NYC 2000s Indie Rock

Two scenes wearing one jacket. One half plugged back into 1978 — Television, Gang of Four, Joy Division — and played it loud in small rooms downtown; the other half, mostly around DFA in Brooklyn, put the same guitars over a four-on-the-floor kick and a cowbell.

What holds them together isn't a sound, it's a five-year window where New York guitar bands got signed, played the same bills, and borrowed each other's rhythm sections.

Fuse lit 2001: The Strokes' Is This It (Rough Trade UK, RCA US), cut with Gordon Raphael in an East Village basement studio, and the Mercury Lounge / Brownies / Bowery Ballroom circuit that fed it.

In parallel, James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy start DFA in 2001 out of a Manhattan studio, producing The Rapture and releasing "Losing My Edge" in 2002. Luxx in Williamsburg hosts Larry Tee's Berliniamsburg nights; Plant Bar is where the DJ side of it drinks.

Matador takes Interpol in 2002, Touch and Go takes TV on the Radio in 2004. By 2005 the majors are buying: Interscope has Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Universal has The Rapture, Capitol co-releases LCD.

Williamsburg rents follow. Lizzy Goodman's oral history Meet Me in the Bathroom (2017) is the scene's official paperwork.

Who: Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio, Liars, The Walkmen, Radio 4, !!!. Producers matter as much as bands — Gordon Raphael, Peter Katis, Dave Sitek, Murphy and Goldsworthy.

Rooms: Mercury Lounge, Luxx, Northsix, Bowery Ballroom, Plant Bar. What: short songs, dry rooms, bass carrying the tune, drums mixed up front and often playing disco.

Guitars are treble and texture, not riffs. How a record gets in: it came out roughly 2001–2007, it was made by people who shared bills in those rooms, and it works on a dancefloor at 2am as readily as on headphones on the L train.