Why singer-songwriter Kalle Mattson recommends this oral history of New York's music scene
This interview originally aired on March 30, 2019.
Ottawa-based singer-songwriter Kalle Mattson is no stranger to change. His musical output is diverse — from folk to electropop, the Juno Award and Polaris Music Prize-nominated musician revels in transitory sounds that span genres.
Below, he tells The Next Chapter why he loved Meet Me in the Bathroom by Lizzy Goodman.
"Meet Me in the Bathroom starts off in the mid-to-late 1990s and chronicles the New York rock scene and the New York musical renaissance that coincided with the change in the music industry and the evolution of the Internet.
"It's a very gossipy tale. There's lots of juicy musician and music industry gossip that I find fascinating. Oral histories always promise you the real story, or give you some anecdotes that you don't know, and this book delivers on that. The one thing that was shocking to me throughout this entire thing is how much every one of these bands came from some version of privilege. Julian Casablancas — the lead singer of The Strokes — his dad owns a modeling agency. They would essentially just go to the modeling agency and get all the models to come out to early Strokes shows. I can't express how easy, fun and gossipy this book is. It's highly entertaining."
Kalle Mattson's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Watch Kalle Mattson perform Without You for CBC Music's First Play Live
