Put on Eyeliner. We're Going Back to Indie Sleaze.
Forget quiet book clubs. This one wants you to dance, flirt, sing, and sweat your way through one of New York's most iconic music scenes. For one night, Parkside Lounge becomes Meet Me in the Bathroom, complete with Karen O's dressing room, Misshapes-style portraits, and all the glorious chaos of Indie Sleaze.
I cannot get enough of a public party that has an actual point and purpose, especially one that tells you exactly where to be and what to do. Then you tell me that this is a book club where we are living the book? I’m sold.
On Friday, Simone McAlonen, the actor, writer, comedian, and brain behind Midnight Flâneur, is turning Parkside Lounge into Meet Me in the Bathroom: a sweaty, sexy little indie sleaze bacchanal inspired by Lizzy Goodman’s giant oral history of the same name. And yes, the back bathroom is being made over as Karen O’s dressing room.
Goodman’s Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001–2011 is not a clean little scrapbook of skinny ties, American Apparel, and songs you still know all the words to against your will. It is a huge, gossip-heavy oral history of the downtown music scene after 9/11, built from more than 200 interviews with musicians, bloggers, photographers, artists, managers, DJs, groupies, models, and whoever else was awake, drunk, broke, and somehow standing near (or in) the right band.
The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, and DFA are all in there, obviously. But so are the messier parts: drugs, ego, sudden fame, collapsing friendships, people trying desperately to be cool, and the strange way a scene can feel like it belongs to everyone right before it turns into an industry. It is about music, yes, but also the chaos of being young in New York, looking hot in terrible lighting, and finding out that everyone you thought was effortlessly glamorous was probably just exhausted.
Simone is not trying to turn that into a museum show. She calls this an unconventional, site-specific book club. Instead of sitting around with a glass of wine and discussing the themes, we are supposed to live inside the book for a night. That means a Karen O bathroom with a little deep dive into "Maps," recreated DFA Records business card stickers, Avenue D’s personal photo archive at the entrance, and new footage projected with old clips of the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs behind the DJs.
There will also be Misshapes-inspired flash portraits. Bring a disposable camera. The time has arrived.
What Simone wants is not some precious "remember 2005?" costume party. She told me she is after rowdy, irreverent, sexy energy: a real little sleaze-fest where people dance, sing to each other, flirt, and maybe stop treating the dance floor like a place to stand around holding a drink while waiting to be photographed.
I went to Simone’s Surrealist Ball earlier this year, and she understands the difference between an event with decorations and one that actually gives people permission to participate. Her parties have things to look at, sure, but more importantly, they make strangers talk to each other. They make you wear the ridiculous thing. They compel you to stay later than you meant to.
Meet Me in the Bathroom is Friday, July 10, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. at Parkside Lounge, 317 East Houston Street. Tickets are $15 to $20 in advance and $25 at the door. It is 21+.
Put on the eyeliner. Wear the boots. Go with your oldest Interpol friend, or go alone and acquire one there. New York has plenty of places to be tasteful. This should not be one of them.