Hoglan you do this to me?

I was tasked to write a review of a Gene Hoglan instructional DVD for a magazine last year. However! For reasons that escape me, it was never used, and I was rendered an inconsolable mess.

Never fear though. Here it is for the first time.

Gene Hoglan- The Atomic Clock

(Hoglan Industries)

Instructional DVDs are usually hellishly boring (try watching a Derek Roddy thing on youtube. Zzzzzzzzz), so it’s to Mr Hoglan’s credit that ‘The Atomic Clock’ doesn’t make you want to jump off a bridge. For the most part anyway. It’s full of boring drumspeak which’ll mean nothing unless you’re a muso git, but Hoglan’s a likeable host, making amusing, self deprecating one liners in his wonderfully sleepy American drawl. Even when he’s droning on about high hats or exercises or whatever the hell it is drummers talk about, he’ll throw in a wanking joke for the dregs to keep their attention. As well as giving drumfolk handy advice about how to keep their drumsticks buffed, he plays through songs by Mechanism, one of the 8 million bands he plays for. To be fair it sounds like dreadful tech metal, but later on he starts playing pop and funk numbers which are a lot more entertaining. Seeing a hairy metal person like Gene Hoglan playing through a jaunty ditty about a psychotic ex boyfriend is good fun. This DVD will mean nothing to you unless you get a stiffy over talk about ‘rimshots’ (fnar), but the big lug’s done ok.