Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011

by Lizzy Goodman

Overview

Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR and GQ

Joining the ranks of the classics Please Kill Me, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, an intriguing oral history of the post-9/11 decline of the old-guard music industry and rebirth of the New York rock scene, led by a group of iconoclastic rock bands.

In the second half of the twentieth-century New York was the source of new sounds, including the Greenwich Village folk scene, punk and new wave, and hip-hop. But as the end of the millennium neared, cutting-edge bands began emerging from Seattle, Austin, and London, pushing New York further from the epicenter. The behemoth music industry, too, found itself in free fall, under siege from technology. Then 9/11/2001 plunged the country into a state of uncertainty and war—and a dozen New York City bands that had been honing their sound and style in relative obscurity suddenly became symbols of glamour for a young, web-savvy, forward-looking generation in need of an anthem.

Meet Me in the Bathroom charts the transformation of the New York music scene in the first decade of the 2000s, the bands behind it—including The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, and Vampire Weekend—and the cultural forces that shaped it, from the Internet to a booming real estate market that forced artists out of the Lower East Side to Williamsburg. Drawing on 200 original interviews with James Murphy, Julian Casablancas, Karen O, Ezra Koenig, and many others musicians, artists, journalists, bloggers, photographers, managers, music executives, groupies, models, movie stars, and DJs who lived through this explosive time, journalist Lizzy Goodman offers a fascinating portrait of a time and a place that gave birth to a new era in modern rock-and-roll.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062233127
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/23/2017
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	649,653
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Lizzy Goodman is a journalist whose writing on rock and roll, fashion, and popular culture has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and NME. She is a contributing editor at ELLE and a regular contributor to New York magazine. She lives in upstate New York with her two basset hounds, Joni Mitchell and Jerry Orbach.

Table of Contents

Cast of Characters ix

Introduction: "Youth and Abandon" xiv

Part I Nostalgia for an Hour Ago

1 "The Place Where Anything Can Happen" 3

2 New York Bands Aren't Cool 7

3 "A Sad Day for the Parents" 13

4 "They Looked Like These Preppy Kids on Acid" 23

5 "Alcohol, Blow, Crack, Death" 29

6 "A Bunch of Little Bands Starting to Creep Up" 39

7 "Ain't Nobody Here for Bottle Service" 43

8 Dance Music Will Save Us All? 47

9 "That Was Really the Birth of DFA" 51

10 "Tomorrow Never Knows" 63

11 "Nobody Was Going to Get Paid. Nobody Was Getting Any Cash." 67

12 "What's the Value of Being a Band?" 75

13 This Whole Web Thing 81

14 "I Mean, We Were Just Stoned" 85

15 Cabs Won't Even Go There 93

18 "They Got Signed for How Much Money?!" 101

Part II The Class of 2001

17 "Those Guys All Go So Far Back" 109

18 Some Pretty Good Musical Chemistry 119

19 Like a Gang 123

20 A Girl That Sings Quiet Folk Songs 137

21 The Freak-Folk Fringe 141

22 "The Return of the Rock Stars" 147

23 "Shit, I'll Be in That Band" 155

24 Anarchy in the UK 159

25 "Party in a Bag" 165

26 "I Don't Know Who Was Paying for the Drugs. It Wasn't Me." 169

27 "Just Trust Me" 175

28 "British People Are Crazy" 183

29 All Eyes on NYC 191

30 September 11, 2001 197

31 "That Now-Legendary Halloween Strokes Show at Hammerstein" 209

32 "Is Anybody Outside of New York Talking About This?" 213

33 "Cats Started to Get Out of the Bag" 219

34 "It's Our Time…" 229

35 "Troubled Souls" 239

36 La Zona Rosa 245

37 "That $2 Bid Show… Oof" 251

38 "My New York Is Interpol" 259

39 "We Successfully Managed to Make Our Business 100 Percent Impractical" 263

40 "We Got Away with Murder" 271

41 "House of Jealous Lovers" 275

42 "Losing My Edge" 285

43 "Maps" 293

44 "A Thing That Doesn't Work but Does" 299

45 The Uncool Kids 307

46 "You Could Say We Had No Rules" 317

47 Strokes Versus Stripes 325

48 "I Like This Internet Thing" 335

49 Rock Is Sack? 345

50 "Taking All Our Britpop Tricks and Selling Them Back to Us" 353

51 "These Guys Are Going to Be Bigger than Everybody" 361

Part III The New Global Underground

52 The End of One Era, the Beginning of Another 373

53 "The Famous-as-Fuck Strokes" 377

54 "A Hi-Hat Is Like Working with a Cellar of Exotic Wines" 385

55 "Heroin Just Kind of… Crosses a Line" 389

58 "If You Believed What You Read, Williamsburg Was the New Village" 397

57 Soviet Kitsch 403

58 The Southern Strokes 405

59 The Columbia Hotel 415

60 "I'm Only Sixteen and I've Already Had Crabs Three Times" 419

61 The James Murphy Show 427

62 Room on Fire 433

63 "There's Definitely Some Bad Feelings There" 439

64 The Wrestler 443

65 "So People in Their Forties in Boston Are Listening to Interpol!" 447

86 "The Internet Rules, Fuck It" 453

67 Disneyfication 459

68 "When the President Talks to God" 465

89 "We Were All Starring in Our Own Nightlife Type of Reality TV" 471

Part IV Birth of Brooklyn

70 "Record Collection Rock" 483

71 "There Is a Lot of Confrontation but I Think It Does Come Back to Faith" 487

72 "The Creative Process, While It Can Definitely Reward the Ego, It Can Fucking Bruise It, Too" 495

73 Selling Out Is So Passé 501

74 "We Could Be That Big" 513

75 "Breezier and Lighter and Quicker" 527

76 "Erudite as Fuck" 533

77 "They Came from the Ashes of Jonathan Fire*Eater" 539

78 "It Doesn't Actually Make Any Sense to Describe Music as Preppy" 543

79 "It Wasn't Like We Were a Party Band" 547

80 Halsey House 551

81 The Speed of Buzz 559

82 "I Wanted to Get in There Like a Motherfucker and That's What I Did" 563

83 Consider Yourself Served 567

84 "When My Mojo Phase Has Passed, I Don't Think That I'll Stop Making Music and Start Gardening" 571

85 "We Warmed It Up for You Fuckers" 577

Part V "New York, I love you but you're bringing me down"

86 "I Mean, What's More Rock and Roll than Madison Square Garden and a Mic Drop?'" 587

87 The Last Rock Stars 589

Acknowledgments 592

Index 597

Editorial Reviews

04/03/2017
In this gossip-fueled, engaging oral history, fashion and music journalist Goodman traces New York’s tempestuous rock revival at the turn of the 21st century. Although the Lower East Side was rapidly gentrifying by the mid-1990s, with Williamsburg following soon after, they still provided a fertile matrix of affordable rent, bars, clubs, drugs and sleaze for art-school kids and other malcontents who wanted to rock. By 2000, the breakthrough of the Strokes and Interpol brought mainstream attention to downtown music for the first time since Talking Heads. Soon enough the Moldy Peaches, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and LCD Soundsystem, among others, were gracing the covers of pop magazines and headlining tours. In roughly chronological order, Goodman tracks the scene through the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks and the transformation of the music industry by way of file-sharing and the Internet, with particular focus on DFA Studios and the Strokes. For keyhole gazers, the tales of rock-star substance abuse alongside snark and sniping between the principals will provide welcome shivers. In chapters with titles such as “I’m Only Sixteen and I’ve Already Had Crabs Three Times,” Goodman’s subtle editing deftly shapes disconnected voices into clear narratives and a seemingly coherent whole. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Lizzy Goodman’s deliciously over-reported oral history of early-aughts New York rock, was a monument to the scuzzy magic that occurs when youth, hedonism, ambition, and talent coincide.” — New Yorker

“An evocative and gossipy oral history…Not only was Ms. Goodman there…but as our revelatory tour guide, she shrewdly jogged the memories of her protagonists…The result is an affectionate, idiosyncratic narrative of the rock scene’s erratic evolution.” — New York Times

“beautifully paced, vivid, informative and compelling… a book primarily built on passion, love and homage – a drawled rock’n’roll sonnet to the music, the bands, the city, the scene, the triumphs, the screw-ups, and, of course, ‘the moment’.” — The Guardian

“Lizzy Goodman has produced an instant classic...All the Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ryan Adams gossip you’ve ever wanted to know is right here in this epic, loving look at a very different New York City.”  — Rolling Stone

“Meet Me in the Bathroom is the juiciest book on rock’n’roll in years…a thrilling, hilarious, gossip-fueled account”  — Pitchfork

“Spectacular.” — Playboy

“The first great history of new york’s 21st century rock scene...thoroughly entertaining…engrossing…Meet Me in the Bathroom is a wonderful reminder that the next big thing can be right around the corner.” — Spin

“I devoured Meet Me in the Bathroom . . .That’s what it feels like to read this oral history, as if you’re in a bar or living room with all these people reminiscing and eavesdropping on all the juicy details. A perfect beach read, if there ever was one.” — Laia Garcia, Lenny Letter

“[A] gossip-fueled, engaging oral history” — Publishers Weekly

“As far as I’m concerned this book is one of the truly great New York stories.” — Rob Sheffield, The Village Voice

“In her terrific new book, Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001-2011, author Lizzy Goodman has meticulously traced the story of that revival” — Paste Magazine

“A vivid, kaleidoscopic, extremely fun ode to a moment in time that only just became the past.” — The Cut

“Sharp, funny and dishy oral history...Goodman does a wonderful job of sketching out and filling in this singular time and place...It is a blast...” — Austin American-Statesman

“In the page-turning tradition of Please Kill Me and I Want My MTV, Lizzy Goodman’s new oral history, Meet Me in the Bathroom is a post-mortem of rock’s last gasp...You don’t read a book like this. You demolish it whole, like a bag of Funyuns.” — Las Vegas Weekly

“Meet Me in the Bathroom is an impressive document of the time . . . she’s managed to extract admissions and reflections that are genuinely poignant . . . distilled into a tome that captures the messy, glorious chaos of New York.” — Noisey

“Lizzy Goodman’s extremely comprehensive oral history of the 00s NYC rock scene is hilarious, sordid, fascinating, and infuriating—all at once....Meet Me in the Bathroom is more than a success.” — VICE

“There’s warmth and kindness…and great stories about people taking too many drugs...A wonderful book.” — Seth Meyers, Late Night with Seth Meyers

“[Meet Me in the Bathroom] will make any rock ‘n’ roll fan who came of age or lived in New York in the aughts...feel all sorts of warm and cozy nostalgic feelings.”  — BuzzFeed

“full of fantastic gossip and dreamy anecdotes about the city’s last mythological guitar boys” — The Verge

“a compelling non-stop wealth of information that will be inspiring to those familiar with New York and not...this read is a can’t-miss.”  — Uproxx

From the Publisher

Meet Me in the Bathroom is the juiciest book on rock’n’roll in years…a thrilling, hilarious, gossip-fueled account” 

Pitchfork

Spectacular.

Playboy

The first great history of new york’s 21st century rock scene...thoroughly entertaining…engrossing…Meet Me in the Bathroom is a wonderful reminder that the next big thing can be right around the corner.

Spin

Lizzy Goodman’s deliciously over-reported oral history of early-aughts New York rock, was a monument to the scuzzy magic that occurs when youth, hedonism, ambition, and talent coincide.

New Yorker

beautifully paced, vivid, informative and compelling… a book primarily built on passion, love and homage – a drawled rock’n’roll sonnet to the music, the bands, the city, the scene, the triumphs, the screw-ups, and, of course, ‘the moment’.

The Guardian

Lizzy Goodman has produced an instant classic...All the Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ryan Adams gossip you’ve ever wanted to know is right here in this epic, loving look at a very different New York City.” 

Rolling Stone

An evocative and gossipy oral history…Not only was Ms. Goodman there…but as our revelatory tour guide, she shrewdly jogged the memories of her protagonists…The result is an affectionate, idiosyncratic narrative of the rock scene’s erratic evolution.

New York Times

I devoured Meet Me in the Bathroom . . .That’s what it feels like to read this oral history, as if you’re in a bar or living room with all these people reminiscing and eavesdropping on all the juicy details. A perfect beach read, if there ever was one.

Laia Garcia

As far as I’m concerned this book is one of the truly great New York stories.

Rob Sheffield

Spectacular.

Playboy

Lizzy Goodman’s deliciously over-reported oral history of early-aughts New York rock, was a monument to the scuzzy magic that occurs when youth, hedonism, ambition, and talent coincide.

New Yorker

a compelling non-stop wealth of information that will be inspiring to those familiar with New York and not...this read is a can’t-miss.” 

Uproxx

There’s warmth and kindness…and great stories about people taking too many drugs...A wonderful book.

Seth Meyers

Sharp, funny and dishy oral history...Goodman does a wonderful job of sketching out and filling in this singular time and place...It is a blast...

Austin American-Statesman

full of fantastic gossip and dreamy anecdotes about the city’s last mythological guitar boys

The Verge

A vivid, kaleidoscopic, extremely fun ode to a moment in time that only just became the past.

The Cut

[Meet Me in the Bathroom] will make any rock ‘n’ roll fan who came of age or lived in New York in the aughts...feel all sorts of warm and cozy nostalgic feelings.” 

BuzzFeed

In the page-turning tradition of Please Kill Me and I Want My MTV, Lizzy Goodman’s new oral history, Meet Me in the Bathroom is a post-mortem of rock’s last gasp...You don’t read a book like this. You demolish it whole, like a bag of Funyuns.

Las Vegas Weekly

Lizzy Goodman’s extremely comprehensive oral history of the 00s NYC rock scene is hilarious, sordid, fascinating, and infuriating—all at once....Meet Me in the Bathroom is more than a success.

VICE

Meet Me in the Bathroom is an impressive document of the time . . . she’s managed to extract admissions and reflections that are genuinely poignant . . . distilled into a tome that captures the messy, glorious chaos of New York.

Noisey

In her terrific new book, Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001-2011, author Lizzy Goodman has meticulously traced the story of that revival

Paste Magazine

an evocative and gossipy oral history…Not only was Ms. Goodman there…but as our revelatory tour guide, she shrewdly jogged the memories of her protagonists…The result is an affectionate, idiosyncratic narrative of the rock scene’s erratic evolution

The New York Times

There’s warmth and kindness…and great stories about people taking too many drugs...A wonderful book.

Late Night with Seth Meyers

I devoured Meet Me in the Bathroom . . .That’s what it feels like to read this oral history, as if you’re in a bar or living room with all these people reminiscing and eavesdropping on all the juicy details. A perfect beach read, if there ever was one.

Lenny Letter