The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 944: Infamous hotels and hotel rooms

March 4, 2022 Alan Cross 0 Comments

In the days before COVID, I was always on the road. If it wasn’t a music conference in Singapore, it was an interview in London, the Junos in…wherever, a TV shoot in Nashville, a meeting in New York, or a concert in Los Angeles. This means I’ve seen more than my share of hotel rooms. I’ve stayed in everyone from five-star luxury places to sub-one-star establishments that came with a complimentary dead hooker under the bed. Long story short: I’ve developed a certain attitude and opinion when it comes to hotels.

The FIRST you do when you get into any room is ditch the bedspread. They are never, ever cleaned. Just tear it off, pile it in the corner, and then wash your hands. Sitting on the couch? No thanks. I try not to imagine what’s happened there.

At night, there’s the sound of the air conditioning (often at the volume of a jet engine), the noises from the hallway, and whatever they’re doing in the room next door.

In the restaurant and the bar and the fitness room, you run into fellow guests. Who are they? What are they doing here? What’s their story? Occasionally, I’d find out–like the time I met a Nobel Prize winner who was living in this Asian hotel because he was too ill to fly home. Everyone knew him as “The Professor.”

Hotels are fascinating places where things happen that don’t happen anywhere else. Strangers come together from everywhere to do things they might not do anywhere else. No wonder so many books and TV shows and movies are set in hotels.

Here’s the segue: Rock stars spend a LOT of time on the road, meaning they’ve endured their share of hotels. And some of the rooms they stay in become part of rock’n’roll history. Let’s take a look at some of them, shall we?

Songs heard on this show:

Depeche Mode, Walking in My Shoes
INXS, Never Tear Us Apart
Manic Street Preachers, Stay Beautiful
Nirvana, Heart-Shaped Box
Soundgarden, Blow Up the Outside World
Cranberries, Ode to My Family
Sid Vicious, Bon to Lose (Live)
Oasis, Columbia

A playlist? Sure! This comes from Eric Wilhite.

The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:

We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s, and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.