On January 23, 2022, Meet Me In The Bathroom premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It had been available in Great Britain since March 10 of that year, and it has now also been made available to German audiences to rent or buy on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
Named after Lizzy Goodman’s “Oral History” of the same name and The Strokes song, the film by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, based on the book, has been covering the alternative, rock and garage scene in the USA since 1999 explains the rise and fall of a new musical counter-movement reminiscent of punk and the resurgence of the New York music scene. Now a part of popular music, the gentrification of Brooklyn has alienated her from the underground she grew out of. Various bands and musicians, including the indie garage pioneers The Strokes around Julian Casablancas and Albert Hammond Jr., The Moldy Peaches, Tv On The Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Karen O, have their say and es features previously unreleased material.
“This community of musicians who didn’t have a place to play”
Adam Green and Kimya Dawson formed The Moldy Peaches and shaped the anti-folk scene in the East Village. “This community of musicians who had no place to play,” is how Green describes the first points of contact with the scene and the meeting in East Manhattan. In 1999 he met Karen O in the famous bar that lived across the street before he founded the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The precariousness of many musicians and the ongoing gentrification of the former punk district drove them across the Williamsburg Bridge to cheaper Brooklyn. Due to the level of teaching there, there were enough opportunities for culture and rehearsal rooms. As the music scene boomed and became more popular, many Manhattanites followed, and the game started all over again in Brooklyn, as it had in Camden Town or Kreuzberg at other times. “Our rent has tripled in the last three years. The landlords have cleared entire buildings and thereby displaced families,” describes a TV-On-The-Radio member the change. And again, a community had no more space. Karen O also left New York. The reason the scene formed, namely the fact that New York experienced a downright lull in underground music and musical counterculture in the late ’90s, also marked its sad end through the alienation described above.
“Julian Casablancas always talked about wanting to make underground music, but he also wanted the music to be popular”
Adam Green met the singer of the newly formed The Strokes at a party in 1999. Two years later, The Moldy Peaches supported the group on their first UK and Ireland tour. “He always talked about wanting to make underground music, but he also wanted the music to be popular,” is Julian Casablancas’ claim and the band’s looming conflict after their rapidly increasing success with their debut record IS THIS IT described. Less and less remained of the initial DIY focus and increasing awareness made a “normal life” impossible. Their own claim turned into an insoluble contradiction and conflicts also arose within the band. In order to understand the origin of these problems, the question inevitably arises as to whether this contradiction could represent a deep-seated trigger. “They (MTV, editor’s note) make money. It’s about business, not about music,” said the The Strokes singer before their legendary $2 bill concert in 2002. In October of last year, it was announced that the band was working on a new album. Their current 2020 record THE NEW ABNORMAL earned them their first Grammy.
“What’s more important, Dave: good sound or a good time?”
Karen O asked this question and got the answer: “A good time”. “Yes I think so too”. Even without the quote, it should be clear that it was not bad sound that was decisive for the band’s interim break from 2014 to 2017. The singer explains that a friendly cohesion was noticeable within the community. “It’s our time to be hated” underscores the sense of community that was part of the good times. “It just wears me down: the lifestyle, the physical aspect, the repetition that it involves. The business, all that shit, the press and the attention,” she describes the following phase. An accident on stage marked the sad climax of the section. “I mourned the disintegration of the scene. […] I left New York City,” she said. In 2022 Yeah Yeah Yeahs reported back with COOL IT DOWN. Maybe the good times will come again.
“Meet Me In The Bathroom” also shows excerpts from 9/11 and explains how the terrorist attack affected the entire city and, accordingly, the music scene. It is also about the development of James Murphy’s dance punk project LCD Soundsystem and Interpol. Paul Banks also has his say.