BY LIZZY GOODMAN
*Now available in paperback*
On Sale: November 13, 2018
As the twentieth century drew to a close, New York City felt played out as a cultural capital. A flood of new money had turned downtown into a museum of what used to be cool, a playground for bankers and the dot-com crowd. If you wanted the rock-and-roll life, New York City was the last place you’d move. And yet, in the decade that followed, it would serve as the stage for a radical pop-cultural renaissance. How exactly did this happen?
In MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 (now available in paperback, on-sale November 13, 2018), journalist Lizzy Goodman chronicles the rebirth of New York rock through the voices of those who were actually there, playing the music, pouring the drinks, signing the checks, and writing the cover stories. In the early 2000s, the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, the Moldy Peaches, LCD Soundsystem, and others, who had been honing their craft in obscurity, suddenly became reflections of a newly flush, newly booming town determined to recover from the devastation of September 11. As kids around the world began to dress like they’d been thrifting on Avenue A, it became clear that New York had not only reclaimed its signature rock-and-roll swagger, but had also exported this new incarnation of American cool globally. A second generation was eagerly waiting in the wings: Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, and Kings of Leon, who’d all but given up on breaking out of their provincial corners of the world, got the message that rock was back, and used grotty New York clubs as launching pads on their way to selling out arenas around the world.
MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM explores how during this era the music industry was dismantled and then reborn via technology—first by Napster and later iTunes—and how traditional publications like Rolling Stone and Spin were pushed to compete with evangelist bloggers typing feverishly in their underwear, as well as with edgier journalistic upstarts like Vice and Pitchfork. Meanwhile, as the reshaping of the city—technological, aesthetic, cultural, and physical—spread from downtown Manhattan to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, bands like MGMT, Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear, and Dirty Projectors became the new stars, remaking the idea of New York in their own nerdy image, and helping ensure “I heart Brooklyn” would become the mantra of a new generation.
Crafted from nearly two hundred original interviews and curated by a writer who remembers the hangovers herself, MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM follows in the great tradition of the beloved classic Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Charting the first decade of the 2000s in all its epic and reckless glory, here is a brilliant portrait of a city, an industry, and a generation on the verge of seismic change.
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Praise for Meet Me in the Bathroom
“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
“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
“[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
“Spectacular.” — Playboy
“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
“It’s the book that anyone who ever listened to the Strokes is talking about: Lizzy Goodman’s extremely comprehensive oral history of the 00s NYC rock scene is hilarious, sordid, fascinating, and infuriating—all at once. The best music history books serve the dual purpose of creating new myths while slaying the ones that were previously lying around, and by that measure Meet Me in the Bathroom is more than a success. It’ll inspire plenty of discussion and debating, and if you’re a certain age, it might just provide a nostalgia trip, too.” — 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
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Elizabeth “Lizzy” Goodman is a journalist whose writing on rock and roll, fashion and popular culture has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Spin, Nylon, Elle, Interview, Out and NME. She is a regular contributor to New York magazine, and is frequently called upon to be an expert guest on VH1 and NPR. She lives in New York City.
Photo credit: Katia Temkin.
MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM ⦁ Lizzy Goodman ⦁ Dey Street Books ⦁ Paperback
On Sale: 11/13/2018 ⦁ ISBN: 9780062233103 ⦁ E-book ISBN: 9780062233127
MEDIA CONTACT:
Maria Silva
William Morrow & Dey Street Books
212-207-7486
Maria.Silva@HarperCollins.com