Watching Meet Me in the Bathroom, a new documentary about the explosion of New York City’s indie rock scene in the early 2000s, is an almost transcendent experience. You’re taken inside the dingy bars, shitty apartments, abandoned warehouses, and DIY venues where the defining bands of that era were born. You get to be there when Karen O and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs first meet. When the Strokes play one of their earliest shows at the Mercury Lounge. When Interpol records their first album, Turn on the Bright Lights. When James Murphy writes “Losing My Edge,” LCD Soundsystem’s first single. As it all unfolds, it feels like you’re actually living through it: like you stepped inside of a time machine, emerged in Lower Manhattan in 1999, and somehow lucked your way into this scene as it blossomed, flourished, and eventually, crushingly, fizzled out.Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace—the directors of Meet Me in the Bathroom, which was inspired by Lizzy Goodman’s book of the same name—tell the story of that time in music history through interviews with the people at the heart of it, including Karen O, Zinner, Murphy, TV On the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Kimya Dawson and Adam Green of The Moldy Peaches, and more. The directors got their hands on a trove of never-before-seen archival footage, much of it taken on camcorders by members of those bands, their friends, and folks at their shows.Meet Me in the Bathroom, which was produced by XTR and Pulse Films (a part of VICE Media Group), will have premiere events in LA on October 27 and in New York on October 30, ahead of opening in limited release on November 4. It’s then coming to theaters nationwide—for one night only—on November 8. You can buy tickets for a showing in your city here. You’ll also be able to stream the documentary on Showtime starting November 25. Ahead of its release, check out an exclusive first trailer for Meet Me in the Bathroom above.Drew Schwartz is a senior staff writer for VICE.
Advertisement