Entry One Hundred Forty-Eight.
Thursday, 2011.11.10, 1:19 PM CST.
The Fall 2010 Chronicles, Part III:  Seeing BT and enduring the Ivey.
Current Mood:  Not too bad, actually.
Current Scent:  Metal Jeans by Versace.

It's been a little while since my last update, but things are going well.  "Exhibit A" went quite nicely, and I've sold some of my art - a fact with which I am quite pleased.  Many thanks to everyone who came out to the Gypsy to check out my paintings.

I figured it would be good to get back to my memories about the fall of 2010.  This particular chapter is about seeing a bonafide electronic superstar for whom I've had a great deal of respect, and feeling disappointment not only from his performance but also from the venue in which that performance unfortunately took place.

[In case you can't be bothered to read the rest of this Journal Entry... at the very least, remember this:  The Ivey SUCKS, and you shouldn't go there... and if you have a chance to see BT perform live, you might want to skip it.]

So there's this guy called BT - real name Brian Transeau.  He's an electronic music genius who has released, among other things:

  
"Blue Skies" (with Tori Amos) and "Love, Peace + Grease."

  
"Somnambulist (Simply Being Loved)" and These Hopeful Machines.

Here's a short bit of history:  Back in the 1990s, I was all wacky about Tori Amos.  I was buying and collecting every Tori Amos album, single, B-side, and remix I could get my hands on.  (It was a phase I luckily outgrew over time.)  Then, in 1996, she collaborated with some guy named BT, and the two released one of the most spectacular dance tracks of the late 1990s, "Blue Skies."

Since then, BT has been quite prolific, and I haven't been the most faithful BT collector... but I have enjoyed a lot of his work and I would consider myself a "BT fan."

1997's "Love, Peace + Grease" was one of the greatest electronic club anthems of its time.  The 1999 album Movement in Still Life was a work of art.  In 2003, "Somnambulist" (simply being loved) was a skillfully-crafted, glitch-and-stutter-filled masterpiece.  2010's These Hopeful Machines proved that BT still had what it took to deliver the goods.

Well, in October of last year, I found out that there was going to be a special event at the Ivey, a club in the Brookside area of Tulsa...  BT, performing his "Laptop Symphony," on November 5th.

Not only was this exciting news, but it was quite reasonable as well.  My wife, my friend Tim (DJ TMJ), and his wife all got tickets in advance and met out there that night for a thrilling evening of BT..

As it turned out, the evening sucked, for numerous reasons.  I won't be able to go into all of them, but I'll cover the following:

BT's setlist sucked.
The Ivey sucked.
The promotion company sucked.

BT'S SETLIST SUCKED.
Once they finally got the show rolling (there was no opening act, but there was a LOOOOONG delay before BT started - more details on that below), BT gave us about an hour of his precious time.  That's right - an hour of standing behind a laptop playing his tunes.

The tracklist didn't include "Blue Skies," nor "Love, Peace + Grease," nor even "Somnambulist."  In fact, VERY few of his really big hits were represented in the set.  (Someone told me "Flaming June" was in there, but strangely that was one of BT's singles that I hadn't remembered.)  There was plenty of stuff from the new album, which I realize was important, but still... he couldn't throw in a few more his most famous tracks for those of us who had been fans for a while?

And, hits or not - seriously... an HOUR?  Wow.  No wonder the tickets were so cheap.  I love BT's music, but I doubt that I'll ever attend a BT performance again.

THE IVEY SUCKED.
This event should have been co-sponsored by Summer's Eve or Massengil, because there was DOUCHE all over the place.

I'm not just counting the crowd (which had a really, really high douche factor), but the STAFF there was atrocious.  (To his credit, though, our bartender was a really cool guy.)

The venue itself looked nice, though their lighting system was really underwhelming.  The Ivey certainly didn't live up to the hype.

Now, I'm going to rag on two specific factors that I THINK were the fault of the venue, though I'll admit they might have been supplied by Havoc Nights (the production company whom I'll also address down below).  Those factors were the "Audio Lackeys" and a guy I'll call "Mohawk Douche."

The Audio Lackeys were a handful of guys who kept running up to the stage to set up the DJs' gear.  They ran up to set up for the opening DJ (named "DJ Spin" or something else really creative), and after him, they were responsible for getting BT's laptop hooked up so that he could do his, um, "Laptop Symphony."

However... before BT's set, something was wrong.  One could easily tell from the way the Audio Lackeys kept running up there that there was something wrong.  They would come up, break out the flashlights, work with his laptop, check the connections, tweak a little here and there... and then run back off.  This happened over and over and over.

Mohawk Douche was there to make sure that we knew where we were and whom we were there to see.  "HERE AT THE F***IN' IVEY GETTING READY FOR F***IN' BT!"  Yep.  That was his job.  He was the big, irritating MC with (gasp) a frosted mohawk, a microphone, a really loud voice, not a lot of creativity, and an overwhelming love of "the F-word."

After a short while, I started cringing every time Mohawk Douche got on the mic - which was often.  Between the opening DJ and BT, one of  Mohawk Douche's other responsibilities became very clear:  He needed to stall for time between acts and make it seem like the Audio Lackeys weren't really at fault for delaying BT's performance.

How could he try to keep that illusion going?  Simple.  He blamed BT's delay on the AUDIENCE and then ended up outright INSULTING us.  That's right.

Here's how that worked:  Every few minutes, he would get on the mic (he looooooved that mic) and demand that we "MAKE SOME F***IN' NOISE FOR F***IN' BT!"  Of course, the sheep in the audience would then scream as if Pee-Wee Herman had just said the magic word.  (I was not one of those sheep.)

Then, Mohawk Douche would tell the audience that BT wasn't coming out until THEY made enough noise - and they'd try again.  Even though lots of people could see that there were dudes running back and forth to work on that laptop, Mohawk Douche was still insisting that BT was NOT going to perform until the audience made enough noise for him.

This, of course, had the side effect of making BT sound like a self-absorbed jackass.  (I like to think that's not really the case.)

Then, after a LONG time of waiting for the Audio Lackeys to get BT's setup going, Mohawk Douche came back to tell us to "MAKE SOME MORE F***IN' NOISE," but this time around, he decided to throw in (VERY closely paraphrasing here):

"Now, I know this is TULSA, so I know you're a little slow..."

WHAT?!  Did the Mohawk Douche actually decide to bash our entire CITY just because the Audio Lackeys couldn't hook up a damn laptop correctly?  Why, yes, he did.  I'm absolutely serious.  What a piece of crap.

If I'd been running the evening, that would have gotten him yanked off the mic so quickly that his mohawk would have gotten bent.

Mohawk Douche also made sure to throw in the Havoc "Smokefree and Sexy" credo in as much as possible... but more on that below:

THE PROMOTION COMPANY SUCKED.
If you've never heard of the promotion team "Havoc Nights," it wouldn't surprise me.  This is the company that brought BT to the Ivey.

The big idea behind "Havoc Nights" is this:  "Party Smokefree and Sexy."  Yep, that's their main focus.  If their company had a mission statement, that would probably be it.

Now, granted, I PREFER to go to smoke-free club nights.  I'd prefer not smelling like ass when I go home, plus I have this crazy little thing called "asthma" that makes smoky environments more than a tad uncomfortable.  I CAN go to a smoky club every now and then, but I'm not a big fan of it.  So, on the surface, "Smokefree and Sexy" sounds like a good idea.

However...  Havoc seems to have made it more of an almost-political agenda.  See this "Limp Check-Up" card to the right?

That's not something I threw together as a joke.

That's a scan of an actual card that I got at the event.

The back, incidentally, had a hotline that one could call if one desired to quit smoking.  Admirable enough... but what a heavy-handed approach!

All over the place, there were banners with pictures of hot models (which I don't mind at all!) with "Smokefree and Sexy" at the top.  (I even found one of them which was hilariously misprinted with the credo "SMOKFREE and Sexy."  See the bottom of this post for a picture of that one.)

Women walked around in skimpy little nurse uniforms (again, I didn't mind that!) representing Havoc, handing out cards and whatnot.  It was a little surreal.

Before BT went up, there was even a continuous, well-produced screen show on the telly behind the bar at which I was seated, repeatedly giving medical information and pushing the "Smokefree and Sexy" lifestyle... you know, in case we didn't see the signs and the banners and the nurses and the limp-dick cards.

As if all that weren't enough, Mohawk Douche KEPT yelling about it when he made his announcements.

"WHERE ARE ALL MY SMOKEFREE SEXY PEOPLE AT?"
"HAVOC NIGHTS, PARTYIN' SMOKEFREE AND SEXY."

Repeat in your head with little variance, and throw in an f-bomb every few words to spice it up.  Holy crap...  Hearing this moron drone on and on almost made me want to TAKE UP smoking just to piss those people off.

So, overall, it was a pretty lousy evening.  I have no plans to subject myself to the Ivey again anytime soon, and while I will gladly continue to buy BT's music... I probably won't spend any more money to watch him play his tunes for a mere hour.

There is some good news, though...  An event later in November, SRO25, ended up balancing out the month by being one of the MOST awesome parties I'd ever attended.  Stay tuned for more of the "Fall 2010 Chronicles," coming extremely soon.  :)

Badger

(Remember... if you're going to party and you want to be sexy,
don't wear a smock.  Or a "smok," for that matter.)