Rivington Was Ours

June 15, 2013
Lady Gaga's former DJ reveals the highs and lows of his musical career in the mid-2000s, also unveiling an intimate portrait of the pop singer's rise to fame. From Piano's to Welcome to the Johnsons to Motor City, New Yorkers will instantly recognize the Lower East Side bar scene in Sullivan's gossipy tell-all. However, it seems as if the author couldn't decide on whether this is a memoir about his bartending, dating and DJing experiences, or a name-dropping unauthorized biography of Stefani Germanotta as she evolved from backup go-go dancer to her stage persona, Lady Gaga. Sullivan's relationship with his friend-turned-boss wavers between respect and adoration ("Above all else she knew that she would tread a thin line between artistic greatness and cheesy pop. It all depended on the people around her"). While he does manage to create a visceral setting of the New York scene where Misshapes and Don Hill parties were all the rage, his use of character nicknames ("The Devil" as a drug dealer; "Angel" for a new girlfriend) seems both unnecessary and confusing. Sullivan's constant switching between past and present tense may seem like he is trying to convey a conversational tone within an inner monologue, but it reads as sloppy, distracting writing. The last two sections of the book (based in Miami and Los Angeles) are the most interesting: Sullivan goes behind the scenes at Gaga's Winter Music Conference appearance and the making of her "Just Dance" video. The author claims that he was well-aware that Gaga would ultimately replace him, but readers can't help but wonder if, beneath the idolatry, there isn't a little bit of resentment on his end. This love letter to the Lower East Side will make a great stocking stuffer for hard-core Lady Gaga fans and tourists who idolize the Big Apple. Note: not for the bridge-and-tunnel crowd.

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August 1, 2013
The cast of characters in Sullivan's entertaining book are an eclectic bunch. Most are not famous. They include deejays, singers, bar stool poets, dancers, and guitarists. This is also the story of one too many beers and way too many drugs. All the action takes place on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the city itself stopped making sense. The star of the story is Stefani Germanotta. Sullivan was an up-and-coming deejay in 2006 when he met Germanotta, who is known today as Lady Gaga. Then she was a go-go dancer with big dreams: Behind her dark bangs she had the delicacy and eye makeup of the tiniest eggs in a set of Russian dolls. Sullivan describes hanging out with the soon-to-be-famous singer in her bare-bones apartment, their circle of friends, and their neighborhood haunts along Rivington, a bar- and restaurant-studded street that Gaga has referenced in several of her songs. An intimate portrait of a specific timebefore stardom struckand a particular place. Fans of Gaga and the downtown New York music scene will find this fascinating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)