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

by Lizzy Goodman

From Nick I learned to play the city like a video game: always keep moving, score points for knowing that diner on south Broadway has killer pea soup or that bar on St. Mark’s doesn’t card on Wednesdays or that one pool hall on Houston has Monster Bash pinball and stays open twenty-four hours. Every choice, from what you wear to how you walk to which street you turn down next is a potential portal to another level, to a part of the game you haven’t even seen yet, to the unimaginable.

Soundgarden had broken up. Oasis had not delivered on their potential. Blur weren’t even sounding Britpop anymore, they were sounding like Pavement. There was always going to be Dave Matthews Band. You can’t even criticize them, they’re just there. It’d be like criticizing pigeons. You can’t get rid of them. You just hope they don’t shit on you. But the bottom line is there was money and we needed new rock stars.

We went out and it’s, “Ahhhh! There’s steam coming out of the streets!” We thought, “This is nuts! This is New York!” We went up to somebody’s house to ask for directions, hoping they were going to pull a gun on us, and instead they’re like, “Oh, you’re not from here?! You should check out this place and that place.” Everybody was really nice. It was really disappointing.