funds are fixed you will ship them. That's I think the normal workflow for most people. So like if you have a 8 family you have 8 static funds and you can still fix stuff. You can like do some optical corrections for the counter forms or stuff like this. But when we go into a variable fund workflow we cannot fix those little details anymore. We just have to accept what is there. So the workflow actually for available funds will be like first you design the fund and then you ship it. So there is no chance for fixing stuff. And this brings up this kind of wicked problem. Lukas Techot. He was like writing and thinking and talking about interpolations for quite a while. And he talked about this kind of wicked problem just a couple of months ago in Berlin at Teipel Labs. And we want to show like a short fragment of this talk. Funds are not always possible. I had to make this stencil fund for a customer last year. And I found a lot of letters with incredible interpolation problems. For instance this K. We see that in both masters the lines are all nicely parallel. But in the interpolated letter it's awful, right? And it's unsolvable. And a lot of letters had this problem because of the simple geometrics. So it's really unsolvable like he says in the current fund editors. There's no way to overcome this trouble. You will always have this distorted two points in a K. But at the same moment it's very fascinating like what's really going on. Like where does it go wrong? It's fascinating to try to understand the real problem behind it. So on the one hand Lukas said like it's impossible. So there seems to be like this kind of wicked problem. But at the same way perhaps it's just a matter of looking differently at the situation. And once we can look at it and we can actually see the problem. Then it's also possible perhaps to find the answer. So in that way if you look at it, this K problem. It's like to keep those lines parallel. And to understand it we try to abstract it a little bit. This is a problem so we only have like these two lines. And those are interpolated to these other two lines. And then when we interpolate them with 50% we get those four points. And when we connect them we see that actually those four new interpolated points are not on the line anymore. Which seems to be strange. Like we expected that they should be on a line but they are not. And again it's still hard to understand what's really going on there and what's the problem. So actually you see that there's points which should travel in different speeds. But in a linear interpolation they like every point is traveling on the same speed. And that's why you get distorted. You don't have any more slinner or good shapes in between shapes. To make it a bit more clear we try to abstract it one step further. We just have three points on a line. And so we interpolate those three points. And then we get this. And then if we go halfway again 50% we get this. And then it's even more extreme, the mistake, because this white point is not on the line anymore. So where it should be is actually here on the right. That's how we want to have it. And it seems like a wicked problem. But again you look at it and you have to look like how can you solve it. And once you look at it from a different perspective, once you drop this idea of these straight lines, the solution is actually quite simple. What we have to do is that this point which actually moves on the line, also this middle point, it should not travel on a straight line but it should travel on a curve. And once it's interpolating not on a straight line but on a curve, we can solve the problem. This is like the original with the linear interpolation. We see that the white is not in balance with the red dots. But once it's traveling on the curve, everything stays on the line. Let's do this one more time. So you see this line which is straight there between three dots. So in that way once you incorporate that in your interpolation, so once you make sure that these points are not interpolated on a straight line but on a curve, actually this is then this kind of interpolation cloud, it will show you that the problem is solved. And then again once the problem is solved, it's not a problem anymore. So basically there are no problems. This is what we got with the linear interpolation. It's more obvious the problem when you want to rotate something. Sometimes the type designers want to rotate something from the bowl to the light. And we never do that because we cannot achieve that. And that's actually what's happening here. If we want to rotate this form, this will happen. It will not rotate but because of linear interpolation, we get this kind of strange result. And then sometimes we try to fix this with intermediate masters and then we have something which looks a little bit okay but also still looks like not really okay because still the points are not moving on the curve. So if you want to rotate a form, it has to move on a curve, otherwise you cannot rotate that. And that's like basically a limitation with which we somehow learn to live along. But still I think it's now a moment also to question this limitations because of this missing moment where you can fix something. You could think that it doesn't make any sense for a normal text typeface but even like with one axis wave thing like Lucas had, there was this problem and it's solvable with this tool. And another situation is if you for example want to bend something, then again with linear interpolation there is no chance to get this done but once you use like a non-linear interpolation so higher order interpolation and interpolation where the points move on a curve, everything can be achieved. So that's all. We call it Hoi. So with Hoi the problem what we had with like impossible interpolations is solved because on the left you can see like a kind of hack where you try with the intermediate forms to make something get written but still it looks very dull. You see the mistakes there. So linear interpolation goes on there. And on the right this is like a form which is interpolated with the help of this higher order interpolation. So on the right that's a variable font O which is then interpolated with this higher order interpolation. So this leads us to make more complex results. So if you want to write something, for example this, we can also do this in a total perfect way with this higher order interpolation. So things which we could not done in the past with the tools or the strategies which we used until now. So this is still, it's text. It's not like animation. It's a bi-frame thing. But it's a variable font and it's a working applied generated font what you see. Kind of our dream since 20 years which is coming true now which makes us very excited. And another example of the same thing but a little bit more complex. Two glyphs saying one C. And of course like sometimes people say how do you do that? It's not possible to define it or to explain everything in 20 minutes. So therefore what we want to do is actually we want to show you for the first time a demo of a whole typeface, a bellow which is using this technique to get it perfectly animated so that if you want to use a website or for films and so on you can use this to have it really nicely written. Let me see. So this is generated font working in a browser with two sliders. So basically what you see is that it has an endless resolution like no delay and everything is perfectly written. Do I come? It's a dream coming true and I'd be more happy than this. So basically what you see is that perhaps it's even more beautiful written than if you would write it yourself with a pen and a paper. Of course some people will be curious how to use this technique and we were thinking about that quite a while for the last couple of months and then when you think about the tools you are using to make fonts there's always this discussion I think at the moment going on between native and extension. So we were talking to some people and it would be the perfect extension for a font editor but I'm not sure about that because if you look at it like what is a font editor then a font editor is more than that like this is just the simple the most simple font editor you can imagine it just has a tool to select a point but we learned that this is not enough we always have to use also like we have to have a tool to move the points like that's the inner logic of a font editor but I think in the future when we will do more variable fonts when we will design those interpolations then this tool I think is as logic as this tool like a tool to define or design those higher order interpolations which are using curves Yeah, a way to connect the dots in a more sophisticated way inside the design space because at the end I think what a font editor is will change in the future with the variable fonts until now it was a tool to design outlines primarily but in the future it will be as much also a tool to design those interpolations and in that way I believe that this functionality should be really at the core of a font editor and not as an extension So yeah It's like a challenge for the font editor guys here in the audience Please come back to us We hope that font lab 7 will be like a Hoi font editor and Cliffs free perhaps it will support this interface to make higher order interpolations or perhaps even a Robo font will come as a Hoi editor Yeah, there's another guy who can have better closing words than us So we can just press play here Okay If I had never dropped out I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college but it was very very clear looking backwards 10 years later Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future you have to trust in something your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference Thank you


Hi, this is Ebony and in this tutorial, I will share some tips and best practices for utilizing Google Classroom for making student assignments during distance learning. Making and organizing assignments in Google Classroom is essential for ensuring that students are able to access their assignments and files quickly and easily. So to begin creating assignments, we're going to tap on the Classwork page. This is where any work assigned to students will be housed. So before creating assignments, think about and plan out how you want to organize the assignments so that it supports students as they work independently. So we begin by adding assignments and you do that by tapping on the Create button. In this little drop down, you're going to see all the different options within Classwork that we can choose from. And this allows for a variety in the types of activities you can assign the students to support learning goals. So we have assignment first, but we're going to go through some of these others really quickly. You have quizzes. So when you go to a quiz, it will give you a blank ready to edit quiz in Google Forms and then you can assign it to students and you have some other options like lock the mold on Chromebooks and then some grade importing. The next one is question. Question allows you to give students either a short answer or a multiple choice question and then you have some options for responding to each other or if you choose to enable it and for editing. This is going to be great for class discussions, check-ins, and exit slips. And your next one is going to be materials. Now materials is one of those that anytime you're going to give or attach some resources for an assignment to students like maybe a schedule or some norms or any other resources of reading a text that students may need some access to, that's what materials are for. So something that kids actually need to do is something they need to reference. And then the final one, you can reuse posts and also topics. And topics is my favorite when it comes to assignments and on the classroom page because this is how we can organize work. So you'll see here to the left here I have several different topics that I've already created and basically these are like tags. So anytime I create an assignment, I will have a category or a tag that I will attach to that assignment and then it will populate that assignment underneath that topic. So think here, like you can see here on my, I've got my, these are headings of my topics and they can be organized by units, you can choose it by week, subject, you can do it by skill or even by an actual topic or concept. So think about the fact that students are going to be accessing these assignments independent of you. So how you organize or work for students is a top priority. So when you create a topic, you just tap topic and then create. So I'm just going to create one called today. So if you have something that's super important that you really want kids to look at, you might want to create a topic called today that automatically draws their attention to that topic without assignment. All right, so we're going to actually go in and create an assignment now. So when you create an assignment during distance learning, you really want to consider using a consistent name and convention for your assignments. And I'm going to use a number and system.  You may want to use the concept that your students are studying, but it's also helpful to number assignments so that when you are referring to them, you can be very specific by the number and the title. Then you want to pop in your instructions. And so you can see here, you really want to be explicit with that, even more so than with face-to-face learning. It's important to really think through that assignment that you're going to have kids to complete and address any possible questions that they could have. If you find a task to be more complex than you originally thought, just kind of break it down into steps. So we've got our learning goals. You might want that in the ICANN statement detail those really detailed instructions. You might even want to give them a suggested time that it will take them to complete it. Attach a rubric if needed, the due date, and telling students exactly how you want it to turn, how you want that to be turned in. Next, we can add any resources that we need, that students will need to complete the assignment. We can go directly to Drive. You can add in any links from the web, upload files from our computer, and also any YouTube videos. And this really comes in handy if you have any screencasts that you want students to access, pop those in there that will give them support doing that activity. One of the things that I said earlier about naming conventions, when you are creating that assignment, you want to make sure that your naming conventions, the naming conventions that you used for the assignment, you also use that on any resources that you add to that assignment. It'll make it easier for you when you're talking to students about missing work and the assignment that goes along with the instructions. Once you add and upload a document, depending on how you want students to access it, if you want them to just view that, you can choose Students Can View. If you want everyone to be on it at one time and editing it, that will be Students Can Edit. But if you want everyone to have their own copy, you want to make a copy for each student. All right, so next we want to assign to a class or several. So here's the class. I can either choose the one class, and if I have other classes, I can tag as many classes as I'd like to give that assignment to. So if you have several of the same class, that might be an option for you. When it comes to differentiation, you can choose All Students, or if it's an assignment you only want to give certain students, then you can uncheck or check the specific students that you want to give that assignment to. A quick tip, though, is if you choose more than one class to assign work to, it will not allow you to differentiate. So if you want to make differentiation a part of your assignment, then you're going to want to only choose one class at a time. The next thing you want to think about is the due dates. And so I know that we really want to be flexible with student assignments, but consider using due dates because it kind of helps students with their time management and awareness of missing work. So I'm going to go ahead and make this a week. Do a week from now. We can also go back to our points. You can have it graded or ungraded. Depending on your purpose for the assignment, you can make that choice there. Then again, we want to make sure we put it under our topic. And I'm going to put it under my this week topic so I can organize it for my students. And then if you need to add a group rate, you can create one here by tapping on that plus sign and going through creating one, reusing one that you can use in the past or importing one from Sheets. And then you have also the option for checking for plagiarism using originality. Now once I've got all my things set up over here and I feel good about my assignment, I'm going to go over to my assigning options. I can assign immediately. I can schedule it for later, for a later date. Or I can save it in draft because I'm not really finished with it and I need to add more things. Or of course discard. So we're going to go ahead and assign. Now one of the things I want to do is give you a quick view of an assignment. So here is an assignment is completed. As you can see, we've discussed the naming conventions of the assignment and the title of there. Have our learning goal clear and explicit directions. A rubric that's attached for students so they can kind of see the criteria for success as well as a due date and the links that they would need to complete the assignment. So when writing your directions, refer to the name of your documents that they're going to use within those, within the directions and it makes it easier for kids to navigate the assignment, especially when you have several resources attached to it. Alright, now we're going to go down to our assignment. Once the assignment is created and it's populated on the topic, you can make any edits to it by tapping on these three dots. You can copy the link if you need to. You can move it up or down depending on assignments because as you post assignments you may want to arrange them in a different order and that is when this comes in really handy and also may need to rename it. When it comes to editing your assignment, if you have to make any edits, it's really good to use your class comments to give students a quick reply or response about the edits that you made. And also in trying to encourage your students to use this to ask questions about assignments that they might feel would be beneficial to others. So you can answer several questions within the class comments that everyone can refer to that would be helpful. And those are some tips and best practices for using Google Classroom when making student assignments. Thanks for watching this tutorial. Be sure to subscribe to our channel and enable notifications so that you don't miss out on the next episode.


Levy on bell not reporting to the Steelers and he is now ineligible to play the remainder of the season well I hope it works out for a man, but that you know he sacrificed an entire year and $13.5 million right which I mean he's looking for guaranteed money He'll never get back to 13.5. He just gave up that was guaranteed money All he had to do is play the games. He gave up $13.5 million so if he signs a deal next year where they guarantee 30 million of the money He still lost 13.5 million. He'll never get back. What did this accomplish for him? If he had played he'd get his 13.5 and Then then get his big contract after this now obviously he would risk getting injured But now that's your inactivity might also cost himself a whole game and That's why I mentioned this on Friday or third or Friday because I was in Detroit Is that if the players got together with the same conviction that Levy on bell did to sacrifice a season? They would get a lot of wins in the CBA. So I'm saying this game Mexico City. I don't want to get hurt We're not playing Kansas City LA get together and say we're not playing players Association supports it We're not playing I guarantee you the next time there's any kind of problem with the condition of the field It'll get worked out well ahead of time because at least the threat is there But the owners all believe that when push comes to shove the players will all cave and they'll play


What makes for excellence in heart care? It starts with one of the most amazing teams of heart surgeons and cardiologists that I've seen assembled under one roof and the region's leading technology in a new $40 million facility. This is the nationally recognized Heart and Vascular Institute of Eastern Kentucky at Pikeville Medical Center. Monday, February 27th, Governor Andy Bashir and local officials broke ground on the first home to be partially funded by the Team Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Fund. Lifelong Letcher County resident Ruella Adams and his wife Nancy will reside in the new home with their son Donnie. This is an incredibly special day. People lost everything in this flooding, most importantly their home. It's a place we feel safe. It's a place that we make our memories with our families and for a couple that had lived here their entire lives it meant having to move for a period of time. Breaking Ground today is about repairing their lives, rebuilding this region and it's incredibly special. This could be the toughest rebuild in the history of the United States, but you know what? It's going to happen home by home lot by lot. So today I hope was a beacon of hope for everybody else out there that is waiting that we will not stop. We will not rest until we rebuild everything. The Adams will receive a new home on higher land to prevent future flooding and the construction is scheduled to begin next week. I followed like a single, it's been its whole life here. It's been an awesome day where we lived three to five years. We've solved those before but not anything like this. Couldn't get in the house till the river forced away. Everything in the house fell off for all the big wide things. They settled in the cornerstone for five hours in water up to many months. It would have been any time toward the winter. I hope that we look at it all. This means every time to get them all higher ground, out of the flood plain, it means a lot. Reporting for Mountain Top News, I'm Brianna Robinson.


It's not scary to me. It's kind of like, yeah, you know, it's not scary. It's kind of really cool because like, you know, because because I'm like, you know, I was always like 30 were 31, 32, and I'm like, got from was like 28, 29 or whatever.   But then I was like, yeah, but you know, there's so much like, there's so much like help available, right, if you if you know how to access it. And plus it's me. So like, you know, I do this for a living, help people for a living. So I was like, I can help my kid, you know, if they have issues, maybe they and I was like, look, there's a chance they won't have issues. But which we'll get on to in a bit. But in terms of, in terms of like prep, I basically kind of like, literally sat down, because there's some physical like, so when you talk about preparation, there's no mental preparation you can do, but there's some physical preparation you can do, you can make sure that you've got everything you need. Right. So I kind of like made a list of everything we needed and just like bought everything straight away. And so we had this like huge list of stuff that needs to buy and like, and so that to me was like the prep work for it, right? But there was no, there was no, there's nothing you can do to prepare yourself for what is, you know, it's just the thing about it is like, when you have a kid, like it goes from being like everything like, how can I explain?   It's kind of like those things come secondary and then you have to prepare the kid first.   And you know what I mean? So it's like, it's super interesting. Like, yeah, it doesn't mean you can prepare yourself, but it was, you know, yeah, it's good. It's good. I forgot the rest of the question. No, I think you answered it pretty well that I think, you know, as far as my worries being a parent, it's it's less about I mean, the thing that I'm most scared about is their experiences at school, like in later life, I think you know, I feel like sort of the early stages sort of going up to, you know, primary school at the top that, you know, I feel like I could probably do pretty well. But I I'm I'm always worried in the back of my head.  Yeah, I feel exact same thing, but I do have an answer for that. But I think as far as like difficulties that I have, I think, you know, the executive functioning on mental health on my end is is one of the reasons why I'm a bit tentative about that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And like that was like one of my, you know, the school thing was really hard. Like I I feel like school is so like my experience of school was terrible. That stop was I was swearing was was awful, right?  And and I and I relayed this to my partner.  And and then like, you know, he's so because when he's that young, we were as like, I definitely ADHD. And we're like, look, he's going to have some issues in school.  We were like, we're going to homeschool.  And so we have to respect his choice, you know, like that's not we don't dominate somebody's life. We just guide them in the best way we can. You know, we don't make their decisions.  But like things like, you know, oh, they saw that and stuff. And so my kid was like, I want to go to school. We're like, oh, shoot. And we spent all his money buying his homeschool stuff. We're like, OK, so we found this really cool school locally, which my partner's sister works at funny enough. And it was the best school locally. And it's a Welsh school as well, because obviously living in Wales and we wanted him to have bilingual upbringing. So so anyway, this is interesting. We we got him initiated in the school and he was difficult. Like the integration was super difficult because like he was on like the list to be tested for all sorts of stuff. And and they were kind of like, you know, and it was a bad experience. The first class you went to is a bad experience. You're like, does he play with other children? I was like, well, I don't know, it's been COVID.   And then they were they were just really they were just it was a bad experience. But then that teacher left and a new teacher came in and there's new teachers, kids is on the spectrum, right? And so this new teacher was like, just dead cool. And she like, she was like, oh, we're doing this, that and the other. And so we had a huge load, there's loads of issues. I could say here all day talking about issues like how, you know, getting him past the gate, you know, like to go into the school. Like that, that on itself is just a nightmare. But in terms of I relate to the the getting past the gate from Seista, do a bit of special needs, TAing. Yeah, a few times. And it's so weird, right?  Like, dude, it's like, and it's like, oh, my God. And then but yeah, but now funny enough, like yesterday, I went to pick him up now. So he's exactly he's been there a year. He's in a he's in a full time position there now. And he's in he's in a class with his actual auntie, which is cool. And he loves it. But the cool thing is two cool things. The first thing is that the schooling had changed the way that we. So when we you and I were in school, right? It was a sit down at a desk. And if you can't sit down at a desk, there's something wrong with you. And that's the issue. You're the issue, right? Not the establishment, but it's changed now.  It's called like like a rotation development. So the indoor outdoor place, the doors are always open. They can go outside if they want to. And you never sat at a desk doing something. You're always in small little groups doing like different tasks and play learning and and all these things like they did Macaton, they did yoga and they didn't know all these kind of things. Right. And I was like, I always smoke. And the cool thing about it is that the school have a catchment criteria. So he they did certain things with him yesterday. And then so we had the conversation to know he they have to send him for assessment for hypermobility and, you know, find motor skill issues and all the other stuff, the lovely things that come with autism.  He doesn't play with kids. He plays on his own. So it's kind of like where I was terrified of that experience for him. He's actually in a really good place because the teachers are looking out for those things to then say, OK, this is what we do in this situation. You know what I mean? Yeah. So my more holistic sort of. Yeah. Case by case kind of. Exactly. And I think this whole new approach to schooling is is an initiative here in Wales. I don't know if it's everywhere in the UK, but it's definitely here in Wales. So I'm kind of like really blessed.  And like, you know, and this is the thing you'll learn is when you have a when you have a kid, it's like holding a very thin glass ball and you don't want to drop it because you could smash anyway. Yes, it's so delicate. You know, you don't want anyone to touch this thing.  I'd like I'd be crying and shaking and stuff because I'd be like, so like, oh, my God, I know, so protective because it was difficult, you know, like, you know, you know, we give like personalities issues and stuff and we have a bad time throwing out all clothes.  And so having other people holding was crazy.  Yeah, exactly. And you know, but then again, but yeah, it's it's good now because he's like, he loves school and and yeah, I was just like, wow. And so yeah, it's definitely helped me think about, you know, it's helping me as well. And I think that's a good thing, you know, there's therapy there. So that's awesome, man. Thanks, buddy. Well, I guess like, could you could you give us like a couple of or maybe one one for each about like the the positives and negatives about about being an autistic parent? Do you find that there's certain aspects that you struggle with and certain aspects that you really flourish?