Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011

by Lizzy Goodman

PAUL MAROON: Sarah Lawrence was not a college. It was like going to a very, very out-of-control bar. I don’t know anyone who actually graduated from there.

PAUL MAROON: We had a bird, too. We had a parakeet. It was the five of us and a parakeet called Kim. WALTER MARTIN: Then Kim died. PAUL MAROON: I was the only one that liked Kim. Part of the reason Kim died young is because she had to deal with us. It was really hard on Kim. Kim didn’t want to live if that was what it was going to be like. WALTER MARTIN: She died the day we moved out, as we packed. Literally. PAUL MAROON: Kim is buried in Grant’s Tomb right next to Grant. I remember the guard asked us what we were doing and we told him, “We’re trying to bury our parakeet next to Grant,” and he said, “Okay, but hurry up.”

ZACK LIPEZ: I sat down at the bar and he introduced us. She was like, “Oh, nice to meet you.” She took a bottle of Jameson, put it on the bar, and walked away. I said, “Oh, this is where I’m gonna hang out.”

STEWART LUPTON: One of the reasons we got big was because of Erin. She was our PR woman. She was also a dominatrix, so we had the whole Sex Pistols thing going on.

Everybody was really nice. It was really disappointing.

To be able to make something that was so dead was really exciting.

LUKE JENNER: And they never fired me! One time I left the door to the bar open. Another time I locked somebody in the bar. A customer! All night! They passed out in the bathroom and I forgot to check. DOMINIQUE KEEGAN: Poor customer.

ALBERT HAMMOND JR.: It was a fun little bonding experience. Then I went home and threw up everywhere.

PAUL BANKS: The first clue I had that there was something to Daniel was when we were taking the final exam in this course—this is with the teacher that I’d smoked hash with. I’m sitting there, doing my exam, and Daniel calls the teacher over and he just says, “I can’t do this right now.” And he left. He just fucking walked out of the final exam.

KIMYA DAWSON: Basically, after the Strokes got signed to Rough Trade they told Rough Trade they wanted them to sign us too, and they did. Geoff Travis came to see us play at Sidewalk. ADAM GREEN: They took me to Pick a Bagel. I always hear these stories about how you get signed and you make them take you out to Nobu and shit. Rough Trade took me to Pick a Bagel. We signed for $1,000.

Right after that, maybe six, seven weeks later, my then girlfriend and I were invited over to Julian’s and his then girlfriend Colleen’s place. We had a very nice dinner, bottle of wine, and I go, “Oh man, I have this videotape my friends sent me.” I’m friends with the guys in Nashville Pussy, and they will send me videotapes and DVDs of all this crazy weird shit that they collect, stuff you’d now find on YouTube, but this is pre-YouTube. I had no idea what it was, just thought it would be funny. We put it on and it’s the nastiest German bestiality porn. I’m like, “Uh . . . whoa, I didn’t . . .” And of course the more you’re going, “I had no idea!” the more it doesn’t seem like a viable defense. It was really awkward.

ROB SHEFFIELD: That Yeah Yeah Yeahs EP was really hard to find and should have been hard to find because it sounded like crap. Nick once told me that it was on a cassette and he put his jeans in the laundry, so the tape went through the laundry, and that’s what they mastered it from. I was like, “You know what, dude? I believe you. It sounds like it was recorded in a Dumpster.”

LUKE JENNER: The classic-rock thing was all about the album. To make the definitive statement, like Blonde on Blonde. Rock is an album genre. A lot of post-punk is about “This entire record sucks, and maybe your entire career sucks, but you have this one awesome song.”

TUNDE ADEBIMPE: I was also working for this animation show called Celebrity Death Match. I was one of the first animators on that show.

I mean, it cannot be said often enough that they put out their debut album and the first song on it was called “Untitled.” Thank you very much. This is a historic level of ego. It’s like, “Wow, this is some serious poser shit,”

JIM MERLIS: Cornerstone put this party together with Levi’s. The idea was to be a sort of anti-VMA party. Mos Def and the Strokes played. Rufus Wainwright came and Dr. Dre came, and it was insane. I remember seeing Dr. Dre watching the Strokes and digging it big-time.

And then they go out and Letterman was like, “Here they are, kids . . .” They play “Get Free” and by the middle of the song it sounds nothing like the single and Craig is just braying like a donkey and then they finish the song and he knocks over the cymbal stand with his guitar neck, and throws the guitar at the drummer. The drummer throws up his sticks like, “Fuck this,” and Craig runs onto the set and flings himself into the guest chair, then gets back on the mic and starts screaming. Letterman called them “troubled teens” and asked Paul Shaffer if Craig was all right. PATRICK MATTHEWS: Someone asked Craig about the Letterman performance and he goes, “Well, the buildings seemed really big in New York and I was a little bit homesick,” and that was his explanation for it. SARAH LEWITINN: Yeah, and later that night Craig was jumping in trash cans and pouring water on his head and running down the empty streets of the Lower East Side shouting.

PHIL MOSSMAN: That show was interesting. We pulled up into Glasgow on the bus and Rangers had just beaten Celtic over the whole season by like one goal. The whole town just erupted into fucking überviolence, like sectarian football violence everywhere. Protestant and Catholic as well. Just driving through the town, you’d see fighting in the streets, bottling each other, things just kicking off. So, the sound check was done, and everyone was like, “Should we go and get something to eat?” And as the only Brit I was like, “Listen, please do not fucking go outside. Do me a favor.” I remember Tyler was like, “I'm gonna go for a run.” He was putting shorts on and his running shoes. He got fucking half a block and came right back. Someone had already beat someone up and the guy was unconscious, leaning up against a bus stop. Tyler was just like, “Okay, no jogging today.”

CALEB FOLLOWILL: We’ve done lots of crazy shit together, thrown tables off of buildings and stuff. If they didn’t tell you about that, I won’t. I’ll just say that all I did was aid. I didn’t want someone to go off the building, so I just helped. It was not a one-man job, but it was one man trying to do it, and I was like, “Fuck, this guy is going to die, I’m going to help him.” ALBERT HAMMOND JR.: Ask Caleb about midget porn.

MATT BERNINGER: You need a certain amount of posturing to even have the guts to stand onstage and sing. It’s humiliating. You have to turn yourself into a little bit of a caricature just to not hate yourself.

JAMES BARBER: Nirvana said they signed to Geffen because Sonic Youth made it okay. And at least inside the company, Kim Gordon got the credit for hipping the label to Nirvana in the first place. And at some point, Sonic Youth renegotiated their recording contract, and they got rewarded for Nirvana. They got a ridiculous amount; I don’t know the numbers exactly, because there was a nice lid on it, but Sonic Youth’s contribution to bringing Nirvana to Geffen was recognized by the company and they were rewarded for it.

HAR MAR SUPERSTAR: The DIY thing is supposed to be about inclusivity but it can sometimes just be super exclusive.

Life made me need to express myself through music, and I have not suddenly become very satisfied with life or the human condition isn’t all of a sudden cool by me. It’s a fairly self-sustaining system. You have to learn how to protect yourself. Don’t read anything about yourself. Don’t take anything too seriously. Just do what you want to do. And know that the real lucky thing is that you have something you really want to do.

NIC OFFER: One time, halfway through an interview the lady said, “Wait, where’s Karen?” and it was like, “Yeah, we’re !!! Karen’s not in this band.” Another time a different woman was like, “So you recorded a song called ‘North American Scum,’” and we were like, “Actually, we didn’t,” and then later in the same interview she goes, “So you did this song for Nike,” and I was like, “No, we didn’t.” It’s superficial. What they know is: band from New York.

I don’t know, maybe somewhere, somehow, years from now Vampire Weekend will do some kind of a reunion show, but I can’t imagine young kids being there saying, “I love Vampire Weekend so much. I’m so excited about them. I’ve been listening to them since elementary school.” And if they are, they should be punched in the face.