'Meet Me In The Bathroom' - New Book On NYC Music 2001-2011

[Serge]

I finished this about a week ago and kept meaning to get around to starting this thread earlier, but hey ho.

This is a pretty decent read, considering I'm not a fan of about 80% of the acts involved, and I mainly bought it to read the bits about LCD Soundsystem and DFA, which probably take up about 50-60 pages of a 600 page book! It's slightly frustrating on that front, as it covers the early years of LCD up until the first album in some detail, but then, other than a couple of mentions of 'Sound Of Silver', skips pretty much to the farewell concert at Madison Square Garden. On the plus side, this means there is still a decent book on James Murphy still to be written!

Murphy comes across well, but then I'm biased. Tim Goldsworthy comes across as an utter prick - pretty much all of the people involved with DFA don't have anything good to say about him towards the end, and Murphy doesn't know what he did that made Goldsworthy turn against him. It's interesting to read about Murphy the indie kid being turned onto disco (and drugs) and basically having his teens in his late twenties!

As someone who's not a fan of The Strokes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, this book hasn't made me change my opinion of them - a bunch of privileged assholes who managed one half-decent single between them ('Last Nite'). On the whole, they don't so themselves any favours when talking about trashing changing rooms in fits of anger, they just come across as a load of petulant fuckwits who don't care about the fact that people have to tidy up after them as they arrogantly cut a swathe through New York.

Although bands like The National and TV On The Radio are namechecked on the cover, I should warn fans of either that they don't get much space in the book. And although I like some of their stuff, the Vampire Weekend story is pretty dull.

Although I sound like I'm being negative, I largely enjoyed it - it's presented as an oral history, although the small pieces of writing that Lizzy Goldman does in the book show that she could certainly have written it as a straightforward history and possibly cut out some of the waffle. I always love reading about New York, and it's interesting to read about the demise of Manhattan and the rise of Brooklyn/Williamsburg. There's also a lot of interesting stuff about the rise of the internet, and the effect that had on the music industry.

Completely recommended, especially for people who probably like some of the bands mentioned above more than I do!

[CaledonianGonzo]

The extract of this that Vulture published a few weeks back was a (relatively) entertaining read. 

http://www.vulture.com/2017/05/the-strokes-an-oral-history.html

[Serge]

Ha! Yeah, the Strokes/Ryan Adams bust-up has been mentioned in quite a few reviews. For me, the idea of a Strokes/Ryan Adams spat is like when Neil Hamilton squared up to Mohamed Al Fayed - I hate both sides equally, so I don't know who to root for!

[Dr Syntax Head]

I finished this about a week ago and kept meaning to get around to starting this thread earlier, but hey ho.

This is a pretty decent read, considering I'm not a fan of about 80% of the acts involved, and I mainly bought it to read the bits about LCD Soundsystem and DFA, which probably take up about 50-60 pages of a 600 page book! It's slightly frustrating on that front, as it covers the early years of LCD up until the first album in some detail, but then, other than a couple of mentions of 'Sound Of Silver', skips pretty much to the farewell concert at Madison Square Garden. On the plus side, this means there is still a decent book on James Murphy still to be written!

Murphy comes across well, but then I'm biased. Tim Goldsworthy comes across as an utter prick - pretty much all of the people involved with DFA don't have anything good to say about him towards the end, and Murphy doesn't know what he did that made Goldsworthy turn against him. It's interesting to read about Murphy the indie kid being turned onto disco (and drugs) and basically having his teens in his late twenties!

As someone who's not a fan of The Strokes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, this book hasn't made me change my opinion of them - a bunch of privileged assholes who managed one half-decent single between them ('Last Nite'). On the whole, they don't so themselves any favours when talking about trashing changing rooms in fits of anger, they just come across as a load of petulant fuckwits who don't care about the fact that people have to tidy up after them as they arrogantly cut a swathe through New York.

I'm a fan of pretty much all of those bands from that 'scene'/'time' but..

...DFA and Murphy makes me want to read the book....

...Strokes and (as I always guessed) the privileged 'look at how cool we are' thing makes me not want to read it.

Anything about Interpol in it? (Other than LCD) Probably my favourite of the NY bands from that time

[Serge]

Oh yeah, there's quite a lot about Interpol in it - all of the bandmembers except Carlos are interviewed. I have to admit that they're a band that completely passed me by at the time, but I have friends who revere them, so maybe I should catch up with them at some point. I think the constant Joy Division comparisons put me off them - I like Joy Division, but I wouldn't claim to be their biggest fan, so a band that sounds like them (allegedly - obviously, Interpol themselves are very touchy about this in the book) never really came onto my radar.

I think the most intersting thing about the whole Strokes thing is how they were probably the last big band that broke before the internet changed everything, and how they coped with that changing world. There's also some good stuff about how when The White Stripes broke, Jack White was ready for it, but The Strokes not so much. And how The Killers took the template and planed off the rough edges and became bigger than anybody. That old tale!

Nikolai always comes across as a nice bloke, maybe he just got in with a bad crowd.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I get the feeling Jack White knew exactly what he was doing at every stage of his career. I think he's one of the best musicians of our time (sorry for the hyperbole but y'know, he is).

I think the JD/Interpol comparisons are pretty much exclusively because of the low register 'sad robot' voice and angular guitars. The press love to say X is for people who like X.

[Bazooka]

A lot of these artists are from the blog era, days gone where you could really easily listen to so much music. After that whole thing died down, I stopped listening to all these artists.

[Serge]

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in the book about the rise of blogs, and how that became the new way for people to find out about new music. I do kind of miss those weekends when I would go through a load of bookmarked blogs and check out loads of new stuff. Of course, then I worked in a record shop for eight years, so checking out new stuff was easier.

I think the JD/Interpol comparisons are pretty much exclusively because of the low register 'sad robot' voice and angular guitars. The press love to say X is for people who like X.

There's a quote from Paul Banks in the book where he says that he just knows that after he dies, every obituary will contain the words 'Joy Division'....