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Meet Me in the Bathroom

Written by: Lizzy Goodman
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston, Nicol Zanzarella
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Publisher's Summary

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 20th 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 other 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.

©2017 Elizabeth Goodman (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
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What listeners say about Meet Me in the Bathroom

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good but incoherent at times

Most of my favourite bands were featured in this book which I loved but at times felt more like a court case than a historical analysis of a vibrant music scene. The same bickering that impeded many of the musical artists also impeded the narrative of the book.
While the book glorifies the successful NY rock acts, specifically ones not originally from NY (White Stripes and Kings of Leon), while completely ignoring the local bands that shaped the cities Art Scene (Gang Gang Dance, No-Neck Blues Band, and Excepter).
The book lacks a cohesive analysis of the scene and resorts to story telling for the sake of story telling. According to the book, the history of NY music goes as follows: Andy Warhol, the Ramones, 10 years of nothing, Sonic Youth signing with Geffen, 10 more years of nothing, the Strokes, 20 years of nothing since.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Tear-inducing nostalgia

This book is incredible! Although I was thousands of miles away in Canada (so, kilometres you be exact) - this captures the excitement of discovering bands like the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Walkmen and LCD Soundsystem at that time. Bands that went on to shape what I love to this day. Now I am older, and drowning in kids and responsibilities - I so needed this form of time machine to take me back to a time where I was shoulder to shoulder with others, watching an up-and-coming band as I stood sweating through my jean jacket. An absolute masterpiece.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Blogs, Drugs and Rock and Roll

Very interesting, very solid listen.
Covers a lot more of the death of the music industry and the post 9/11 landscape of NYC, than a rock book needs to and for that the story deserves top marks.
My two biggest criticisms are A) the voice acting, not that it's bad it's just contextually weird. The performers are way to musical theatre, I was laughing out loud anytime he read a quote from RZA. but I'm new to the audiobook world so maybe they're all like that. Complaint number B? it's an oral history, and speakers are always introduced without context, so let's just say you are a Strokes fan and you are reading this for all the juicy G related to the strokes you will be constantly pausing to look up the people speaking. the audiobook version can be tough if you don't know every member, of every band discussed.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Hit the sample button

This one is different! Probably not for everyone. I recommend sampling a few minutes and see if you can accommodate this he said/she said narrative style. Although I love these bands and music history represented here in these quotes I just barely hung on.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Big miss

I love this period of music and i have no idea what this book is trying to accomplish. Garbage. Says nothing about the time, the feelings, the expanse of musical breadth before the internet was a dominant force

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