If the reed player Gene Fosdick seemed to have considerably less recording opportunities than his brother Dudley Fosdick, there are a variety of possible explanations. The latter sibling played the mellophone, an instrument that not that many brass players seemed to want to tackle and which eventually became phased out by the introduction of the French horn. Gene Fosdick, on the other instrument case, offered bandleaders a typical combination of clarinet and saxophone. Competition must have been stiffer for any job he went out for. This might have been the reason this Fosdick became a bandleader instead of a sideman, fronting various versions of the Hoosiers in the early '20s before re-emerging with the Melody Artists later in that decade, a bit more highbrow at least in terms of the band name.

Running his own band might have made it difficult for Gene Fosdick to get in on freelance recording opportunities; the brother with the mellophone, however, did just that and managed to work in both the Hoosiers and the Melody Artists while he was running around town. Then again, bandleader Fosdick might have just been too stoned to make lots of records. The following allegation, shocking as it might seem, becomes something of a foregone conclusion considering the nature of this Fosdick's appearances in literature about the history of jazz.

Songwriter and pianist Hoagy Carmichael wrote the following passage in his autobiographical tome entitled -Sometimes I Wonder:

"I lit my first muggle (marijuana cigarette) as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver broke into the introductory part of Bugle Call Rag. Everything was chaos at our table. We smoked and gulped our terrible drinks. Bix Beiderbecke was on his feet, his eyes popping out of his head. Louis was taking a hot chorus. Gene Fosdick had a mild spasm, finally overturning the table and sliding off his chair in a fit of stupor, muttering to himself in a strange style. The joint stank of body musk, bootleg booze, excited people, platform sweat."

From -Remembering Bix, a biographical portrait of trumpeter Beiderbecke, there is this section in which Fosdick expresses a commendable philosophy: "In Chicago we found George Johnson, Bix and Vic Moore in a hotel room, all primed for a big night. Bix sleepy-eyed said 'We got the mixings." "A couple of quarts of gin and a package of Muggles. Its enough to start said Gene Fosdick." As a recording artist, the bandleader seems to have kept his recreational activities in check, despite the commercial potential of songs about muggles during that era. A string of sides for Vocalion recorded by the Hoosiers include clean-living titles such as Peggy Dear, Apple Sauce, and Railroad Blues. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi