I’ve been to many concerts this year. Luckily, I’ve been able to see some of my all-time favorite bands: The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, and Interpol. Not only are they all still together but they’re still touring, and continuing to make new music. This is especially impressive when you consider that they all started out in the early 2000s, and did so while they were just in their early twenties. Born out of a truly independent music scene and looking for a new scene in rock, these bands–as well as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and others–would create a new wave of rock music, which is captured in the new documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom.
Released by Utopia, Meet Me In The Bathroom chronicles the rise of this indie rock scene and its lasting influence on the music scene today. It’s based on the 2017 oral history book of the same name by Lizzy Goodman. The film combines interviews with everyone who was there to tell the story of the scene in their own words.
It’s a fascinating read (did I mention I’m an enormous fan of all of these bands and music?). Directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern (who co-directed the LCD Soundsystem concert doc Shut Up and Play The Hits) bring a similarly direct approach to telling the story, by way of using entirely archival footage.
The look of the film–all VHS “home movie-Esque” record footage–lends nostalgia to the feelings, of traveling back in time. There are no modern-day interviews, which feels totally transportive to the era. With incredible never-before-seen footage, we see what it was like to live in New York City. A city on the cusp of the new millennium, pre-internet, and pre-9/11.
As the doc shows, a few bands–looking for a new kind of rock music–emerged with a “new cool” rock aesthetic. The Moldy Peaches, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the band that would single-handedly explode the scene–The Strokes–all changed music history. After the Strokes’ overnight success, new bands were born: Interpol, TV On The Radio, and later, LCD Soundsystem.
The footage of these bands from some of their earliest shows is incredible to see. You get to see them at their very beginnings here. Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Paul Banks of Interpol introduce themselves to the camera for the first time. They play songs in small clubs like the lower east side Mercury Lounge. And it’s all incredible footage for fans to see.
Meet Me in the Bathroom also shows the larger, pivotal moments in New York history: Y2K; the rise of the internet, and Napster, to which some bands started losing money to the free pirating program. And then, of course, the attacks on the World Trade Center. That footage is so raw and horrifying that it’s devastating to watch at times. It would, of course, have a major effect on them all.
Ultimately, the thing that comes across so prominently now is these young people’s aspiration to be tomorrow’s next rock stars appears to be born out of a need for acceptance. While brilliant musicians and artists, Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and Jame Murphy’s (LCD Soundsystem) desire for rock stardom mask a seemingly large insecurity they had as younger people. It’s saddening to witness how corporate record labels and commercialism started to affect them on their rise to fame.
Meet Me In The Bathroom is full of nostalgia and exceptionally amazing moments, and I hope will turn more people on to this music. It’s a trip down memory lane that chronicles rock and roll and youth. It could just also inspire the next great wave of rockers and artists.
1h 45min. ‘Meet Me in the Bathroom’ is now playing in select Los Angeles and New York theaters.
