Thank you all for your condolences and thoughts and prayers during this terrible time in my life. The outpouring of love shown at the viewing, the processional and the funeral was overwhelming.

People have asked me if there is a Memorial Fund – there is the Mean Gene Kelton Memorial Fund at Beacon Federal Credit Union – at any branch, in Baytown, LaPorte and Seabrook. http://www.beaconfed.org.

I want to thank everyone for their efforts putting together the two sanctioned benefits that I have approved.

Why do I think I have to “approve” a benefit?
First all, the vultures are circling me, waiting for a misstep. Vultures that will rip off the fans and the good name of Mean Gene Kelton just so they can make a few dollars.

Second, Mean Gene Kelton worked closely with a tight-knit group of top-shelf Texas musicians. Musicians that count on each other to stand together for benefits for fellow musicians, fans of each others band, and our extended families.

I have had to resort to “sanctioning” two benefits – and ONLY two. Although the need is great, Mean Gene would not want to take away from the other benefits and causes that we supported.

If you hear of other benefits, please let me know. As I said, I appreciate the thoughts, but please contact me before going ahead with any planning.

Don’t make me get Even Meaner or call my Die Hard Mafia.

“Even Meaner” Joni Kelton

Saturday, February 12
Rocky’s Pelican Junction
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117738954966226
POKER RUN – $25 per rider (includes a t’shirt)
11 a.m. – Kickstands Up at Pelican Junction
3 p.m. – Last Bike In @ Pelican Junction

Auction begins at 5:00 p.m.

BBQ – Pre-Orders: Contact Gary Davis at 936.776.6478
Whole Briskets – $40 (Prepaid by Feb. 3rd)
Delivery with minimum 3 brisket orded
Delivery: Feb. 6th – 11th

Plates – $8.00 per plate

Delivery with 30 plate order   (prepaid by Feb. 10th)
Delivery: Feb. 12th at 11:30 a.m.

LIVE & SILENT AUCTIONS
Contact Michelle Phillips at 832-628-5741

LIVE BANDS ALL DAY
50/50 DRAWINGS

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL: 281.837.7122 or 713.818.3587

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183923134969640

FROM ORGANIZER: More details to follow but mark your calendars for March 12th for a benefit for the Mean Gene Kelton family. Gene played at Ron’s Relay in October and he rocked the place. Now it’s time to rock the place for Gene and his family, and ROCK we will. We have a great lineup of bands (The Die Hards, Driven, Charlie Parker, Outlaw Lynn … and that is just day 2 of announcing event) I’m hoping to have entire lineup firmed up and announced later this week.

For those of you who would like to contribute but will not be able to attend the event, a fund has been set up for the family at Beacon Federal Credit Union. The account is titled as “Gene Kelton Memorial Fund” checks can be made payable like that. The mailing address is PO Box 1704, LaPorte Texas 77572.

Mark your calendars and look for future announcements.

This is NOT a benefit, and I have not got all the details ironed out yet. I myself am putting this concert on with the Die Hard crew. Check for more info.

NEW YEARS EVE!!! Back by popular/public demand! Mean Gene’s Rockin’ “DAY-TIME” New Years Eve Party (for those who don’t like late shows).

At: ROWDY BUCKS SALOON (2 miles E. of Crosby, Texas) on Hwy 90.

Doors open: 1pm.

Band: 2pm-5pm. $10 p/p.

First come, first served.

Free drawings for cool stuff! www.meangenekelton.com 281-462-1731.

To make sure you get yours in your inbox sign up for our email newsletter list, below.

For those of you that were on the list in the past, the list may say that you are already signed up. If so, cool!

For those of you that marked our newsletter as SPAM and got us kicked off our paid newsletter service, boo on you. Its strictly opt-in, and opt-out works the same way.

Thanks!

Just some of the events already scheduled:

OTT Rally in Nacogdoches

Riverside Ranch Nudist Resort Spring & Fall 2011

Summertime Blues Festival

South Texas Biker Jam

…and many more!

More info below or on Facebook:

Escorted ride to Children’s Hospital, Fun Run, then back to Hawg Stop.

Mean Gene Kelton is putting together a radio/speaking/book tour for Gigs From Hell.

Radio stations, bookstores, music stores, family dinners… (we gotta eat!) just let us know, and we’ll book a time to discuss all things MGK.

With thousands of internet and terrestrial radio stations playing MGK music, we will be booking interviews on alot of shows, talking about the book, the upcoming movie, and ongoing cool projects.

If you want to hear Mean Gene Kelton on your favorite station, or know of a great place for a Mean Gene Kelton booksigning in your area, please send us an email.

This month, instead of writing about bands, I have chosen to tell you all about a great friend of mine, Lonnie Loehr of Pasadena, Texas. Lonnie recently faced a serious health situation that many people in his (our) age group are currently going through. Hopefully, Lonnie’s story will be of help to you and/or someone near and dear to you.

Lonnie always showed up to our shows with a big smile, bought the band a round and passed out cigars as if he was celebrating something. Everyday was a celebration for Lonnie, a guy who was always surrounded by friends, never meeting a stranger.

Lonnie, along with our friend Bucky “Two Notes” Bishop, went with me the day I bought my first Harley at Stubbs Cycles in Houston. Since then, Lonnie has been to my house numerous times to help me customize my bike. When he saw the tools I was using were rusty pieces of crap, he gave me a brand new set. That’s the kind of guy he is.

Lonnie is a fantastic chef and loves to cook. He has often called the band and other Die Hards to come eat just ’cause he felt like cooking up a mess o’ ribs, steaks or shish-ke-bobs. Yep! Life is always a party with Lonnie around.

In November 2007, the good times caught up with Lonnie. He had a first heart stent implanted in his artery. Three months later, another stent was put in. Within a few months, we noticed a change in Lonnie, for the worse. He was no longer the happy-go-lucky, good-timing, free-wheeling, high-spirited guy that we all knew and loved. He had developed a short fuse, a hair trigger and an explosive temper. The smallest comment would send him into a rage.

As months passed, Lonnie’s personality changes caused even lifelong friends to fear him and keep their distance. On numerous occasions, Lonnie showed up to my gigs beat all to hell from fights with best friends. Often the fights resulted when concerned friends would try to take Lonnie’s keys to keep him from driving. Especially times when he dropped his bike even before he got it started. We all feared we would get that dreaded phone call in the middle of the night.

Other times, Lonnie would make obscene insults or threaten people until somebody popped him. It wasn’t long before he found himself thrown out, banned and barred from most of his favorite neighborhood waterin’ holes where he had been a welcome customer for years.

At our shows, Lonnie would become obnoxious, and insist on singing. He was not a singer, and would get irate when we would not let him have his moment on stage. During this dark period, he scribbled out a song that he wanted me to decipher and sing. Written single-spaced on legal sized paper, it was thirteen pages long!

Like everyone else, I tried not to get involved with Lonnie’s personal life. I kept my distance until one night on the way home from a show. I realized it was time. Joni was madder than hell and in tears as she told me how Lonnie had sat down next to her at the bar and scared the hell out of her. She said that one minute he was fine, and the next minute he flew into a maniacal rage. He pounded his fists on the counter, screamed in her face, make threats of violence against her and our mutual friends, and violently threw a tip jar at the barmaid clear across the bar. She was sure he was going to hit her, and feared for her safety. She says she knew he wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t even in there as she put it. In other words, the lights were on but nobody was home.

The next day, I called Lonnie around lunchtime, knowing that would be the time of the day he would be most calm. I asked him if he remembered his conversation with Joni.

“No,” he calmly replied. He did not even remember seeing her. I asked him if he knew why he was getting kicked out of his favorite neighborhood bars. “I don’t know,” came his puzzled reply. I asked him if he knew why his best friends were kicking his ass. “I’ve wondered the same thing,” he said. “All I know is I wake up with bumps and bruises all over me.”

Lonnie said since his first heart stent, details of his life were fuzzy and his brain had been lost in a fog. Life seemed surreal. He felt confused, detached and couldn’t focus. He suffered blackouts and was unable to remember where he had been, and what had happened. I could hear his disbelief when I explained his violent tirade toward Joni. He poured out an emotional apology, that he never meant to scare Joni or anyone else.

Concerned about my friend, I asked how many doctors he was seeing and how many prescriptions he was on. His answer: three separate doctors with three separate sets of prescriptions. “Does each doctor know about the other two?” I asked. “Does each doctor know what the other’s are prescribing?”

Lonnie got real quiet, as if a light had come on. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “They’re all in the same office. They have to know! No, come to think of it… I don’t think so.”

Over the next few days, Lonnie arranged a face-to-face meeting with all three doctors at once. All three doctors, not knowing Lonnie had been seen by the others, came to the conclusion they had nearly killed Lonnie by overdosing him on anti-rejection drugs, anti-depressants and blood thinners. When mixed with a couple of friendly beers during Lonnie’s daily after work ritual, the lethal mixture of prescription drugs and alcohol turned him into a raving lunatic.

Once the doctors compared notes and got him on the correct dosages, Lonnie’s problems quickly disappeared. Soon Lonnie was back to being his same happy-go-lucky self – passing out cigars, cooking out on the grill, promoting charity bike runs, producing Toys For Tots events and enjoying friends, family and life to the fullest. Great to have ya back, Starman!

I interviewed Lonnie Loehr before writing this story. We mutually agreed I should publish his story, in hopes his experience may help prevent someone from suffering a similar situation, with a possible worse outcome. His message to you: Make sure all your doctors know about all other doctors you may be seeing, and for what reason, and how many other prescriptions you may be taking. Ask a million questions! Do not be intimidated by doctors. You are hiring them, not the other way around. Remember… Doctors are people too and make mistakes. Confidentiality is one thing, but lack of shared information can kill you! Always get a second opinion.

After giving it some thought, I realized that I did not know which bands bikers liked or would be interested in reading about.

In my article in the June 2010 issue of Thunder Roads Texas titled: “Who Are YOUR Favorite Bands?” I asked the following questions to bikers: “Do rally promoters speak for YOU when it comes to picking YOUR live entertainment? Who are your favorite bands in your region? Which bands do you go see on purpose at biker events? Which bands would you go see at a biker event in your area?”

Even though I published my personal email address in the article, I did not receive one single response from the readers of Thunder Roads Texas! However, when I posed to same questions to my biker friends on Facebook along with questions about country-western and tribute bands, I received over ONE-HUNDRED RESPONSES in a matter of a couple of hours! The following are a few comments from my biker friends on Facebook:

Sheri: “live music has one of the largest impacts on if we actually visit the rally. Not [going] to a rally with no music or if they have a DJ. If I wanted to listen to a DJ – I have Sirrus and would rather ride!”

So there you have it folks, bands that Bikers in Southeast Texas want to see/hear or hear about. I’ll try to do some interviews with these artists in coming months for future articles in Thunder Roads Texas. I’m sure that there are dozens more bands that bikers like that are not mentioned here so I welcome your continued suggestions at meangene@genekelton.com..

Just for the record, I omitted my own band name from the above list of suggestions, but thanks those of you who included Mean Gene Kelton & The Die Hards in your recommendations. I appreciate it. For the sake of credibility, you may view the list of comments in their entirety by friending me on Facebook then – scroll down to see my “older posts” dated June 1st and June 2nd.