A review by library_jones
Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

3.0

This was not an easy book to rate. There are sections of the book I really enjoyed (I'm a big fan of The Strokes, so I loved that they are basically the central group in the book), but there are long sections that bored me with excessive details about groups and artists that I'm not really interested in. Maybe that's on me for not being into LCD Soundsytem, and maybe I should give them a shot.

The subtitle promises NY rock and roll from 2001 - 2011, but there is actually a long (about 100 pages or so) section dealing with the NY rock scene prior to 2001. It's important to give some background, but 100+ pages of shady clubs and drugs before even meeting any of the bands I wanted to read about was not the way I wanted to start this book.

Like a few other reviews, I was a little thrown off by the book's format. The first few chapters were making me want to run back to the cast of characters pages, before I eventually gave up on that and just went with it. Even with all of my complaints, I did enjoy much of the book. There were some great insight into and interviews from bands like The Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Kings of Leon. I can only hope that there will be another interesting rock scene that I'll be reading about someday.