There are creative means for which one can present ones self in a better light to gain open access recording.
This poses the greater challenge for me at least when comparing it to the old days of smuggling recording gear into a venue. Mellowing with age?
Nick's stand out comment to me after the show was: "I love Tapers"! I was the only person recording. I came in and set up as I wanted with no problems from venue staff and was able to supply Nick with a copy, as well as the opening band. Point being is that it made for a better recording than it would have been if I had been is stealth mode and allowed me to also enjoy the show and not look like a stiff all night.
That made my day.
I don't think there would be this many responses if we knew it was a thread about stealthing. (auto correct just told me I typed "steal thing(s)"
Its funny, in NYC, before everyone had a phone with email, if you had time, you could arrive early-- BEFORE the band actually showed up, talk to the the venue, have a few beers, get the best seat, and then the manager would tell the bandleader that you were there to tape and they'd come out and talk to you and you could either do it or not. Before Bill Frisell's success, you could actually tape at the Village Vanguard. Most shows didn't sell out there and if you could just get off work and show up and drink a bit. Lorraine was happy you were a customer and there were something like 40 people who would show up and 5 of them would have mics on the tables...
Musicians were happy you were there and excited you showed interest. My friend Pete, who got me into the whole crazy scene, as recently as 1999 saw Marc Ribot after we were leaving a Tom Waits show at the Beacon theatre and Marc asked, "you still going around taping shows?" Now Marc is an avid anti-anything that doesn't get me paid activist. (And he's right to feel that way.) Don't even HOPE to tape at the Vanguard today, in the day of phone-sized 24/96 recorders.
I think it all boils down to intent some days, or maybe time & money. The world is really big and nobody's paying for music the way they used to, so there is a real backlash against taping in some aspects of the "industry."
Now that I have a kid and I'm wrenched away from the whole scene of anything I actually care about music-wise, there aren't as many shows that I will actually go to.
And fewer that I can actually make it to before the opening act. In fact, now that I think about it, if I had to show up early at a bar I'd be too toasted to make it through to the main attraction!
For me, getting there 10 minutes before the band means almost always having to stealth.
By 2009 in NYC, most of the bands I taped were OK with it but asked me to not be so obvious and I ended up with a system that didn't include setting up mics where people would later ask for copies of the tape, and the artists would have a copy they could grab the next morning.
I WISH I could get there early and set up, and I WISH people weren't becoming more and more assholes around me, but that doesn't seem likely any time soon.
But I am always happy to hear someone can make a change that goes against all their obsessions.