andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

With the touch of a button, Nicolas Dresti delivers a shot of adrenaline to the sea of 30 thousand fans. Their screams are met with his quick rhythmic jumping and head bobbing to the beat on-stage. He’s not the main event, heck he’s not even a co-headliner, but he’s still the man orchestrating one of the hottest concerts on the planet – all from a laptop. This may be Lady Gaga’s party, but DJ Space Cowboy is the event’s power source – the battery that keeps the beat alive.

He’s now on top of the world.

On that night Dresti was the European energizer bunny, but now he’s recharging his own batteries at his hotel. It’s hard to believe that he is the key to Lady Gaga’s live performance successes. The man in the neatly-cut dark-suit and sparkling rhinestone skinny-tie seems sophisticated and quiet – the complete opposite of what a Gaga concert is notorious for.

But it’s true. Look at Dresti and his alter ego DJ Space Cowboy like you would Clark Kent and Superman – they’re both the same person, yet totally different at the same time. Put Clark Kent into a phone booth and he’ll become Superman. Well, put Dresti in front of an audio mixer and laptop, and he’ll suddenly transform into the backbone – or backbeat, if you will – as DJ Space Cowboy, Gaga’s DJ and head maestro responsible for explosive energy in any crowd.

His new album Digital Rockstar dropped earlier this week, and it’s one of the rare chances to really hear Superman-like energy harnessed into one CD.

“Raising the energy bar is one my main jobs as a DJ,” Dresti tells andPOP in the martini bar of Toronto’s Pantages Hotel.

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Lady GaGa, an up-and-coming pop artist hailing from New York’s East Side, is a woman who is not afraid to use forceful language when defending her favourite artists.

“Gwen is fucking brilliant. Anyone who says Gwen isn’t brilliant is a dumbass,” said the 22-year-old pop culture enthusiast, referring, of course, to onetime No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani.

Lady GaGa (who got her name from the Queen song “Radio GaGa”) has been involved in the music scene and pop culture since her early teen days. She was playing New York night clubs at 14 and penning songs for the likes of the Pussycat Dolls and New Kids on the Block by her early 20s.

Through relentless self-promotion, Lady GaGa was eventually signed as an artist to Interscope Records. She landed on the top 40 charts this summer with her song “Just Dance” and collaborated with Akon for her upcoming album “The Fame,” due in stores on Sept. 16.

Lady GaGa said that working her way up though the music industry helped her to grow as an artist, and she believes that hard is the key to making music a profession.

“I don’t really feel like reality TV gives you a career,” Lady GaGa told andPOP, referring to shows like American Idol that set out to launch the career of unknowns. “I did it the way I believe you have to.”

Aside from her electro-pop, dance-pop, and rock infused music, Lady GaGa is also known for her racy live shows, which have been described as a form of shock art. Here’s an example: during performances, Lady GaGa will strip down to a pair of her personally-designed and manufactured hot pants and bikini top, light cans of hairspray on fire, and strike a pose below a disco ball to the orchestral sounds of “A Clockwork Orange” – bearing no resemblance to a typical pop-tart concert.

“I’ve always done my shows this way, I never changed it,” said Lady GaGa. “I like to be provocative. I want my live shows to be important because it’s different.”

Her energetic live show caught the attention of celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who invited Lady GaGa to perform at his Four of July Spectacular party in Las Vegas. The artist agreed to play the show after a dinner with Perez.

“I am such a celebrity-obsessed person, so in some ways Perez and I are very similar,” said Lady GaGa.

Not only is Lady GaGa obsessed with pop culture, she defends pop music and major labels in a way that many other artists avoid.

“I think for whatever reason, society views the big label as evil, or a big factory. People don’t learn about how the label is nothing except for artist that work for it. Artists like Timberland – they are totally brilliant, crazy, and artistic. The whole myth that pop albums do no make good albums is totally neglected by the impact that they have on the world.”

“The Fame” will feature the electric music and theatrics that Lady GaGa is known for, but she also hopes show others what they can do with music.

“I hope to inspire some kind of change in music and to bring back pop. I want it to be important; I want people to be inspired,” she said. “If not, then I did a shitty job.”