Is This It: The Strokesâ âLast Quiet Momentâ Before Everything Changed
Nick Valensi
Photographer Cody Smyth watched his high school friendsâ band The Strokes â with members Julian Casablancas  Nick Valensi  Albert Hammond Jr.  Nikolai Fraiture  and Fab Moretti â go from a regular staple of New York City dive bars to what the music world hailed as the second coming of rock and roll. In this excerpt from his new book  The Strokes: The First Ten Years  he remembers a night he calls âthe last quiet momentâ before everything changed. Included is a gallery of photos Smyth took from the first ten years of The Strokesâ rise to fame.
A lunch brought us together for the first time in 1995. From that point on we were inseparable. I had met our dear friend  Claude Rene  or âGramps â as we all called him then  in an early morning chemistry class. I was habitually late  which Claude found incredibly entertaining. We bonded instantly. Claude knew Julian as they had gone to elementary school together. He knew  Nick  as the kid who was always at the Flats or the Meadow in Central Park with his guitar. Julian and I had some classes together  but didnât talk much beyond some friendly greetings.  Nick  and I had met briefly in the locker room as our lockers were near each other  but that was about it.
One morning in the hall between classes I run into Claude  and we make a plan to meet out in front of school for lunch. Bell rings and I head out to meet him. âWe got two more joining us â he says as  Nick and Jules  approach. âI know you two!â I say. They say the same as it all clicks. We head to 86th and Columbus to the shitty Greek diner we would frequent for many a lunch that year and the remainder of high school  mostly because you could smoke cigs and get fries and a coke for 2 bucks. Nutrition for a teenage boy came cheap. Our waiter was George. We called him âthree fingersâ because he would bring us our water with his fat fingers in the glasses. I remember Julian ripping into him once about it  but it was our spot. We all hung out there most school days. It wasnât long before we met Fab. He and  Nick  were in tenth grade  and although Fab had his own set of friends  we would always see him. He started coming to lunches with us at the diner. This was the beginning of the band.
Between 2000 & 2001  the bar 2A on Ave A and 2nd Street was our home base. If I couldnât get a hold of  Nick  or one of the other guys I would usually head there knowing Iâd find them. Transporterraum recording studio was across the street from the bar  and the guys were holed up with Gordon Raphael down there for a month or two recording Is This It.
Photographer Cody Smyth watched his high school friendsâ band The Strokes â with members Julian Casablancas   [TGT]   Albert Hammond Jr.  Nikolai Fraiture  and Fab Moretti â go from a regular staple of New York City dive bars to what the music world hailed as the second coming of rock and roll. In this excerpt from his new book  The Strokes: The First Ten Years  he remembers a night he calls âthe last quiet momentâ before everything changed. Included is a gallery of photos Smyth took from the first ten years of The Strokesâ rise to fame.
A lunch brought us together for the first time in 1995. From that point on we were inseparable. I had met our dear friend  Claude Rene  or âGramps â as we all called him then  in an early morning chemistry class. I was habitually late  which Claude found incredibly entertaining. We bonded instantly. Claude knew Julian as they had gone to elementary school together. He knew  Nick  as the kid who was always at the Flats or the Meadow in Central Park with his guitar. Julian and I had some classes together  but didnât talk much beyond some friendly greetings.  Nick  and I had met briefly in the locker room as our lockers were near each other  but that was about it.
One morning in the hall between classes I run into Claude  and we make a plan to meet out in front of school for lunch. Bell rings and I head out to meet him. âWe got two more joining us â he says as  Nick and Jules  approach. âI know you two!â I say. They say the same as it all clicks. We head to 86th and Columbus to the shitty Greek diner we would frequent for many a lunch that year and the remainder of high school  mostly because you could smoke cigs and get fries and a coke for 2 bucks. Nutrition for a teenage boy came cheap. Our waiter was George. We called him âthree fingersâ because he would bring us our water with his fat fingers in the glasses. I remember Julian ripping into him once about it  but it was our spot. We all hung out there most school days. It wasnât long before we met Fab. He and  Nick  were in tenth grade  and although Fab had his own set of friends  we would always see him. He started coming to lunches with us at the diner. This was the beginning of the band.
Between 2000 & 2001  the bar 2A on Ave A and 2nd Street was our home base. If I couldnât get a hold of  Nick  or one of the other guys I would usually head there knowing Iâd find them. Transporterraum recording studio was across the street from the bar  and the guys were holed up with Gordon Raphael down there for a month or two recording Is This It.