Sneaking A Tape Recorder into concerts in the 70s-90s

Lol, the scheme does fall apart if you’re outdoors and it’s very warm. I’ve mostly been indoors in seated situations so it’s worked out.

 

Forgot to mention… one time, the heat made me strip down to a T-shirt, and without a place to hide the phone, I had to hold it in front of me like Taper Girl from the first Beatles concert in America….

 

My friend Rick the taper had his whole rig in a woven straw cowboy hat. The mics and the DAT deck were suspended via rubber bands.

Yes, you eventually learned who the stupidest person manning each venue was.

 

Obviously we won't be hearing from Dean since he died 64 years ago. But yes he was a maverick with his wire recorder at all those Charlie Parker gigs wasn't he?

 

Ah I'd intended to mention him but forgot. He's the guy who taped Charlie Parker in the 40's (but usually only the solos) on a wire recorder, and later an early tape recorder using paper tape. Once he was thrown out but sneaked back in and ran a mic cable through to the toilets and set up his equipment in there. Another time he had permission but the venue owner objected so he sneaked under the bandstand and drilled a hole up through the floor and inserted a mic... which unfortunately was right underneath the drumkit!

Here's a gif I made ages ago...



EDIT: Ah it's not even the same girl, the one in the photos has dark sleeves, this one does not. Another taper girl at the same concert!

 

Anybody remember the guy in Chicago (named Gary, maybe?) who was omnipresent in 1980s and 1990s at the Lounge Ax and several other venues? Taped everything, had probably thousands of shows, though I understand with some exceptions he kept them to himself

 

I'm trying to find the guy who was in the front row with a camcorder when Tori Amos played Shuba's supporting Little Earthquakes.

 

That’s why any raw guitar feed thru wireless videos are all so old.

 

How do classical concerts sound using your gear compared to an amplified rock show? Besides the quiet audience, I would imagine a purpose built symphony hall would sound really good.

 

There is an urban legend (that I have never seen validated, but maybe someone here will) that a taper came in with a 'broken leg' that held his deck, crutches were metal, held the mikes and batteries. He'd go down to the little boys room and get set up. He supposedly was never searched........

 

For those of y'all who did tape, are there any particularly events that you've taped? maybe it's a one off audience thing or a especially good performance by a band, anything goes!

 

They didn't start becoming outlawed until 2017, and made completely illegal until last year, but the frequencies became very difficult to work around during the transition when every broadcaster got an additional digital channel to move to. The other part of the digital television transition was the old television frequencies got sold for cellular and data purposes. And analog audio broadcasts require bandwidth on either side of the target frequency. But digital transmissions can be spaced much closer together.

In a concert situation, they don't really care about somebody picking up the microphone or instrument feeds, but the new digital transmitters and receivers have encryption capability because other parts of the market care about that - like corporate production, where they'd worry that a competitor or a reporter could pick up information from outside of a closed meeting.

 

I have many stories related to taping since I began tape trading in late 60’s but one I thought I might share was really quite fun. Traveling down to Sarasota Florida, just south of where I grew up, I went to see Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels show shortly after they released their “Detroit”album at the Sarasota auditorium. Upon entering the auditorium I befriended the sound engineer and asked him all types of questions regarding sound systems,etc. I then asked the golden question “ Do you think the band would mind if I were to record tonight’s show.” Answering “be my guest and you can connect to the mixing board if you want.” Wow oh wow! With only 45 min prior to show time I rushed home and loaded my 2 track reel to reel in my car and drove back with 10 min to spar. Setting up back stage and connecting up to the back stage console I began recording. As Mitch and band left the stage after a staggering set ( specifically “Detroit Medley”) and the audience stamping and clapping for an encore, Ryder spoted me center stage left, walked over and asked me what I was doing. “Recording this spectacular show with permission” I replied. He asked to listen in with my headphones and raved about the recording while 1,000 plus fans were screaming for more he was listening to my recording. Returning to the stage to complete the encore and the band was gone in a jiffy as wa I with a great recording under wing. More stories about my Springsteen recordings that began in late 75 soon.....

 

Somewhere there is an awesome pic at the 1982 US Festival of the audience and in that sea of people is a taper with pair of Nakamichi shotgun mics on a stand.

 

Actually, I think (perhaps) they’re friends sitting side by side, taking turns holding the mic.

 

Mike the Mike’s tale reminded me of my own ventures
Not bootlegging the show, but getting it out to the “masses”

Long before the online Wolfgang Vaults download sites there were cassettes

I had a Nakamichi LX5 and LX3 in my home system

When the advent of boot cassette taping came along and people banded together on the internet I was in the Led Zeppelin tape circle via 1997-98 and received lowest gen tapes to copy and distribute to the next level tapers. I was an audiophile from a young age and was very proficient at recordings. The copies were as stellar as I could make them based on the source, levels etc and I only used Maxell XL II. If someone asked nice who wasn’t in the next level of coping, I would record a tape directly for them.

When the group didn’t believe a person who said he had the source of previously unleaked alternative session tapes for Physical Grafitti he reached out to me and all those fabulous tapes saw The Light in The Road. He didn’t ask for a dime, he just wanted them to be heard. That was later booted as Physically Present. Some of the more interesting tracks didn’t even show up on the big PG Super Deluxe box set

With the advent of cds and digital files the cassette method went away but I still feel a low gen analog tape done right beats a cdr or digital file.

 

In the '90s, long before video editing software came standard on many PCs, I played around with digital video editing. I bought a huge SCSI drive and installed it along with a board to digitize video from a camcorder I owned. I started making short productions that I edited from footage I shot, and some of this footage was from jazz shows I saw around this time, including an Elvin Jones show at Blues Alley. To this day I don't think anyone has seen that footage except me, and I haven't watched it in years. The video was not great due to the lighting and needing to hide the camcorder on one of the seats at my table. But the audio was surprisingly good.

 

YouTube does a pretty amazing job of converting nearly every digital format. I've uploaded raw footage from my DVRex system. I would encourage you to upload it anyway... Why not?

I shot some early Happy Rhodes footage that was shot on 8mm video that looks pretty awful (single camera handheld, microphone on the camera only) but her fans are really happy to see it.

 

I would actually have to redigitize it from the 8mm, and I'm not set up to do that. I no longer have any digital files.

 

Springsteen - love for the common man

 

Generally, they sound pretty good. A simple stereo pair in the auditorium picks up more ambience than a closer multi-miked recording, as you'd expect, but I've had some very pleasing results over the years. Here's a brief sample of a multi-miked BBC recording of a Mahler symphony from a few years ago, together with my own recording. (Hope this is OK with the Gorts.) Dropbox - Recording comparison - Simplify your life
You can hear the difference due to the miking technique, but the professional recording isn't that much better than mine. I often wonder how long it takes and how much it costs to mike up a full orchestra for broadcast, when acceptable results can be obtained from a simple stereo pair!

As regards the "quiet audience"? Even at classical concerts, I'm irritated by inconsiderate audience members who shuffle, snuffle, cough, rummage noisily in handbags and even talk during the performance. But that's a topic for another thread....

 

I,m from the Netherlands i was on vacation in florida in 89 taped molly hatchet in cape canaveral & whitesnake at daytona beach great times

 

I mean 1988 in 89 i was in california taped testament an jefferson airplane in golden gate park

 

This is not new. The heyday for this kind of concert recording was about '97 to '17, although some folks are still doing it. I've got a friend who recorded Rush at VA Beach in 2004 this way. Kept his scanner in the car, running off an external battery, while he recorded a beatiful AUD source with mics hidden in a mesh hat. The resultant SBD/AUD matrix is a true thing of beauty.

 

Would recommend all three Taper's Compendiums for anyone interested in the history of bootlegging, as well as Clinton Heylin's amazing book, titled -- obviously -- Bootleg.