Go Gaga on the dancefloor with DJ VH1

Madonna mania might have swept the UAE this week but on Friday night, clubbers at Etoiles in Abu Dhabi will be going Gaga.

That’s because New York scenester DJ VH1 - close friend and former collaborator with pop sensation Lady Gaga - will be rocking the Emirates Palace venue with a set that promises his good pal’s hits as well as a mix of pop, mash-up and remixes.

The American, real name Brendan Sullivan, was an up-and-coming DJ on the lower East Side of Manhattan when he took a young, struggling performer with ‘zero songs’ under his wing - first as a dancer, then incorporating her tunes into a set.

Brendan will be lifting the lid on his early days with the pop phenomenon in the book ‘Text, Drugs and Rocknroll’, soon to be published by Harper Collins, but we wanted to know how he ended up working with the first lady of modern music. He explains: “We were all in the same scene. Working one night in 2006, Gaga came right up to me and told me she was a singer.

"I thought she was going to give me a demo or CD but when I asked about songs, she actually said she didn’t have any.

“That just shows how bold she was, to walk up to me and ask if I could help her career when she didn’t have any songs! I thought: maybe when you get some music together you should come back and talk to me!”

Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, proved a determined young girl and the pair were soon playing together alongside Lady Starlight, another arty performer working on the local New York scene, in many trendy hotspots.

Although popular in NYC, Brendan believes Lady Gaga needed another ingredient before she could taste phenomenal success - the bitter sting of failure.

In late 2006, legend has it that a Gaga CD was one of many discarded by music legend and Island Def Jam CEO LA Reid, as a reaction to the state of the music industry.

Brendan says: “Of course I always supported and believed in her and, looking back, she was dropped by Island Def Jam for the right reasons.

“You see the person we now know as Lady Gaga, that tough girl that has everything together, the incredible music and show, she simply wasn’t there yet. She was just 20 years old and she just didn’t have it together. But by ‘failing’ first and having trouble in her personal life, she finally found things that were worth writing about.

“You know, she’s not really about cute songs, what she went through, starting with leaving Def Jam and being a struggling artist in the lower East Side, that’s what gave her the material, to know what it feels like to not sleep or want to get out of bed. That’s the beauty

of art.”

chris.fraser@7days.ae

Want a request from DJ VH1on Friday? Tweet him direct on @ROCKNRLLL