Zoom/Sony/Tascam: sick electricity

At the risk of turning this esteemed music blog into a low-rent version of What Hi-Fi, I want to ask an important question: what's the best portable (hand-held) device to use for the purpose of recording the sound at gigs, especially pretty noisy ones? Yes, serious question. I'd really like to know what's the best bit of kit to do my very own Niluccio on noise bootlegs. If you know, please tell me ... As I mentioned in a blog last year, I've been fooling around with trying to record gigs for more than 20 years (gulp). Ever since I recorded Schneider TM in east London in 2000 - with, of all things, a cheap dictaphone - I've been mucking about with different devices - different volume settings, different mics, different this, different that. And, weirdly, the results don't seem to be any better now than they were 22 years ago when I pressed "RECORD" at that Schneider TM gig. The three recorders in this photo are the main ones I've tried using in the past 20 years.

Fizzing at the terminals: three devices but no acoustic energy

Recently, I happened to be listening to a recording (Selfish Cunt) from the Sony days (roughly 2002-9) and I was struck by how much better it sounded than the heavily-distorted ones I've done with the Tascam in the past few years. Wtf, I'm regressing! Naturally I had to dig the Sony out of a drawer with a view to testing it at the very next gig. Except: no mic! Nope, it was missing. So of course I immediately ordered another one (pictured above), literally delivered all the way from China. Yet because of a mix-up (mine, no doubt) I ended up with two identical mics, acquiring another one from a supplier in the UK at about five times the cost of the one that came thousands of miles from China (the perversities of global capitalism in action). Next thing: like an idiot I'd forgotten to check the battery, and ... of course! Yes, the one I have is dead and it transpires that these flat "Gumstick" Sony batteries are now helpfully discontinued ("obsolete") and only available from shark-like people selling them for nearly £100 a go on eBay. A small 3.7v battery for £100! And all just to check how good the Sony would be if I take it along to blag some sounds at my next ropey gig ...

The Sony LIP-4WM, available absolutely nowhere

Yeah man, life is tough if you simply want to record the music at a few DIY noise gigs. Very tough indeed. What's a poor boy to do? Shell out for a massively expensive battery and hope for the best? Maybe. Or give up on these supposedly superior devices and go back to my long-lost dictaphone? Or get something entirely different? Either way, I reckon Pete Shelley foresaw this dire audiological predicament well before I did ...

"My mad love battery - wants to charge you
My mad love battery - couldn't make me enlarge you
My mad love battery - fizzing at the terminals
My mad love battery - is one helluva pack of animals
My mad love battery - wants to have us both
My mad love battery - don't allow for sleep or sloth
My mad love battery - never minces words
Don't discharge flattery - so don't listen to what you've heard (du-duh du-duh) 
I got sick electricity"