The Goddess of Groove
By Mad Royal

Anytime I’ve talked to Gene Baker, he’s had an aura of being calm and excited at the same time, kind of a restrained expectation of good things to come, tied up with a deep satisfaction in what he’s doing at the moment. He may be known as Mean Gene, and he may even look a little mean (not really, but let him have his illusions), but he’s a pretty cool guy.
Raised in the suburbs of Detroit, Gene grew up messing around on the family’s Hammond organ. His two older sisters influenced his taste in music, as well as he dad, who took him to see and Elvis tribute band, Elvis Wade.
“We asked them to play Polk Salad Annie, and were impressed when they did,” Gene said.
He also listened to the Beatles, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, the Beach Boys, Aerosmith, and Led Zeppelin. When he was seven, he got his first guitar, purchased at Kmart. “I really didn’t know what to do with it,” he said. “I didn’t know you were supposed to press the strings down on the bars on the frets, I used to press on the dots.”
That changed four years later when the new next-door neighbor started teaching group guitar lessons at the local ice rink.
“We’d learn on chord a week, songs like ‘Kumbaya’ and ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore.’”
Later he took lessons from a fellow named “Fuzz,” who he found through his little brother’s hockey team. Fuzz was a big KISS fan, so Gene mostly learned KISS songs on his Flying V electric guitar, and thought he was pretty cool.
In seventh grade woodshop, Gene started his other passion: building guitars.
“They weren’t very good,” he said.
Still, once his other projects were done, his teachers let him work on guitars all he wanted, sometimes staying after hours, even to the point where the junior high teacher let him use the shop when he attended a high school that did not have a wood shop.
When Gene was in eighth grade, he joined his first band, Cuss, otherwise made up of high school students. They would perform at hall parties, house parties, and local talent shows. By his teenage years, his parents were going through divorce, and he attended two different junior highs and four different senior highs, due to his mom moving around. The last high school was Reghetti in Orcutt when the family moved to California.  Gene would spend about three hours a day on guitars, either making them or playing them in jazz band, or studying with Jerry Coelho. He was in a band for two years called Silent Scream that played at the Righetti Greek Theater and outdoors at Hancock College.
After high school, Gene attended the Guitar Institute of Technology, where his teacher Jerry Coelho had been as one of its original students. From there, in 1986, Gene did a stint in Huntsville, Alabama, selling guitar gear and teaching music. He returned to the Central Coast in 1987 to accept a job at Ernie Ball, which only lasted four months, due to his car often breaking down and making him late for work. He then partnered with Eric Zoellner to form Mean Gene Guitars, where they repaired the instruments, and started in manufacture. They had a retail shop near the Nipomo Swap Meet, with rehearsal halls for rent to bands. On the music side, when Gene was 21, his band “Mad Hatter” did a six-week tour of Alaska, during which they performed six hours a day, six days a week, with Sundays off. Another band was Full Tilt.
He worked two years as a press operator at Blakesley Printing, and then went on a tour of guitar-related businesses in Los Angeles, ad accepted a job at the Gibson Custom Shop in North Hollywood, where touring musician such as Ringo’s All-Star Band and the Eagles would drop their gear off for repair before hitting the road. That job lasted about three years, until Gibson started shutting down its satellite shops. By then, Gene was getting married, so he took a job at Fender Guitars in Corona, and was there for 7 years, starting as an apprentice. After six months, he was working for Robin Ford on his signature series, and eventually achieved status as a Master Builder, making one-of-a-kind custom guitars.
In 1999, Gene and his wife moved back to the Central Coast, where he opened Baker Guitars in Santa Maria. His band, the Wallshakers, opened in Ventura on three occasions for three different bands: Thin Lizzie, Blue Oyster Cult, and Robin Trower.  In 2002, Gene started the band Mean Gene and the Portable Johns, who were regulars at Harry’s Nightclub and Beach Bar in Pismo Beach. The band was so named because it had Johnny Punches, John Dittman, and John Lockheart. In 2000, Baker Guitar closed, and Gene returned to Ernie Ball for a year, then he started Fine Tune Instruments, and started manufacturing his B3 guitars.
Eventually, in 2006, there was only one John in his band, so the group became MGB, or Mean Gene Band, as it remains to this day. Current members are Gene Baker, Johnny Punches, Brian Monzel, and Kelly Atwell. The band plays true rock music, such as AC/DC, Billy Idol, Montrose, Def Leppard, and Ted Nugent. In 2009, Gene partnered with the Premier Builders Guild, and continues to make his B3 guitars.
One of Gene’s latest projects is a new band, Rebel 66, which has the same members as MGB, but concentrates on originals. The music is described as “metal meets rock,” with the instruments being metal driven, while the vocals are more rock. The band will be performing in the second slot on the first day of the Redwood Run in northern California, sharing the bill with Blue Oyster Cult, Night Ranger, Warrant, and Gamma. The festival is June 12 and 13.
His other latest project is “Mean Gene Presents,” a series of concerts featuring both touring and local bands that perform original music. The series is at Mongo’s Saloon in Grover Beach on the last Saturday of each month. This month’s concert is the Kenny Taylor Band and Bear Market Riot, on April 25, starting at 9pm. There is a $5 cover.
MGB has cut down from a peak of 135 shows a year, to about one show a month, so Gene and his bandmates can concentrate on their original projects. In my mind, Gene’s always been an original, a man who builds beautiful guitars, and is not afraid to follow his dreams. I think we’ll find, in years to come, that he’s a musical force to be reckoned with. I think it’s going to be sooner than you think, too.