February 20, 2018 • 30 mins
Kristian turns the tables on country music journalist Hunter Kelly, whose love for hotels with dramatic architecture and rotating restaurants helped inspire this podcast. Also: the guys play Trade Ya, and KB answers the question "What is a bass drop, and why is it awesome?"
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, This is Christian Bush and welcome to episode three
of Geeking Out, my new podcast. Every episode is a
new person talking about what they're obsessed with that has
nothing to do with their job. The only requirement is
that they're totally geeking out on it and they want
(00:20):
to talk about it. From Kung Fu movies to Japanese whiskey,
from old Atari video games to roasting pecans, from rebuilding
old cars to collecting baseball caps. Tell me what you love,
why you love it, how you got into it, and
what makes it awesome. Every episode is presented in three chapters.
(00:40):
Chapter one, my guest and I talk about what they're
obsessed with. Chapter two is a game I call Trade Joe,
where my guest and I turn each other on to
one thing that we've discovered. And chapter three closes the
show with me talking about music that I'm currently geeking
out on and why I believe that curiosity is can
tageous and the life is better with a soundtrack. So
(01:03):
let's go Chapter one. Today's guest is the Amazing Hunter.
Kelly Hunter is a country music journalist working for Rare Country.
(01:26):
Hunter first interviewed me when sugar Land first released our
song baby Girl way back in the day. I have
never met anyone like this man. He is unforgettable and
funny enough. He was the person who actually inspired the
idea for this podcast. I caught up with him in Nashville, Tennessee,
one sunny afternoon over the summer. Why am I feeling
(01:54):
so wrong? My head's in the game, but my haunts
in this song she makes me feel so hm. Let's
get your head in the game from high school music,
Hunter Kelly, Welcome to my podcast. Welcome Christian. It's so
good to be here being interviewed by you. It's usually
the other way around. I know it's a turning of
the tables, but I like it. I love the way
that life work. Yes, tell me, tell me what you do,
(02:16):
who you are, Where are you from? Really quickly? Okay?
I am Hunter Kelly. I am a country music journalist,
reporter gad fly if you will, just about town in Nashville.
I work with Rare Country and their senior correspondent. So
I'm interviewing people like you who make the country and
western music all the time and eight love the country
(02:37):
music and grip in Birmingham, Alabama. Have lived in Nashville
for eighteen years. So as a as a you're a
journalist by trade, yes, And how long have you been
their journals? Twelve years? Twelve years? What did you do
before that college? I mean Starbucks, sen A Starbucks. Yeah, No,
(03:01):
I really found my niche with writing at when I
was at Belmont. Started writing for the paper about music,
music that I loved, and then worked into syndicated radio,
worked with Clear Channel and then ABC News, ABC Radio
for a decade. Yeah, I interviewed, Yeah, so that was
that was a hoot, you know, just covering country music
(03:23):
for ABC News, so really being a point person for
them on all things country. Got the job one four
kind of crazy, kind of felt, yeah, I grew up there.
Now here we are. What are you into? I'm into
hotels across America that have dramatic architecture or that have
historical significance. So it's really every trip I go on,
(03:46):
I tried to stay at a hotel that includes that
falls into that or go visit them. So yeah, I
mean it's really like I'm a hotel tourist. I guess
how long has this been going on? Well? Picture it
not teen ninety, not nine. Atlanta, Georgia, where you're from. UM.
(04:09):
We stayed at the Hightt Regency in at downtown Atlanta,
and UM it was a memorable trip because I loved
just staying at I had expensive taste as a child
growing up growing up in Alabama. Favorite TV show was
Dallas loved like Robin Leach, lifestyle is rich and famous.
So the High Regency in Atlanta is a very dramatic
(04:29):
hotel and it was very high end. Um it's still
a very nice hotel, but in my mind it was
like the Palace. So the atriums, Yeah, the atrium is
twenty two stories, goes straight up. It was the first
one um that John Portman, who's very important architect, designed.
(04:51):
It goes all the way up, so it's just a
very dramatic lobby, very tall, and then at the top
it has a rotating bar and restaurant, which is the
hallmark of these Higher Regencies. This was the first one.
So you go up into on the roof and have
a three sixty degree with you with the city. So
(05:12):
this was the first one that John Portman did. And
now there are these old high some of them have
been changed with the Higher Regency. That was a real
calling card for them to have a dramatic atrium restaurant.
It does. Yeah, the Marriott, the Marriott, graand Marquis and
Downtindantly and across the street really looks like you're inside
(05:36):
a spaceship. It's kind of the same idea, except it
goes up forty stories, but it really looks like some
kind of alien ship that you're on, so much so
that it was I think it was used in the
Hunger Games. Yeah, everything in Atlanta. But this is really
I mean, it's just really dramatic. So how many of
(05:57):
these have you seen? I mean, do you make it
a point to it? I do, make it a pen
and how do you do you document it somehow? Well,
there's actually a list on Wikipedia, which is my you know,
as a newsman, it's my official news source. I always
say so trustworthy. Um, but they actually have a list
of I mean the rotating the rotating restaurants and bars
(06:19):
is really what we've started going across the country collecting.
So there's actually one in um Florence, Alabama, UM at
the Marriott property there. Yeah, and there's one in downtown Nashville.
They basically built the Sheraton used to open as a
higher regency in downtown Nashville, and so it's got that
really dramatic open atreya and that goes all the way up,
(06:40):
so it's really stunning when you look up. But the
there's a rotating restaurant at the top right here in
our hometown, but it's been shut down because of health
code reasons. I've looked into it several times and was
actually friends with the manager over there, who's moved to
another hotel since here in Nashville, but he said that's why.
But UM give her sneak up the no and always
(07:02):
meant to. It's one of those things I've called about it.
I've posted about it on YouTube, but I've never snuck
up there. But I do understand that you can rent
it out for private party. So everybody I know with money,
I'm like, why don't you you have an anniversary coming up?
Why don't you write that out so I can go
up and see this rotating um rotating restaurant. Motael dallas Um.
(07:24):
That was a two for really the High Regency. They
see Him awards were in dallas Um a few years ago.
So went out there and the High Regency downtown is
featured dramatically in the opening of my favorite television show Dallas,
so I had to stay there. And there is a
Wolfgang Puck restaurant that rotates. Um, there's the Reunion Tower
(07:47):
ball next to the High Regency in downtown Dallas, and
that rotates a lovely experience. It's a Wolfgang Puck property.
And UM. I was just watching a TV show UM
this past weekend about the Erie Canal and they showed Rochester,
New York, and I spotted what looked like a rotating
(08:08):
restaurants and like, well, I gotta go to Rochester flying
in and out of go to Tampa, Florida. Fly to Tampa,
Florida every year for vacation, and the hotel at um
the Tampa airport, well, it's shut down. I wonder why
they shut down. I don't know. We don't want to
go rot It's one of those wonderful things. Yeah, we
(08:31):
used to get dressed up to go. Yeah. Well that's
that's the that's that's part of why I love these
hotels like the Hyatt's that just seems so and that
are that are maintained, but that it's like a portal
into a past era. It's like you're on like a
PanAm flight with like these fabulous outfits in a full
meal and just we're like in a you know, a
(08:53):
fabulous Cadillac from the sixties or seventies. It's just really
the higher regencies, what they were doing with those was
really taking travel like up a notch from the Howard
Johnson too luxury hotels in a new way beyond like
the old school hotels like the Drake and UM, the
Fairmont in San Francisco, the Drake and Chicago, which I
(09:15):
got to stay at UM both of those last year
as well. So it was like, well the hotel the
Fairmont in Hotel was actually used in the TV show
Hotel Connie selicon James Brolin. It's an Aaron Spelling show
on ABC. So every time I go into a night
really nice hotel at home, or sing the theme song
(09:36):
to hotel, so actually sing the theme song to hotel
in Dona Na No, no, no, very dramatic. Yeah, that's awesome.
(09:58):
Yeah in the hot Springs. No, let's talk about a gem. Yeah. Well,
and that that's like the Drake as well. It's really
really well maintained, but the walls were so paper thin.
We were in a room and we were just quietly
about eleven thirty four of us listening to a living
(10:21):
Newton John like you do at eleven thirty at the
Drake and the the hotel security was called upon us
because they said we were too loud. But it was quiet.
I mean, calm down. I think it might have been
magic from the Zanna Do soundtrack. It wasn't crazy, you know,
it was. Yeah. So those walls are paper thin. And
(10:41):
you know, when you get those hotels like that Regency
that were built in the sixties and seventies, I mean
they're a pretty good insulation. That hotel, the High Regency.
The first time we stayed at it in eight nine, though,
we were there for Atlanta Braves game, and so my
dad freaked out because they were playing the Dodgers and
the Dodgers were staying there. So we met Commula Sorda, Um,
(11:02):
Darryl Strawberry. I was probably seven or eight at the
time and did not care at all, but Dad used
me to go meet these people. So I was this guy.
So yeah, So I mean my first time going in there, um,
I just remember, you know that was a UNIX seen
celebrities seeing famous people in this dramatic hotel. I mean
(11:23):
it made a really dramatic impression, and um, yeah, just
fascinated ever since. I went to Kansas City a few
weeks ago and stated at what was the Higher Regency there?
It's now a Sheraton, but then they had a I
believe it was a Western attached to it. So it's
all this big complex and um, there was an indoor
garden at the west end that it was like the sixties.
(11:47):
I mean it had to be seventy two, I think
early seventies, and it was just untouched. I mean you
feel like you're on the set of Three Company or something.
It's just it's just great. You know. So have you
traveled be on the cities? Have you going to like
the Berkshire's or any of these places where you know
there's going to be some preserved places like I know
there's some places in Michigan, you know, and like a
(12:10):
dirty dancing resort kind of like have you ever have
you ever put your foot into that world? No? I haven't.
And usually it's because when we go to a city,
there's a reason, like an artist we want to see
playing there, um, or a place that my boyfriend wants
to go, right. Yeah, So I'm piggybacking like, oh, what
(12:33):
hotels can I see there? Um? Do you have any
that are on your list right now that you haven't
seen it? You're pretty excited? Well really Miami, I mean Miami. Um, yeah,
I think the Fountain Blue just because, um, it's one
of those places I've I keep looking at and I
mean to go, but there hasn't been. Let's go to Miami,
(12:56):
you know kind of thing. But you know the the
whole thing. I mean in dream Girls they made their
debut at the Fountain Blue. Was it the Fountain Blue?
We'll say it was for these purposes, but also in
The Bodyguard, you know, Rachel Mayor and the Big Rachel
when it explodes some you know, the Fountain bl I
love that. It's somewhere there's the ven diagram of movies
(13:17):
that you love and hotels that yeah, they overlap. That's
a really that's a really big big part of it.
You had to if you had to, if they were
going to film a movie of your life and there
was gonna be an hotel in it, what were they, Oh, well,
that would probably be the wind Free Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama,
(13:38):
which is now a higher Regency incidentally, Uh, it's attached
to the mall, the River Chase Galleria. So yeah, I
just had a lot of memorable stuff go down in
the wind Free Hotel. Um, it was really you know,
going to the mall, it was a big deal. But
also this hotel was really nice and so uh several
(13:59):
things are remember about the Winfrey Hotel growing up. When
I was the Fox six Star Student of the Week
for Gardener High School and the local Fox affiliate, they
had the gala there at the Winfrey Hotel. This is
my senior year of high school. And there was a
news anchor I always wanted to meet named Janet Hall
still on Fox six, the affiliate, and so I finally
got to meet her and that meant a lot to
(14:22):
me for reasons that I don't want to get into
because we'll never stop talking. Also, my meme all was
in the Miss Alabama Nursing Home pageant representing Handsful Nursing
Home about two thousand and so she was, I mean
it's theme. It was at the Winfrey Hotel in the
ballroom and that so um. Also the first time I
really connected with Nammi Judge from the Judds was in
(14:44):
the lobby of the Free Hotel from the Nami Judd
of the Judd Spain was in the lobby. She was
speaking there at the at the hotel, and I met
her in the lobby and have my first meaningful exchange
with That was my first meaningful ex change with the
jud What what would you mind? What was it? The
(15:04):
exchange that was some meaningful? Well, it was just really
about connecting with her um a little bit and telling
her about my love for the Juds and how much
the I mean, the Juds are really foundational for me musically.
So I had her signed the box set, sign a
tour program and also signed a photograph I got in
the year before at their fan club party here in Nashville.
(15:26):
So I still you weren't talking at all in the lobby,
almost girming from dear life. And this was before I mean,
did she did she make sure to sign your name
love to hunt Her so that you can't sell it.
I wouldn't want to know. I'm just saying, yeah, love
(15:46):
to hunt her. Love to hunt her is how it went.
I love it. Yeah. So the Winfrey Hotel and it's
still there. I actually went there two weeks ago for
the first time in a long time. And the thing
about hotels when I'm going and exploring that can really
rob them joys. Happened twice to me this year is
(16:07):
when there are weird ass comic book conventions going on. Well,
I'll tell you what. Oh my gosh, well I'll tell
you this. Um, I know that the all of the
Atlanta hotels that you talk about, um, mostly I see
them now when I go to weird ass comic So
(16:29):
when I was there just completely full. They're they're full,
and so I'm trying to enjoy the architecture and or
the nostalgia and just live in this time period of
the sixties and seventies. And then there are all these weirds.
What's not storm it's also furries, which has a whole
sexual component that's weird. And yeah, you really do so
(16:55):
I just really should start calling ahead and being like, Hi,
I would like to create a fantasy for myself. Are
there any weird ass furry conventions this weekend? So maybe
that's a thing. Is it a thing? Do you? Because
I do this sometimes, but I wonder if you do
it when you walk around these hotels and there's a
(17:17):
convention and all that you're trying to guess what the
convention is because usually it's not on the badge, you know,
it's usually not broadcast because they're usually servicing two or
three at a times. Yeah yeah, yeah radio like yeah,
well you have phone with those. Um you know the
a brilliant hotel which is massive here in Nashville. They
(17:40):
have conventions all the time. And in college we used
to would would go crash like the parties, Like we
crashed the radio check party, UM corporate party at the
Opperland Hotel. And my friend Kelly, who I grew up with,
who's just insane. She led them all inline dancing and
it was just really fun. But I don't know why,
(18:01):
just usually don't. I'm not I'm not as interested in
what conventions are there. I want to go back in time.
So do you ever find yourself do you ever find
yourself dressing of the period or or taking a suitcase
from that period? Like like is that where it's coming from? No, No,
(18:24):
you just want to stand in the middle of it.
I just want to stay in there. Oh yeah, I
mean they're well documented on the Instagram. And then I
got this NASS Canon camera. We were this year that
um I did we stayed at the Peabody earlier this year.
It took a lot of great photos of the Peabody
in Memphis with the ducks. Ducks, they come out and
they come out. Yeah, which you know, the Peabody is
a grand, grand hotel. So are you a fan of
(18:47):
the of the bellman and the concierge and all the
people who work in these hotels? Yeah? I mean that's
one of the things I've been meaning to get a recently,
and I want to get a book on hotel management,
and I think that's so alluring. But then I realized, oh,
but that would involve working with people, which takes all
the sexy out of it, And so I don't want
to get too far down that rabbit hole of actually
(19:09):
working in a hotel, you know, but I do love
vaguely the concept. So if you were someone's listening to
this and then really never thought they were staying at
and they wanted to dive into our Kelly land of
classic hotels, what would you start them on? I want,
(19:30):
I guess just I think the higher regency chain and
like looking at the hotels, um, if you go to
a city and you notice a hotel, tall hotel with
an atrium and a spaceship on the top. That was
a Higher Regency. M I've seen them in Fort Lauderdale.
They're out in California. They really took that design and
(19:50):
ran with it. So I think, you know, it's one
of those things. Just keep an eyeut when you're in
a city. There's one in Louisville. Like we pulled into
Louisville a few years ago for a show and was
on a tour bus and I called. I saw it
and called, so find out the hotel. Call see if
it's open. You know, go. It's just a fun thing
and you'll you'll see them out there. It's still still
(20:10):
do you do leave anything behind or take anything from
each point? Like how do you have any picture? Well,
one of the things with the higher regencies, it's very interesting.
A friend of mine just bought me. This will time
to you being from the Knoxville area for the high
it's now I think it's a Marriott, but it's the
one downtown in Knoxville that was a Higher Regency and
(20:31):
all of the highatt Regency hotels back when they actually
had a key have the key ring and its um
bronze and it has then imprint of the hotel structure
on it, so I think high it's bringing it back.
The Higher Regency in Atlanta just had a remodel and
the chicken desk the back of the back wall behind
(20:54):
the check in desk is these keys just replicas of
these keys, so they're those exist. So I think, really
it would be that, But that's more of an eBay thing.
I think with it with from these hotels, I just
take my photos and my memories like National Park. Yes, well,
(21:15):
thank you for beating here. Thanks, it's been weird. Yeah,
that's that's the whole idea. Chapter two. In every episode
of Geeking Out, I see if I can trade one
thing I've discovered with one thing that my guest has discovered,
a friendly exchange. I call it trade you. I trade
(21:36):
you one thing that I've discovered or I'm just into
like a song or a Netflix show or something, and
you you trade me back something small. Because you were
just talking about hotel I'll go first, because you're just
talking about hotel rooms. Um, there's a thing that the
band Queens and stone Age started that you might enjoy
(21:58):
here in this and what it is is they are
secret hotel wall art. So what they started doing because
they travel around so much. My brother turned me on
to this is they started taking tools with them and
the tools were like a screwdriver and a bunch of
paint pens and they will take down the art in
(22:21):
a hotel room from the wall and draw new art
behind it and then put it back up. They started
it an arts festival in Joshua Tree and they would
do people's rooms. I'm showing. So they take off the
painting off the wall and then they paint something behind it,
(22:42):
and then they put the painting back on. So it says,
if you're you're leaving a little secret for the next
person that stays in the room. And the reason that
I think that this would be important to you is
because I've always had this weird superstition that and I
think it's just from too many Tom Waite's songs that, Um,
when you sleep in a hotel room, you take on
the dreams of the person before you, right, And that's
(23:04):
a weird superstition. I've had my whole life as a songwriter. Um,
but this when my brother turned me onto it. We
were we were leaving messages for each other because he
was in the band Train and sugar Land was on
tour and we were both doing amphitheaters, so backstage we
were only two or three days away from each other.
So we would leave things for each other behind the
(23:25):
like the mirrors or under the desk and the production
office or whatever, and Briannon would get him a couple
of days later and he would do the same for me. Well,
pretty soon after that he called me and he said, man,
I gotta get you some paint pens. And I said why,
he goes, because I want you to look for my robot.
And he started making this one particular robot that he
would draw and put behind the the the pictures in
(23:50):
the hotel room where train was vandalized. Hotel rooms, Well yeah,
but I mean, you're never gonna be able to figure
it out which ones, But Slash I gotta do is
pa go over it. But if you just go online
and you and you it's hidden hotel wall art is
what you go. Look. Have you ever found one of
his world pots? I have, but he told me we're
(24:11):
one okay, in the same hotel room. Uh yeah. I
asked for a particular room and went to it because
I didn't know if it was like for real and
uh yeah, I think it's even cooler that in some
of this research was you know, the lead singer from
Quenton stone Age that started this. I love that. So
(24:32):
there you go. That's your treat. I love it. What
I have for you is the classic TV series Roseanne. Okay,
I am growing up identified with Roseanne a lot. I
grew up in Alabama, but they were aggressively lower middle class,
and so I love the humor of the show, but
(24:53):
it was something like I just wanted to escape that.
Hence I'm going to these nice hotels that I always
loved to go to. I wanted the opulent lie. So
now I think that we are living in Trump's America.
In um, ABC is actually bringing Roseanne back for ten
episodes with the original cast, both Becky's I think. But
(25:14):
they're gonna they're gonna weigh it towards Lessie Garranson, Garrison Garranson.
I don't know anyway, So but going back and watching it,
and especially I have the box set um a few
years ago at a Walmart, I found for thirty dollars
the entire series of Roseanne eight or nine. So it's
a lot of DVDs have not really spent a kids
(25:36):
time with it. The kids grow up. But what's really
illuminating is watching the episodes where Roseanne is sitting there
explaining why certain storylines happened. So the one season is, um,
they lose Dan, her husband loses his bike shop, and
they're both out of a job, and so they were
(25:57):
really tackling the recession that was happening in any one
during the Bush years head on um and then talking
about like the college fund going away, she was like,
I really that was happening. I wanted to address that.
Also as a homosexual in Alabama, I um was like,
there are a lot of gay people in Landford, Illinois.
(26:19):
On Roseanne, you know, because you had Martin Mule's character
who ran the ran the rod Bell's lunch counter, which
I love a lunch counter. And uh, then Nancy played
by Sandrew Bernhardt turned out to be a lesbian with
Morgan Fairchild. And the reason that she had too she
(26:39):
wanted two gay characters on the show because both her
brother and sister were gay. Roseanne's brother and sister are gay. Yeah,
So it's just all this stuff that she was seeing
from her life that she poured directly into the show.
Like her daughter, Um was a vegetarian and they had
these big drag outs about eating meat, and so she
(27:00):
just made Darling a vegetarian and that played out over
the course of the show. Roseanne bar write all those
songs really really involved in how they went down, and
so it's just really, Um, I had no idea. Yeah,
it's just a really solid show and I'm in binging
it and how does it hold up? Three in a row,
four and rows? It feels timely and if it feels timely,
(27:23):
but also just really really funny and I feel like
I know these people, you know in a way. Um, yeah,
so the TV show rose Ane. Okay, start quoting Roseanne
in my two weeks. It's totally your fault. All right,
We'll get you some paint pens for Christmas. Thank you, alright,
(27:44):
thank you for being here. Chapter three me geeking out
on music this week, Big Boy and bass drops. What
is a bass drop? And why is it awesome? Have
you ever heard the moment it where the band suddenly
stops during the recording of your favorite song and when
(28:04):
they break back in, the hair in your arm stands
up and suddenly you feel like jumping up and down
back in the day, we called it a breakdown now
and as a new dame the drop in e d
M electronic dance music. One of the coolest conventions that
the artists used to make people cry with the motion
(28:24):
has been this majestic layering and adding of sounds and
rhythms to build tension and then releasing the tension. The
song and sounds build and build, going higher and higher
until you can't help but feel the anticipation of the
release when rhythm the vase finally come back in. So
(28:48):
I am obsessed with Big boys new album, Boom Reverse,
and I've been wearing it out lately. Big Boys one
half of the Atlanta hip hop band Outcast, and this
is his second solo album. I love him solo, and
I love his band because they've always seemed fearless to me.
I love how they absorbed the influences from anywhere and
everywhere around him. So one track in particular on Boomer Verse,
(29:11):
called Chocolate, seems that it has absorbed some of this
a d M convention. Turns out, Big Boy had d
JAY residency at the Wind Hotel in Vegas in sixteen,
and so you can hear how he has built the
drop into the perfect place in chocolate. I felt go
(29:37):
pick up boomer Verse, downloaded by it, stream it turned
someone else onto it, and next time you hear a
dance song, listen for the job. I hope you enjoyed
this episode of Geeking Out and we are already hard
at work on the next one. Are you obsessed with
(29:58):
something amazing? I want to tell us a out. It
right to us at Geeking Out with KB at gmail
dot com and you might be a guest on an
upcoming episode. Come find out more about me and this
podcast at Christian Bush dot com, Christian with a K
people follow me at Christian Bush on Twitter, Christian Bush
on Instagram, Christian Bush on Facebook, and Christian M. Bush
(30:21):
on Snapchat. Thanks to Bobby Bones for the opportunity to
make this podcast, Brian and Bush for making the soundtrack
and assembling the pieces, Tom Tapley for audio wizardry, and
Whitney Pastrick for being a great producer and making this
whole thing possible. This is Christian Bush Geeking Out. Thank
you for listening.
Hello, This is Christian Bush and welcome to episode three
of Geeking Out, my new podcast. Every episode is a
new person talking about what they're obsessed with that has
nothing to do with their job. The only requirement is
that they're totally geeking out on it and they want
(00:20):
to talk about it. From Kung Fu movies to Japanese whiskey,
from old Atari video games to roasting pecans, from rebuilding
old cars to collecting baseball caps. Tell me what you love,
why you love it, how you got into it, and
what makes it awesome. Every episode is presented in three chapters.
(00:40):
Chapter one, my guest and I talk about what they're
obsessed with. Chapter two is a game I call Trade Joe,
where my guest and I turn each other on to
one thing that we've discovered. And chapter three closes the
show with me talking about music that I'm currently geeking
out on and why I believe that curiosity is can
tageous and the life is better with a soundtrack. So
(01:03):
let's go Chapter one. Today's guest is the Amazing Hunter.
Kelly Hunter is a country music journalist working for Rare Country.
(01:26):
Hunter first interviewed me when sugar Land first released our
song baby Girl way back in the day. I have
never met anyone like this man. He is unforgettable and
funny enough. He was the person who actually inspired the
idea for this podcast. I caught up with him in Nashville, Tennessee,
one sunny afternoon over the summer. Why am I feeling
(01:54):
so wrong? My head's in the game, but my haunts
in this song she makes me feel so hm. Let's
get your head in the game from high school music,
Hunter Kelly, Welcome to my podcast. Welcome Christian. It's so
good to be here being interviewed by you. It's usually
the other way around. I know it's a turning of
the tables, but I like it. I love the way
that life work. Yes, tell me, tell me what you do,
(02:16):
who you are, Where are you from? Really quickly? Okay?
I am Hunter Kelly. I am a country music journalist,
reporter gad fly if you will, just about town in Nashville.
I work with Rare Country and their senior correspondent. So
I'm interviewing people like you who make the country and
western music all the time and eight love the country
(02:37):
music and grip in Birmingham, Alabama. Have lived in Nashville
for eighteen years. So as a as a you're a
journalist by trade, yes, And how long have you been
their journals? Twelve years? Twelve years? What did you do
before that college? I mean Starbucks, sen A Starbucks. Yeah, No,
(03:01):
I really found my niche with writing at when I
was at Belmont. Started writing for the paper about music,
music that I loved, and then worked into syndicated radio,
worked with Clear Channel and then ABC News, ABC Radio
for a decade. Yeah, I interviewed, Yeah, so that was
that was a hoot, you know, just covering country music
(03:23):
for ABC News, so really being a point person for
them on all things country. Got the job one four
kind of crazy, kind of felt, yeah, I grew up there.
Now here we are. What are you into? I'm into
hotels across America that have dramatic architecture or that have
historical significance. So it's really every trip I go on,
(03:46):
I tried to stay at a hotel that includes that
falls into that or go visit them. So yeah, I
mean it's really like I'm a hotel tourist. I guess
how long has this been going on? Well? Picture it
not teen ninety, not nine. Atlanta, Georgia, where you're from. UM.
(04:09):
We stayed at the Hightt Regency in at downtown Atlanta,
and UM it was a memorable trip because I loved
just staying at I had expensive taste as a child
growing up growing up in Alabama. Favorite TV show was
Dallas loved like Robin Leach, lifestyle is rich and famous.
So the High Regency in Atlanta is a very dramatic
(04:29):
hotel and it was very high end. Um it's still
a very nice hotel, but in my mind it was
like the Palace. So the atriums, Yeah, the atrium is
twenty two stories, goes straight up. It was the first
one um that John Portman, who's very important architect, designed.
(04:51):
It goes all the way up, so it's just a
very dramatic lobby, very tall, and then at the top
it has a rotating bar and restaurant, which is the
hallmark of these Higher Regencies. This was the first one.
So you go up into on the roof and have
a three sixty degree with you with the city. So
(05:12):
this was the first one that John Portman did. And
now there are these old high some of them have
been changed with the Higher Regency. That was a real
calling card for them to have a dramatic atrium restaurant.
It does. Yeah, the Marriott, the Marriott, graand Marquis and
Downtindantly and across the street really looks like you're inside
(05:36):
a spaceship. It's kind of the same idea, except it
goes up forty stories, but it really looks like some
kind of alien ship that you're on, so much so
that it was I think it was used in the
Hunger Games. Yeah, everything in Atlanta. But this is really
I mean, it's just really dramatic. So how many of
(05:57):
these have you seen? I mean, do you make it
a point to it? I do, make it a pen
and how do you do you document it somehow? Well,
there's actually a list on Wikipedia, which is my you know,
as a newsman, it's my official news source. I always
say so trustworthy. Um, but they actually have a list
of I mean the rotating the rotating restaurants and bars
(06:19):
is really what we've started going across the country collecting.
So there's actually one in um Florence, Alabama, UM at
the Marriott property there. Yeah, and there's one in downtown Nashville.
They basically built the Sheraton used to open as a
higher regency in downtown Nashville, and so it's got that
really dramatic open atreya and that goes all the way up,
(06:40):
so it's really stunning when you look up. But the
there's a rotating restaurant at the top right here in
our hometown, but it's been shut down because of health
code reasons. I've looked into it several times and was
actually friends with the manager over there, who's moved to
another hotel since here in Nashville, but he said that's why.
But UM give her sneak up the no and always
(07:02):
meant to. It's one of those things I've called about it.
I've posted about it on YouTube, but I've never snuck
up there. But I do understand that you can rent
it out for private party. So everybody I know with money,
I'm like, why don't you you have an anniversary coming up?
Why don't you write that out so I can go
up and see this rotating um rotating restaurant. Motael dallas Um.
(07:24):
That was a two for really the High Regency. They
see Him awards were in dallas Um a few years ago.
So went out there and the High Regency downtown is
featured dramatically in the opening of my favorite television show Dallas,
so I had to stay there. And there is a
Wolfgang Puck restaurant that rotates. Um, there's the Reunion Tower
(07:47):
ball next to the High Regency in downtown Dallas, and
that rotates a lovely experience. It's a Wolfgang Puck property.
And UM. I was just watching a TV show UM
this past weekend about the Erie Canal and they showed Rochester,
New York, and I spotted what looked like a rotating
(08:08):
restaurants and like, well, I gotta go to Rochester flying
in and out of go to Tampa, Florida. Fly to Tampa,
Florida every year for vacation, and the hotel at um
the Tampa airport, well, it's shut down. I wonder why
they shut down. I don't know. We don't want to
go rot It's one of those wonderful things. Yeah, we
(08:31):
used to get dressed up to go. Yeah. Well that's
that's the that's that's part of why I love these
hotels like the Hyatt's that just seems so and that
are that are maintained, but that it's like a portal
into a past era. It's like you're on like a
PanAm flight with like these fabulous outfits in a full
meal and just we're like in a you know, a
(08:53):
fabulous Cadillac from the sixties or seventies. It's just really
the higher regencies, what they were doing with those was
really taking travel like up a notch from the Howard
Johnson too luxury hotels in a new way beyond like
the old school hotels like the Drake and UM, the
Fairmont in San Francisco, the Drake and Chicago, which I
(09:15):
got to stay at UM both of those last year
as well. So it was like, well the hotel the
Fairmont in Hotel was actually used in the TV show
Hotel Connie selicon James Brolin. It's an Aaron Spelling show
on ABC. So every time I go into a night
really nice hotel at home, or sing the theme song
(09:36):
to hotel, so actually sing the theme song to hotel
in Dona Na No, no, no, very dramatic. Yeah, that's awesome.
(09:58):
Yeah in the hot Springs. No, let's talk about a gem. Yeah. Well,
and that that's like the Drake as well. It's really
really well maintained, but the walls were so paper thin.
We were in a room and we were just quietly
about eleven thirty four of us listening to a living
(10:21):
Newton John like you do at eleven thirty at the
Drake and the the hotel security was called upon us
because they said we were too loud. But it was quiet.
I mean, calm down. I think it might have been
magic from the Zanna Do soundtrack. It wasn't crazy, you know,
it was. Yeah. So those walls are paper thin. And
(10:41):
you know, when you get those hotels like that Regency
that were built in the sixties and seventies, I mean
they're a pretty good insulation. That hotel, the High Regency.
The first time we stayed at it in eight nine, though,
we were there for Atlanta Braves game, and so my
dad freaked out because they were playing the Dodgers and
the Dodgers were staying there. So we met Commula Sorda, Um,
(11:02):
Darryl Strawberry. I was probably seven or eight at the
time and did not care at all, but Dad used
me to go meet these people. So I was this guy.
So yeah, So I mean my first time going in there, um,
I just remember, you know that was a UNIX seen
celebrities seeing famous people in this dramatic hotel. I mean
(11:23):
it made a really dramatic impression, and um, yeah, just
fascinated ever since. I went to Kansas City a few
weeks ago and stated at what was the Higher Regency there?
It's now a Sheraton, but then they had a I
believe it was a Western attached to it. So it's
all this big complex and um, there was an indoor
garden at the west end that it was like the sixties.
(11:47):
I mean it had to be seventy two, I think
early seventies, and it was just untouched. I mean you
feel like you're on the set of Three Company or something.
It's just it's just great. You know. So have you
traveled be on the cities? Have you going to like
the Berkshire's or any of these places where you know
there's going to be some preserved places like I know
there's some places in Michigan, you know, and like a
(12:10):
dirty dancing resort kind of like have you ever have
you ever put your foot into that world? No? I haven't.
And usually it's because when we go to a city,
there's a reason, like an artist we want to see
playing there, um, or a place that my boyfriend wants
to go, right. Yeah, So I'm piggybacking like, oh, what
(12:33):
hotels can I see there? Um? Do you have any
that are on your list right now that you haven't
seen it? You're pretty excited? Well really Miami, I mean Miami. Um, yeah,
I think the Fountain Blue just because, um, it's one
of those places I've I keep looking at and I
mean to go, but there hasn't been. Let's go to Miami,
(12:56):
you know kind of thing. But you know the the
whole thing. I mean in dream Girls they made their
debut at the Fountain Blue. Was it the Fountain Blue?
We'll say it was for these purposes, but also in
The Bodyguard, you know, Rachel Mayor and the Big Rachel
when it explodes some you know, the Fountain bl I
love that. It's somewhere there's the ven diagram of movies
(13:17):
that you love and hotels that yeah, they overlap. That's
a really that's a really big big part of it.
You had to if you had to, if they were
going to film a movie of your life and there
was gonna be an hotel in it, what were they, Oh, well,
that would probably be the wind Free Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama,
(13:38):
which is now a higher Regency incidentally, Uh, it's attached
to the mall, the River Chase Galleria. So yeah, I
just had a lot of memorable stuff go down in
the wind Free Hotel. Um, it was really you know,
going to the mall, it was a big deal. But
also this hotel was really nice and so uh several
(13:59):
things are remember about the Winfrey Hotel growing up. When
I was the Fox six Star Student of the Week
for Gardener High School and the local Fox affiliate, they
had the gala there at the Winfrey Hotel. This is
my senior year of high school. And there was a
news anchor I always wanted to meet named Janet Hall
still on Fox six, the affiliate, and so I finally
got to meet her and that meant a lot to
(14:22):
me for reasons that I don't want to get into
because we'll never stop talking. Also, my meme all was
in the Miss Alabama Nursing Home pageant representing Handsful Nursing
Home about two thousand and so she was, I mean
it's theme. It was at the Winfrey Hotel in the
ballroom and that so um. Also the first time I
really connected with Nammi Judge from the Judds was in
(14:44):
the lobby of the Free Hotel from the Nami Judd
of the Judd Spain was in the lobby. She was
speaking there at the at the hotel, and I met
her in the lobby and have my first meaningful exchange
with That was my first meaningful ex change with the
jud What what would you mind? What was it? The
(15:04):
exchange that was some meaningful? Well, it was just really
about connecting with her um a little bit and telling
her about my love for the Juds and how much
the I mean, the Juds are really foundational for me musically.
So I had her signed the box set, sign a
tour program and also signed a photograph I got in
the year before at their fan club party here in Nashville.
(15:26):
So I still you weren't talking at all in the lobby,
almost girming from dear life. And this was before I mean,
did she did she make sure to sign your name
love to hunt Her so that you can't sell it.
I wouldn't want to know. I'm just saying, yeah, love
(15:46):
to hunt her. Love to hunt her is how it went.
I love it. Yeah. So the Winfrey Hotel and it's
still there. I actually went there two weeks ago for
the first time in a long time. And the thing
about hotels when I'm going and exploring that can really
rob them joys. Happened twice to me this year is
(16:07):
when there are weird ass comic book conventions going on. Well,
I'll tell you what. Oh my gosh, well I'll tell
you this. Um, I know that the all of the
Atlanta hotels that you talk about, um, mostly I see
them now when I go to weird ass comic So
(16:29):
when I was there just completely full. They're they're full,
and so I'm trying to enjoy the architecture and or
the nostalgia and just live in this time period of
the sixties and seventies. And then there are all these weirds.
What's not storm it's also furries, which has a whole
sexual component that's weird. And yeah, you really do so
(16:55):
I just really should start calling ahead and being like, Hi,
I would like to create a fantasy for myself. Are
there any weird ass furry conventions this weekend? So maybe
that's a thing. Is it a thing? Do you? Because
I do this sometimes, but I wonder if you do
it when you walk around these hotels and there's a
(17:17):
convention and all that you're trying to guess what the
convention is because usually it's not on the badge, you know,
it's usually not broadcast because they're usually servicing two or
three at a times. Yeah yeah, yeah radio like yeah,
well you have phone with those. Um you know the
a brilliant hotel which is massive here in Nashville. They
(17:40):
have conventions all the time. And in college we used
to would would go crash like the parties, Like we
crashed the radio check party, UM corporate party at the
Opperland Hotel. And my friend Kelly, who I grew up with,
who's just insane. She led them all inline dancing and
it was just really fun. But I don't know why,
(18:01):
just usually don't. I'm not I'm not as interested in
what conventions are there. I want to go back in time.
So do you ever find yourself do you ever find
yourself dressing of the period or or taking a suitcase
from that period? Like like is that where it's coming from? No, No,
(18:24):
you just want to stand in the middle of it.
I just want to stay in there. Oh yeah, I
mean they're well documented on the Instagram. And then I
got this NASS Canon camera. We were this year that
um I did we stayed at the Peabody earlier this year.
It took a lot of great photos of the Peabody
in Memphis with the ducks. Ducks, they come out and
they come out. Yeah, which you know, the Peabody is
a grand, grand hotel. So are you a fan of
(18:47):
the of the bellman and the concierge and all the
people who work in these hotels? Yeah? I mean that's
one of the things I've been meaning to get a recently,
and I want to get a book on hotel management,
and I think that's so alluring. But then I realized, oh,
but that would involve working with people, which takes all
the sexy out of it, And so I don't want
to get too far down that rabbit hole of actually
(19:09):
working in a hotel, you know, but I do love
vaguely the concept. So if you were someone's listening to
this and then really never thought they were staying at
and they wanted to dive into our Kelly land of
classic hotels, what would you start them on? I want,
(19:30):
I guess just I think the higher regency chain and
like looking at the hotels, um, if you go to
a city and you notice a hotel, tall hotel with
an atrium and a spaceship on the top. That was
a Higher Regency. M I've seen them in Fort Lauderdale.
They're out in California. They really took that design and
(19:50):
ran with it. So I think, you know, it's one
of those things. Just keep an eyeut when you're in
a city. There's one in Louisville. Like we pulled into
Louisville a few years ago for a show and was
on a tour bus and I called. I saw it
and called, so find out the hotel. Call see if
it's open. You know, go. It's just a fun thing
and you'll you'll see them out there. It's still still
(20:10):
do you do leave anything behind or take anything from
each point? Like how do you have any picture? Well,
one of the things with the higher regencies, it's very interesting.
A friend of mine just bought me. This will time
to you being from the Knoxville area for the high
it's now I think it's a Marriott, but it's the
one downtown in Knoxville that was a Higher Regency and
(20:31):
all of the highatt Regency hotels back when they actually
had a key have the key ring and its um
bronze and it has then imprint of the hotel structure
on it, so I think high it's bringing it back.
The Higher Regency in Atlanta just had a remodel and
the chicken desk the back of the back wall behind
(20:54):
the check in desk is these keys just replicas of
these keys, so they're those exist. So I think, really
it would be that, But that's more of an eBay thing.
I think with it with from these hotels, I just
take my photos and my memories like National Park. Yes, well,
(21:15):
thank you for beating here. Thanks, it's been weird. Yeah,
that's that's the whole idea. Chapter two. In every episode
of Geeking Out, I see if I can trade one
thing I've discovered with one thing that my guest has discovered,
a friendly exchange. I call it trade you. I trade
(21:36):
you one thing that I've discovered or I'm just into
like a song or a Netflix show or something, and
you you trade me back something small. Because you were
just talking about hotel I'll go first, because you're just
talking about hotel rooms. Um, there's a thing that the
band Queens and stone Age started that you might enjoy
(21:58):
here in this and what it is is they are
secret hotel wall art. So what they started doing because
they travel around so much. My brother turned me on
to this is they started taking tools with them and
the tools were like a screwdriver and a bunch of
paint pens and they will take down the art in
(22:21):
a hotel room from the wall and draw new art
behind it and then put it back up. They started
it an arts festival in Joshua Tree and they would
do people's rooms. I'm showing. So they take off the
painting off the wall and then they paint something behind it,
(22:42):
and then they put the painting back on. So it says,
if you're you're leaving a little secret for the next
person that stays in the room. And the reason that
I think that this would be important to you is
because I've always had this weird superstition that and I
think it's just from too many Tom Waite's songs that, Um,
when you sleep in a hotel room, you take on
the dreams of the person before you, right, And that's
(23:04):
a weird superstition. I've had my whole life as a songwriter. Um,
but this when my brother turned me onto it. We
were we were leaving messages for each other because he
was in the band Train and sugar Land was on
tour and we were both doing amphitheaters, so backstage we
were only two or three days away from each other.
So we would leave things for each other behind the
(23:25):
like the mirrors or under the desk and the production
office or whatever, and Briannon would get him a couple
of days later and he would do the same for me. Well,
pretty soon after that he called me and he said, man,
I gotta get you some paint pens. And I said why,
he goes, because I want you to look for my robot.
And he started making this one particular robot that he
would draw and put behind the the the pictures in
(23:50):
the hotel room where train was vandalized. Hotel rooms, Well yeah,
but I mean, you're never gonna be able to figure
it out which ones, But Slash I gotta do is
pa go over it. But if you just go online
and you and you it's hidden hotel wall art is
what you go. Look. Have you ever found one of
his world pots? I have, but he told me we're
(24:11):
one okay, in the same hotel room. Uh yeah. I
asked for a particular room and went to it because
I didn't know if it was like for real and
uh yeah, I think it's even cooler that in some
of this research was you know, the lead singer from
Quenton stone Age that started this. I love that. So
(24:32):
there you go. That's your treat. I love it. What
I have for you is the classic TV series Roseanne. Okay,
I am growing up identified with Roseanne a lot. I
grew up in Alabama, but they were aggressively lower middle class,
and so I love the humor of the show, but
(24:53):
it was something like I just wanted to escape that.
Hence I'm going to these nice hotels that I always
loved to go to. I wanted the opulent lie. So
now I think that we are living in Trump's America.
In um, ABC is actually bringing Roseanne back for ten
episodes with the original cast, both Becky's I think. But
(25:14):
they're gonna they're gonna weigh it towards Lessie Garranson, Garrison Garranson.
I don't know anyway, So but going back and watching it,
and especially I have the box set um a few
years ago at a Walmart, I found for thirty dollars
the entire series of Roseanne eight or nine. So it's
a lot of DVDs have not really spent a kids
(25:36):
time with it. The kids grow up. But what's really
illuminating is watching the episodes where Roseanne is sitting there
explaining why certain storylines happened. So the one season is, um,
they lose Dan, her husband loses his bike shop, and
they're both out of a job, and so they were
(25:57):
really tackling the recession that was happening in any one
during the Bush years head on um and then talking
about like the college fund going away, she was like,
I really that was happening. I wanted to address that.
Also as a homosexual in Alabama, I um was like,
there are a lot of gay people in Landford, Illinois.
(26:19):
On Roseanne, you know, because you had Martin Mule's character
who ran the ran the rod Bell's lunch counter, which
I love a lunch counter. And uh, then Nancy played
by Sandrew Bernhardt turned out to be a lesbian with
Morgan Fairchild. And the reason that she had too she
(26:39):
wanted two gay characters on the show because both her
brother and sister were gay. Roseanne's brother and sister are gay. Yeah,
So it's just all this stuff that she was seeing
from her life that she poured directly into the show.
Like her daughter, Um was a vegetarian and they had
these big drag outs about eating meat, and so she
(27:00):
just made Darling a vegetarian and that played out over
the course of the show. Roseanne bar write all those
songs really really involved in how they went down, and
so it's just really, Um, I had no idea. Yeah,
it's just a really solid show and I'm in binging
it and how does it hold up? Three in a row,
four and rows? It feels timely and if it feels timely,
(27:23):
but also just really really funny and I feel like
I know these people, you know in a way. Um, yeah,
so the TV show rose Ane. Okay, start quoting Roseanne
in my two weeks. It's totally your fault. All right,
We'll get you some paint pens for Christmas. Thank you, alright,
(27:44):
thank you for being here. Chapter three me geeking out
on music this week, Big Boy and bass drops. What
is a bass drop? And why is it awesome? Have
you ever heard the moment it where the band suddenly
stops during the recording of your favorite song and when
(28:04):
they break back in, the hair in your arm stands
up and suddenly you feel like jumping up and down
back in the day, we called it a breakdown now
and as a new dame the drop in e d
M electronic dance music. One of the coolest conventions that
the artists used to make people cry with the motion
(28:24):
has been this majestic layering and adding of sounds and
rhythms to build tension and then releasing the tension. The
song and sounds build and build, going higher and higher
until you can't help but feel the anticipation of the
release when rhythm the vase finally come back in. So
(28:48):
I am obsessed with Big boys new album, Boom Reverse,
and I've been wearing it out lately. Big Boys one
half of the Atlanta hip hop band Outcast, and this
is his second solo album. I love him solo, and
I love his band because they've always seemed fearless to me.
I love how they absorbed the influences from anywhere and
everywhere around him. So one track in particular on Boomer Verse,
(29:11):
called Chocolate, seems that it has absorbed some of this
a d M convention. Turns out, Big Boy had d
JAY residency at the Wind Hotel in Vegas in sixteen,
and so you can hear how he has built the
drop into the perfect place in chocolate. I felt go
(29:37):
pick up boomer Verse, downloaded by it, stream it turned
someone else onto it, and next time you hear a
dance song, listen for the job. I hope you enjoyed
this episode of Geeking Out and we are already hard
at work on the next one. Are you obsessed with
(29:58):
something amazing? I want to tell us a out. It
right to us at Geeking Out with KB at gmail
dot com and you might be a guest on an
upcoming episode. Come find out more about me and this
podcast at Christian Bush dot com, Christian with a K
people follow me at Christian Bush on Twitter, Christian Bush
on Instagram, Christian Bush on Facebook, and Christian M. Bush
(30:21):
on Snapchat. Thanks to Bobby Bones for the opportunity to
make this podcast, Brian and Bush for making the soundtrack
and assembling the pieces, Tom Tapley for audio wizardry, and
Whitney Pastrick for being a great producer and making this
whole thing possible. This is Christian Bush Geeking Out. Thank
you for listening.
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