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72 2O24–2O2 5 GU I D E to Y E L LOW S P R I NG S the best dance record The Beatles ever made,” Lohman said. “‘Drive My Car,’ which wasn’t on the American ver- sion, was the hit of that winter at Antioch. The rest of the country had never even heard of it! And I made sure to play it at least once every night.” By 1967, Lohman began branching out. He began DJing on 91.3-FM WYSO, with a regular show he called “The Rhythm and Blues Express,” that, naturally, was narrowly focused on the ongoing genealogy of his favorite genre. Lohman’s show would be on the air for the next two decades. “That’s where I really learned how to be a disc jockey,” he said. “Queueing up records, running the mixer, running and reading the meters to make sure you weren’t under or over power and on frequency — man, I caught onto all of that immediately.” According to him, the greatest part of working for WYSO in those days was the independence — a rarity in the world of broadcasting, he said. “I basically ran the station when I was on the air. I was the man,” Lohman said. “I decided what to play, what to talk about, all in my own style. As a result, my program was the most popular around — and that’s just a fact.” Eventually, Lohman took his record machine farther down the road. He began DJing at high school parties, Antioch dances and many of the bars in down- town Yellow Springs. By the time he retired from jockeying at WYSO in 1987, he commit- ted fully to DJing in the local bar scene. “I think I stayed here all these years because of iner- tia,” Lohman said. “This is my home. All my people are here.” CLEAN GENE, HERE AND NOW Nowadays, over 50 years since his start, Clean Gene and his record machine have gained a kind of mythological status in and around Yellow Springs. It’s not uncommon to see Lohman toting his arsenal of CDs in a little red wagon to his next gig. With his long white hair and wispy beard blowing in the breeze, he stands out on the sidewalk. In no small sense, he comports himself like a quintessential villager. He looks and feels a part of the texture of Yellow Springs. “Culturally speaking, this place is very open,” he said. “I couldn’t play music the way I did and do anywhere else.” Although he still spins his favorite R&B and rock hits from the ’50s and ’60s, he’s expanded the breadth of his musical lexicon considerably over the years. “Sure, I quit keeping up with ‘modern’ music for a variety of reasons in the early ’90s,” Lohman said. “But I’ve moved into new genres. I’ve gone from rock ‘n’ roll and R&B to big band, then reggae, then jazz, hip-hop, blues, bossa nova. Really, my passion has become what’s generally considered to be Latin music — specifically Afro-Cuban.” He added that he hopes to eventually integrate more classical music into his lineups. Ultimately, Lohman said that his approach to jockey- ing is all about playing the widest variety of music he can — spinning discs that can appeal to everyone. His aim is a simple one: bring people together in shared spaces to commune, dance and love one another and what they hear. “To me, music is living art — art in motion,” Lohman said. “Being able to hear a song, to know the history and the chronology, what labels they came out of, what studios recorded them — all of that is invaluable to me.” In addition to DJing at the Gulch Saloon every other Friday afternoon, from 4–7 p.m., Lohman keeps his fingers on the pulse of the local music scene by religiously attending the weekly open mic event at Peach’s Grill. He said it’s the sheer variety of the perfor- mances that keeps him coming back for more. “One night a few weeks ago, there was everything from a violinist to a rap artist. Every week it’s incredible there,” Lohman said. “Local music is so important to me — simply because I like knowing who the artists are. And that’s probably my favorite thing about play- ing live music, too: just being around people, you know?” When asked about what he’s most proud of in his lifetime of spinning discs in Yellow Springs, Lohman didn’t hesitate. “I have never sold out,” he said. “I’ve always played music exactly how I wanted, and I’ve never taken the commer- cial approach. It’s all about keeping people on the dance floor.” ♦ — what he now calls “the best of Clean Gene’s music” — and by broadcasting out of the amplifier of the house jukebox, he was off and running, spin - ning vinyl for his classmates six nights every week. He said that in the begin - ning, there were only a few people cutting the rug to his music. But in no time at all, “Clean Gene and his record machine” would pack the house each and every night. “It sounds like I’m bragging, but really, I was just in the right place at the right time,” he said. Lohman spoke at length about the winter of ’66 — a time he remembers affec - tionately as his favorite era of DJing. By a stroke of luck, he managed to get his hands on the British release of The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album. Unlike the American album, with only 12 songs, the British version had 14. “‘Rubber Soul’ is hands down