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Meet Me in the Bathroom
Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 | Lizzy Goodman
Joining the ranks of the classics Please Kill Me, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and Cant Stop Wont 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 warand 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 itincluding The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, and Vampire Weekendand 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.
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karasu13
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Pickpick

Having a full weekend off work means I finally had time to finish this nostalgia trip. I was 14 in 2001, and still remember the emergence of the NYC scene. So many of my friends and boyfriends loved the bands featured in this book (I myself am, to this day, an avowed Bright Eyes fan and I loved every mention of Conor Oberst and his projects). If you liked any of the rock bands of the early 2000s, this book is a must read!

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Billypar
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#BelowZer00s
The early 2000s were a decade of both undergrad and grad education, but not the greatest either with a failed 3-year marriage and disappointing job prospects after the financial crisis. It also had a poor soundtrack: I was not into music much and unaware of contemporary stuff. That changed in 2009: I made some new friends who introduced me to everything I'd missed- they and the music made a huge difference in lifting my spirits!

Billypar Not pictured but equally influential: The National, OutKast, Camera Obscura, Mos Dec, The Kills, PJ Harvey, and Nick Cave. 4y
Cinfhen Modest Mouse 🖤my son and daughter love them Float On is amazing 😉 4y
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readordierachel Fabulous choices 👍👍 4y
batsy Neko Case and The New Pornographers! 💜 And I can't believe I forgot PJ Harvey for my playlist 😱 4y
Leftcoastzen Yay, Decemberists 4y
DebinHawaii Nice! Modest Mouse (Float On) made my list too! 👍 4y
Billypar @Cinfhen @DebinHawaii Yeah, Float On was the first one I heard: that entire album is fantastic- it and two others (Moon & Antarctica and We Were Dead Before the Ship Sank are pretty perfect! 4y
BarbaraBB The Yeah Yeah Yeahs 💜 4y
Billypar @batsy And I forgot OutKast until I saw your post ☺ 4y
Billypar @Leftcoastzen Yeah, they have so many strong albums in the 2000s. 4y
Billypar @BarbaraBB They're incredible 🖤🎸 4y
Suet624 OutKast! My kids and I used to drive hours to soccer tournaments and OutKast was played loud and often. 4y
Billypar @Suet624 Nice - great pre-game music! Even with all the great artists in hip hop since, they're still my all-time favorite. 4y
Suet624 Me too. Still play them a lot. Honesty, I‘m having trouble finding music I like these days. 4y
Billypar @Suet624 I can recommend the artists on this playlist from when I co-hosted the music challenge if there's anything you haven't checked out. Noname is one of my favorite hip hop discoveries lately: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qZ84FwC9GOo0cGBTQ7Esp 4y
Suet624 Oooh. Thank you! On it! 4y
35 likes17 comments
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Billypar
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Mehso-so

If you're a fan of indie rock in the early 2000s, this is a must-read, especially if you're like me and found out late about the NYC explosion launched by bands like the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Interpol. But for all of the work Goodman must have done to select the best material from the source interviews to tell the story, it still feels overlong with a lopsided focus on scene aspects (i.e. drugs, partying) rather than the music itself 👇

Billypar It also would have been nice to speak to some of the gender transitions in bands over the decade: the YYY's are one of the few female -fronted bands interviewed in the book, yet there were plenty notable ones in the decade - seems like a missed opportunity to tell that story. But there is lots of good stuff about the collapse of the big record labels and the shift in how the public consumed music once the internet gained prominence. 4y
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Expandingbookshelf
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It‘s weird reading the oral history of events I remember. Is this what getting old feels like???!

Weaponxgirl I first felt old when the music I liked as a teen suddenly became supermarket music. My old tastes were suddenly non threatening to the mainstream 5y
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PixieDust
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Pickpick

This book really transported me... I was around during this era and listened to a bunch of the bands mentioned/interviewed in this book but I was a kid so I never was a part of the scene so this book was super informative and dishy. It‘s long but it‘s such a good time!

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AlizaApp
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Pickpick

Oral history, in the tradition of Please Kill Me, but focusing on the garage rock explosion in the early 2000s in New York: the Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem. I didn‘t need the parts that were a eulogy for record companies, but I loved the bands dishing out all the behind-the-scenes gossip. Also, Karen O is my hero.

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mrozzz
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I picked a stack of #thick books I have used, and continue to use, as research/inspiration for the novel I'm writing which has a chunk focused on the punk scene in NYC... Bellevue is thrown in because mental and physical health is also an important aspect I needed to learn about. #30daysofreadathon

IamIamIam Have you read Weekends at Bellevue? Very cool... But I'm super interested to hear about your book!!!! What years of the NYC punk scene are you researching? 7y
mrozzz @IamIamIam I have NOT. I'll make a note 🙂 my setting in the story is mid-late 80s but I became so interested in the scene I picked up this one covering years 2001-2011 just to have and extend my knowledge. My book is sort of all over the place still but it's all in NYC and focuses on drug use and mental instability in my main character and her mother's journals documenting her time in the punk scene. 7y
IamIamIam It's an interesting scene! I didn't pop in until all the crusty NYC punks moved on and pop punk was getting big, like 98-99. I liked my punk boys cute and without safety pins. 😂😂 But that sounds very compelling and keep me posted!!!! I'm inst 7y
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IamIamIam D'oh... intetested to see how it all turns out! 7y
emilyhaldi Sounds very cool! 7y
mrozzz @IamIamIam same about the pop punk!! I am, unfortunately, too young to have lived through the original scene, safety pins and all. I'm so glad it sounds interesting! Sometimes I'm so deep in my own story that I don't even know how to talk about it. 7y
mrozzz @emilyhaldi yay! It's been a few years in the making. 😊✒️🖋 7y
IamIamIam I can't wait, @mrozzz!!!!! I bet it's going to be awesome!!! 7y
mrozzz @IamIamIam I'm so appreciative of the encouragement 😄 7y
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LaraReads
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Special guest appearance by the husband at the water park today! And he's reading with me! I kinda feel like it's my birthday. But we're celebrating his 41st instead! 💕🍻📚#waterparkreading

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thepaulhoa
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Fantastic book. Absolutely loved it. Brought back great memories of moving to NYC in the early 2000's. And so much inside scoop on the scene at the time. Highly recommend this book.

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thepaulhoa

LOVING this book so far. If you love music and NYC, you'll love this book.

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seatea
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Just my entire youth in one book... I'm so excited to read this

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art_vandelay
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Cannot. Wait. To. Start. This!! I lived in NYC while attending NYU from 2000-2004, and spent many hours listening to these musicians, reading content from these bloggers, and going to shows on the LES. So many amazing memories!

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