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A review by jonscott9
Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman
5.0
Lordy, I loved this one. Unsurprising, for a few reasons: The oral history format is a favorite of mine, and one that leads to be slam-reading feature articles, books, etc. Plus, that Meet Me (title notably copped from a Strokes song) is about music, about the early-2000s rock scene in New York, made it simple to devour. Lizzy Goodman, a journalist with bona fides aplenty, got access to everyone relevant for this compendium, and it doesn't disappoint.
Among those quoted at great length: Jack White, Mark Ronson, Regina Spektor, Moby, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright, RZA, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, many members of The Strokes and Interpol and The National and Vampire Weekend and The Killers and Kings of Leon and Franz Ferdinand, Conor Oberst, Rob Sheffield (who wrote my first-love of music books, Love Is a Mixtape), MTV VJ-in-remission Gideon Yago, and on and on and on.
The dawn of music blogs and king- and queen-making internet scribes renders print journalists panicked and holding onto their careers, either dinosaur-ing into oblivion or riding the waves of tech and music-gatekeeping to update their approach. With 2001-2011 being the book's main scope, the advent of social media is A Very Real Thing in these pages, as music acts become able to speak directly to fans without needing the media as middleman, thus winning autonomy and not needing to sometimes resort (esp. when starting out) to any sorts of gimmicks, groveling or tradeoffs.
Descriptions of the going-out scene, including at the Mercury Lounge where I've seen a show or two, place the reader squarely in the sweaty, beer- and vodka-soaked throng at any one concert. The partying, carousing, alcohol and drug (mis)use, and more are not glossed over, as bands, songwriters, label folk, writers and handlers all grow up—and fast—in this post-September 11 world.
The topical as-told-to dishing is damned fantastic, with breathless descriptions of everything from a blink-and-you-miss-it morsel about M.I.A. getting into a fight in a car to the sordid, energy-sapping saga of DFA Records (which leaves LCD's Murphy looking dirty). The book has everyone praising and trashing each other to the press, and to each other, and to Goodman. It also has the press alternately praising and trashing everyone in the bands. The beat goes on.
Here's a delightful reminisce from The National's baritone-tastic frontman, Matt Berninger: "I would buy records and put my headphones on and work on websites. ... I was trying to escape the anxieties of being a professional, just trying to find a girlfriend. It was the same way everybody gets into music. It's empathy. It's that you empathize with other lost souls."
Berninger wins out repeatedly across a few excerpts of interview(s) with him, and not saying that solely because I love his band. Enjoy this take: "Brooklyn just became the surrogate New York City. And New York City is the center of the universe in culture, the way Rome was at some point. The city in the '90s and early 2000s was Rome. It was the coolest place. I loved it. I'd be miserable, I'd be heartbroken, I'd be just bored, depressed, totally broke, but it was like, I'm here, I'm in the movie, I'm in New York City. I'm not in Cincinnati. I mean it was dead chickens and burning cars and double-ended dildos and rotten milk outside my door every day, but it was New York, even though it was Brooklyn."
Consider that there are at least three dozen quotes on par with or besting that one, and if you're a music fan, especially a millennial or someone into even a few of the acts listed above, you've got to read this. Goodman just let her subjects run at the mouth, recorded all that, and deftly shaped it into an engrossing, chronologically faithful narrative from there. The arc of some of this century's great careers, downfalls, tragedies, comebacks and more in music are all laid out here.
Trivia morsel: Maggie Rogers interned on the book, transcribing hundreds of hours of drunken, poor-quality audio in loud settings. Goodman thanks her as "more like my assistant editor than anything else," noting that Rogers graduated from NYU (after starting with her as a freshman) and "became a rock star" during the book's process. Rogers, along with the random likes of Jason Bourne, Maria Sharapova and others, gets shouted out in this tome's (understandably necessary) 5 pages of acknowledgments.
Among those quoted at great length: Jack White, Mark Ronson, Regina Spektor, Moby, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright, RZA, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, many members of The Strokes and Interpol and The National and Vampire Weekend and The Killers and Kings of Leon and Franz Ferdinand, Conor Oberst, Rob Sheffield (who wrote my first-love of music books, Love Is a Mixtape), MTV VJ-in-remission Gideon Yago, and on and on and on.
The dawn of music blogs and king- and queen-making internet scribes renders print journalists panicked and holding onto their careers, either dinosaur-ing into oblivion or riding the waves of tech and music-gatekeeping to update their approach. With 2001-2011 being the book's main scope, the advent of social media is A Very Real Thing in these pages, as music acts become able to speak directly to fans without needing the media as middleman, thus winning autonomy and not needing to sometimes resort (esp. when starting out) to any sorts of gimmicks, groveling or tradeoffs.
Descriptions of the going-out scene, including at the Mercury Lounge where I've seen a show or two, place the reader squarely in the sweaty, beer- and vodka-soaked throng at any one concert. The partying, carousing, alcohol and drug (mis)use, and more are not glossed over, as bands, songwriters, label folk, writers and handlers all grow up—and fast—in this post-September 11 world.
The topical as-told-to dishing is damned fantastic, with breathless descriptions of everything from a blink-and-you-miss-it morsel about M.I.A. getting into a fight in a car to the sordid, energy-sapping saga of DFA Records (which leaves LCD's Murphy looking dirty). The book has everyone praising and trashing each other to the press, and to each other, and to Goodman. It also has the press alternately praising and trashing everyone in the bands. The beat goes on.
Here's a delightful reminisce from The National's baritone-tastic frontman, Matt Berninger: "I would buy records and put my headphones on and work on websites. ... I was trying to escape the anxieties of being a professional, just trying to find a girlfriend. It was the same way everybody gets into music. It's empathy. It's that you empathize with other lost souls."
Berninger wins out repeatedly across a few excerpts of interview(s) with him, and not saying that solely because I love his band. Enjoy this take: "Brooklyn just became the surrogate New York City. And New York City is the center of the universe in culture, the way Rome was at some point. The city in the '90s and early 2000s was Rome. It was the coolest place. I loved it. I'd be miserable, I'd be heartbroken, I'd be just bored, depressed, totally broke, but it was like, I'm here, I'm in the movie, I'm in New York City. I'm not in Cincinnati. I mean it was dead chickens and burning cars and double-ended dildos and rotten milk outside my door every day, but it was New York, even though it was Brooklyn."
Consider that there are at least three dozen quotes on par with or besting that one, and if you're a music fan, especially a millennial or someone into even a few of the acts listed above, you've got to read this. Goodman just let her subjects run at the mouth, recorded all that, and deftly shaped it into an engrossing, chronologically faithful narrative from there. The arc of some of this century's great careers, downfalls, tragedies, comebacks and more in music are all laid out here.
Trivia morsel: Maggie Rogers interned on the book, transcribing hundreds of hours of drunken, poor-quality audio in loud settings. Goodman thanks her as "more like my assistant editor than anything else," noting that Rogers graduated from NYU (after starting with her as a freshman) and "became a rock star" during the book's process. Rogers, along with the random likes of Jason Bourne, Maria Sharapova and others, gets shouted out in this tome's (understandably necessary) 5 pages of acknowledgments.