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Gene
Eugene -Story
By: WILLIAM LOBDELL - Los Angeles
Times
Music
Falls Silent in a Magical Green Room
Fans nationwide are shocked by the death of 38-year-old Gene
Eugene, the man who set a new tone for Christian music.
In the Green Room this week, the talk was all about Gene
Eugene. His gifts as a critically acclaimed singer,
songwriter,
musician and producer. The role he played in shaping more than
300 records over his
career. The alternative rock band, Adam Again, he started in
the
early 1980s that brought Christian music out of the Dark Ages.
And his funky recording studio--the beloved Green Room
itself, on the first floor of his Huntington Beach home--which
served as the
breeding ground and flophouse for hundreds of bands, Christian
and secular,
famous and struggling. So when Eugene, 38, died unexpectedly
Monday, mourning
musicians and friends from across the country immediately
hopped on planes
and flew into town. They headed straight for the Green Room,
where old
friends talked long into the night about the remarkable life
of Gene Andrusco,
known to everyone as Gene Eugene.
"He was way too young and way too vital for this to
happen,"
said John Thompson, founder of True Tunes, a magazine that
covers the
progressive Christian music scene.
"Pulling him out of the equation is a huge loss for
Christian
music. If you were to combine Phil Spector, John Lennon and
Booker T.
[Jones] and make them into one guy, it's about that
devastating."
Early Monday morning, friends found Eugene dead on the floor
of his studio. An Orange County Sheriff-Coroner's official
said the
cause of death hasn't been determined, and it could take as
long as three
months before all the test results come back. But friends say
Eugene hadn't
been feeling well in recent weeks and complained of headaches
the day before
his death. His death shocked his fans, who turned to the Tooth
and Nail
Records Web site (www.toothandnail.com), which put up a moving
tribute,
to share their grief. The volume of more than 400 e-mails--70
pages'
worth--froze the memorial bulletin board. "He was
musically so talented that it was never truly
recognized," as in cases of musicians who excel at just
one thing, said Brandon
Ebel, president of Seattle-based Tooth and Nail. On some
albums Eugene would
do vocals and instrumentals and mix the tracks as well. He
began in show business early, working as a child actor on such
TV shows as "Bewitched" and "Wait Till Your
Father Gets Home." But he carved out his niche in show
business by upgrading Christian rock music
in the early 1980s through his band, Adam Again.
"Christian music in the early days was in the minor
leagues," said Tim Taber of Prayer Chain, a band Eugene
produced. "The thought
was: 'It's just a Christian record, that's good enough.' But
Gene said, 'I want
to make a record that's good enough for MTV, for KROQ.' And he
did it,
working with budgets that are a fraction of what the big bands
had."
* * *
So with his own group and then others--bands like Starflyer
59, Plankeye and Swirling Eddies--Eugene produced records that
finally
measured up to their secular counterparts and helped propel
record companies
like Tooth and Nail. "He wasn't one of the inventors of
alternative Christian
music, but he was a perfecter," Thompson said. "He
took a lump of coal and
shined it up quite a bit. By the '90s, he was absolutely
dominant."
The center of Eugene's world--and arguably the center of the
Christian rock world--was the Green Room, his studio and home
in
Huntington Beach. "The place is just legendary,"
said friend Lori Lenz. "Bands
would come into town and just want to hang out there. It
became its own
little society." The open-door policy created an
atmosphere where musicians
would play on each other's albums or simply crash for the
night. "You never knew who was going to pop up,"
Taber said.
"Big-name musicians [would] walk in and give their two
cents' worth.
The studio wasn't spectacular, but there was magic there. The
whole Orange
County music scene plugs into the place." So much as that
Eugene rarely ventured outside the Green Room, unless of
course it was baseball season and the Dodgers were playing.
Rumor has it that Eugene would secure cash advances from
recording contracts
just to buy a single season ticket. "He'd sacrificed food
and water to buy season tickets each
year," Thompson said. Though Eugene spent his career
giving legitimacy to Christian
music, friends say his faith was private. "He was a
Christian, but he wasn't evangelical," Ebel said.
"People saw Christ in him through his kindness and
generosity and his
servanthood." But he wasn't a saint. "I spent months
of my life hating the guy," said Mike Roe with a laugh.
Roe was a good friend who played with Eugene in the all-star
band Lost Dogs, a Christian version of the Traveling Wilburys.
"He was a flake with a capital F. Any adjectives I use to
describe Gene would fall short of the truth. I can't imagine
this guy gone--he's just a three-ring circus. He balanced
everything out with his
extreme generosity." That's what people remembered about
Eugene: a musical genius
with a generous spirit.
* * *
"He was a friend to everybody," Taber said.
"The kind of guy
everyone wanted to be around. He had a quality that drew
people in."
Michele Palmer and Eugene were divorced in 1994, but the two
always remained close. "He really valued his friends. I
mean he
really valued them," Palmer said. The couple had no
children and he did not
remarry. "He's caring, sweet, funny and had a very
twisted sense of humor. Most of
all, he was just an incredible talent. He's my favorite
songwriter. He's
brilliant that way." While Eugene's studio was filled
with talk about his life,
the music--for this week, at least--had died. "The Green
Room's been incredibly quiet," Lenz said. "It's
really strange to be in the studio and have no sound."
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