Insomniac

Born to immigrant parents in Venice, California, Pasquale Rotella fell in with the gangbanger crowd at an early age and was saved by the rave scene just then taking roots in LA. Without a high school degree or a dollar to his name, he started throwing little parties in off-the-beaten-track venues, which over the past twenty years have grown into a multi-billion dollar business. Last year he married Playboy Bunny Holly Madison, threw the biggest music festival in the country with 345,000 people, and sold half of his company, Insomniac Events, to Live Nation for 50 million dollars.

Insomniac is the story of a kid who never achieved traditional academic success, but became the figurehead of the United States' electronic dance scene. A kid who found himself up late at night, unable to sleep, who built himself a nocturnal kingdom to rule. Told in Rotella's unmistakable voice, Insomniac is the vivid, pulsing oral history of the little-understood, fastest-growing music movement in the country and the man at its helm.