His music jones keeps Clean Gene Lohman in the groove

DJ Clean Gene Lohman in front of the mixer at Peach’s Grill, which will host a concert on Saturday, Jan. 26, to raise money for eye surgery for Lohman.

By Lauren Heaton

At 61, Gene Lohman, also known as DJ Clean Gene, has had his ups and downs, but his appreciation for music has always been there to pull him through. And in a sense, his connection to the music world in Yellow Springs is still doing that. This Saturday from 2 to midnight at Peach’s Bar and Grill, a group of local musicians will host a benefit concert to raise money for Lohman’s eye surgery. Rob Heiliger will open the show, followed by group and solo performers including Thinktank, Dr. Meat, Reggie Stone, Paul’s Apartment and W.G. Blues Unit.

It all started in the mid-50s at home in Arlington, Va., watching the weekly television program “Hit Parader” whose broadcasts of the top ten hits such as “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” and “This Old House” by Rosemary Clooney incited 10-year-old Lohman to begin collecting 45s. But that program was closer to the staid likes of the Lawrence Welk Show than Lohman felt was beneficial for his development, and when he saw Elvis Presley perform “Hound Dog” on the Ed Sullivan Show, he and millions of others decided rock and roll was the music of their generation. Though for Lohman, that was just a stepping stone to other kinds of music he would soon fall in love with.

In the spring of 1957 Lohman got the measles and, at home all day listening to the radio, he found his heart in rhythm and blues. It didn’t take long before rock and roll took a backseat to the heavy beat and soulful sounds of Bo Diddley, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, he said. He increased his collection of 45s and vinyl albums and became fascinated by how such music got made, from the writing to the production and beautiful label designs. Never a performer, Lohman was content to listen to the music, and he spent 99 percent of his allowance on growing his record collection.

“It was an all-consuming interest for me,” he said.

When Lohman came to Antioch College in 1965, the Rolling Stones ruled the dance floor, and Lohman found he was more interested in holing up with his Magnavox Console radio to feast on the six R&B stations he got out of Nashville, especially the WLAC station featuring DJ Wolfman Jack.

“That’s how I got my music jones satisfied,” he said.

But Antioch’s C-shop manager was also an R&B fan, and when Lohman got a chance to DJ his first dance playing Ray Charles, Junior Walker and Little Richard, and later the Temptations and the Supremes, it wasn’t long before the dances turned into party events with 50 people crowded into the small coffee shop six nights a week, Lohman said.

“It was a gas! I did it because I loved it, for no pay,” he said.

And Lohman said he flatters himself to think he might have had a small part in changing Antioch from a folk music school to a rock and roll school.

As he continued to grow his musical taste, including the San Francisco acid sound of Country Joe and the Fish and Jefferson Airplane and later disco, the use of an Antioch education was beginning to make less and less sense to him, Lohman said.

“I just wanted to play records, and I sort of faded away from Antioch and began playing at bars in town,” he said.

Carting six big boxes of albums that filled his car, he DJed at venues such as the Glen Cafe, where the Winds is now, and the Dayton Street Gulch, which was at various times called the Majaga, Desolation Row, and Lohman’s personal favorite, Yellow Springs Family Billiards & Bar. And he had his glory days as a DJ in the upper story of DG’s bar on Davis Street.

The bar scene that suited the music so well affected Lohman, who soon became an alcoholic. He learned how to live cheap, so that he could keep playing music, he said. But he knew that the alcohol would eventually kill him. So in 1980, after completing three rehabilitation programs, he got sober for good and became an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Lohman also found he could still DJ without the drugs, and through the 80s he continued to broaden his musical tastes, moving from a self-described “R&B freak” to integrating all the eras between Glen Miller and Prince, he said. By the late 1980s Lohman had amassed a collection of 500 albums and 5,000 singles.

Though Lohman has worked on and off with Friends Care Community, a job which he liked, he found that the long early shifts were not compatible with the schedule of a late-night DJ. His health suffered so much that he eventually had to choose between a regular job and his music. He works odd jobs, but has not been able to afford health insurance, and is now in need of cataract surgery.

When local musician Rob Heiliger suggested a benefit concert, Peach’s owner Don Beard and employee Christine Monroe agreed to coordinate the event. The suggested donation is $7 at the door. The Gulch will also host a benefit that same night with Reverend Roxie spinning tunes from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Clean Gene still DJs at Peach’s every Wednesday evening from 5 to 9 p.m. and at the Gulch twice a month. He plays as wide a mix of swing, jazz, blues, bluegrass, reggae, Latin and R&B to spice things up as much as possible, he said. He doesn’t play much new music, a somewhat political statement about rejecting the monoculture that pop radio stations create for commercial reasons, he said. Lohman prefers to play a variety of low-volume tunes that allow listeners to really hear and appreciate the instrumentation and the diverse sounds that exist in the music world.

“That’s what keeps me going, that’s what keeps me interested,” he said.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com