BAY 2 · SCOPE RECORDS

The Scope at Three

1987 · Scope Records · 8 tracks

The centerpiece. Longer, more ambitious. "The Retirement of Mr. Kellner" is a seven-and-a-half-minute chronicle of a real NY TRACON controller who retired in 1986 after twenty-eight years on JFK Final Approach and whose approach was so tight nobody else could copy his style. The record ends on "The Yellow Strip" — a nine-minute suite about a specific controller's way of marking pilots he had noted, which the band declined to explain further.

1. 01Twelve at Once5:15
2. 02The Retirement of Mr. Kellner7:30
   Read back

   (sustained low bass note, ambient radar-sweep tone, guitars build slowly for 45 seconds — no drums yet)
   
   A vector is not a suggestion.
   A vector is not a command.
   A vector is a truth.
   Kevin Kellner said this often.
   Others said it before him.
   He said it more often.
   
   Kevin Kellner walked into JFK Approach in the fall of fifty-eight
   Twenty-two years old, fresh out of Keesler radar school, straight from the Air Force gate
   The scopes were smaller then, the aircraft slower, the sector still learning its shape
   His first supervisor said he'd never make it
   His first supervisor was already old
   
   Twenty-eight years on Final Approach
   Twenty-eight years to the day
   Kevin Kellner
   Kevin Kellner
   The sector remembered who kept it clean
   
   Nineteen sixty-eight, ten years in, Kellner had the shift he wanted
   Overnight, JFK Final, when the wave from Europe hit the runway
   Twelve aircraft in a sector for eight
   He made it look like eight
   The other controllers wrote his name on the wall
   He did not know they had
   
   Twenty-eight years on Final Approach
   Twenty-eight years to the day
   Kevin Kellner
   Kevin Kellner
   The sector remembered who kept it clean
   
   Nineteen seventy-eight, twenty years in, Kellner was the reason young controllers stayed
   He didn't train them
   He didn't have to
   They watched him on the scope for one afternoon and stayed
   His vectors were so tight the pilots called them Kellner miles
   The smallest unit of a punishment vector
   He never punished anyone
   He didn't have to
   The pilots knew
   
   (twin lead guitar solos trading back and forth, walking bassline features prominently, drums drive tempo, key change up a whole step at 1:30, builds to a climax, then thins to just bass and drums, then bass alone, then silence for two beats)
   
   Nineteen eighty-six, twenty-eight years in, mandatory fifty-six retirement came
   Kevin Kellner walked off Final Approach on the twelfth of June, a Thursday
   He went to Republic Airport
   Worked contract tower for three more years
   He said he wasn't ready
   The scope wasn't either
   
   Nineteen eighty-nine, three years of contract, Kevin Kellner finally quit the scope for good
   Somebody at Republic asked him why
   He said, "Somebody's got to teach the young ones how to leave"
   He came to our retirement party in ninety-one
   Parking lot of the Local Nineteen-Seventy-Four union hall
   Frank told him the song was for him
   Kevin Kellner said, "You didn't get it wrong"
   
   Twenty-eight years on Final Approach
   Twenty-eight years to the day
   Kevin Kellner
   Kevin Kellner
   The sector remembered who kept it clean
   
   (walking bassline resumes solo, guitars enter with sustained harmony, drums fade last, single sustained bass note holds under everything)
   Twenty-eight years
   Twenty-eight years
   Twenty-eight years

3. 03Handoff5:00
4. 04Miller's Break6:40
5. 05Kennedy Approach5:55
6. 06The Scope at Three4:35
7. 07Union Rep7:20
8. 08The Yellow Strip9:15