Houston, we have a problem

“Ground Control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong”

With the uncanny accuracy of a latter day Nostradamus, more than 40 years ago David Bowie predicted current events in Enid. There is something very wrong indeed: The Rocket is lost in space and its circuits are dead. KEIF 104.7, our local classic rock radio station, is no longer broadcasting and its signal has been forever banished to the cold, heartless silence of outer space.

The reasons for its demise are many and well documented by the Enid News and Eagle. 

The newspaper recounts the long history of infractions committed by the ownership of the station and I am sure the rescission of their license was carefully considered by the FCC and unfortunately unavoidable. As for me, I don’t give a feather or a flying fig for the laws and regulations that led to The Rocket’s demise. All I know is a valuable musical resource is no longer available in Enid, and our community is the poorer for it.

Counter to the current corporate radio playlists, The Rocket played a wide ranging variety of music, albeit within the classic rock format. KRXO 107.7, the major classic rock station in Oklahoma, seems limited to the same one, two, or three thousand predictable warhorses of the 1970s and 1980s, concentrating on mainstream rock radio hits. KEIF often played somewhat lesser known tracks by those same stars and occasionally mixed in artists that lamestream radio ignores. The day before the axe fell, I heard them play Robert Palmer. Not Addicted to Love or Bad Case of Loving You (written by Altus native Moon Martin), but one of Lowell George’s best compositions, Sailing Shoes, segueing into the Palmer penned Hey, Julia, seamlessly followed by the Allen Toussaint classic Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley. It was nine and a half minutes of radio rapture cranked up to eleven.

To incompletely quote Sir Elton John,

“And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find”

a station as much fun to listen to as the late, great KEIF 104.7, The Rocket.

Not to mention that we will probably never hear a Gospel weather forecast ever again.

I got the all-night laundromat blues ...

I got the all-night laundromat blues……

Joe Walsh leaves Kent State University to join The James Gang just a year before “tin soldiers and Nixon coming.” The power trio releases “Yer’ Album” in 1969, followed by “Rides Again” a year later and “Thirds” in 1971. Singles “Funk #49” from the second album and “Walk Away” from the third barely make the charts but both LP’s go gold. Both songs are now recognized for their groundbreaking guitar riffs and heard daily in classic rock formats around the globe.
Walsh launches his solo career with "Barnstorm" in 1972, followed in 1973 by "The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get" featuring the monster hit “Rocky Mountain Way.” This establishes him as a major star.
Everything gels on the 1975 release "So What." Guitar work, vocals, production, and arrangements all come together in one of the finest rock albums ever. “Welcome to the Club,” “Falling Down,” and the reimagining of “Turn to Stone” from "Barnstorm" are as good as rock gets. Need more proof? Check out “Welcome to the Club.”



In this same year, knowing guitar genius when they hear it, The Eagles recruit him to replace founding guitarist Bernie Leadon just in time for "Hotel California."
Joe Walsh maintains his career outside The Eagles and scores his last major solo hit in 1978 with the hilarious confessional “Life’s Been Good,” a deadpan take on how tough it is to be a rock star. After Linda Ronstadt’s former backup band goes from superstar to supernova in 1980, Walsh continues to tour and record on his own, rejoining The Eagles on their many comebacks.
So what is old Smokin’ Joe Walsh doing at age 65? Releasing an album of songs about his life and how he sees the world. "Analog Man" is a really good album. And like much of his work, it took a number of listenings before I figured that out (just as I had to listen to "So What" for a couple of years before I had the “ah ha!” moment.)
The title cut is geezer protest music: “Welcome to cyberspace, I’m lost in a fog, everything’s digital, I’m still analog.” “Lucky That Way” is an updated “Life’s Been Good” 30 years later. And to prove he has not lost his sense of the absurd after all these years, “Fishbone” is a moving tale set to a lumbering hard rocking beat about his girlfriend and the fishbone stuck in her throat. “Band Played On” is a riff on the Titanic and bemoans the fact that too many people can’t see the icebergs threatening the world, too many others are just ignoring the dangers around us, and too many more are lying about the fix we’re in. Glug, glug.
Watch the title cut and more at Guitar Center Sessions.
Two songs on "Analog Man" are of particular note and reflect the perspective of age and experience, maybe even approaching wisdom.In “One Day at a Time,” Walsh notes his 20 years of sobriety and celebrates the way he got sober. “I got help from something greater that me.” I can just see that meeting in the basement of some Hollywood church and somebody standing up and saying “I’m Joe, and I’m an alcoholic.”
My favorite song is “Family.” Neither sentimental nor maudlin, Joe Walsh, fantastically successful rock star, finds that what he was always looking for and what he now treasures above all else is his family.
Listen and see if this doesn’t resonate with your life. It certainly does with mine.