« allergic reaction to clearcoat, but nice otherwise »

You can take a man away from his drums, but take a man away from his sticks, and you will raise havoc. These are the words spoken from the mouth of my first drum teacher. I think I understand what he meant. These sticks are so different to any drummer who has played their careers with Vic Firth Americans, etc. I find that when it comes to drum sets, I’m always willing to try something new. However, drum sticks are the objects we interface with first and foremost. We spend every waking moment behind the set holding onto them, making sounds through them. They are extensions of us.
These sticks are coated in a varnish that reacts with my fingers leaving my palms sweaty, my fingers red and raw, and the pigment of the clear coating on my hands. Who knows the implication of this long term, but I have a feeling the sticks won’t even last that long considering I broke my left handed stick within 20 minutes of drumming out to 1980’s Rush. 1980’s! the soft stuff era for Neil Peart, not even his harder rawer stuff, the slow, melodic beats… But this brings together the most important and greatest aspect of this product: there are 3 sticks bundled in each “pair.”
3 sticks per pair? Yes, and that makes damn good sense when you think about it. Any drummer knows, you walk into a store, go to the stick bin, pull out two pairs of same brand sticks, and you see they have size mismatches. This is nothing new, no computer guided laser precision, nothing has changed this. The only solution is to tough it out, or get these. This way, when one stick breaks, you have a matched third stick waiting. It’s a nice touch, and something that you don’t realize the implications until after the fact, but it’s a nice luxury none-the-less.
I really tried my best to enjoy these sticks. But, in the end, you can only change something so much before the feeling of alienation wears off and anger ensues.