SADNESS – Demo Tape

MALICE MIZER’s second demo tape, containing one song, distributed at a live concert at 難波ROCKETS (Nanba). It was the first time they played at that specific venue.

It contains a folded paper insert with lyrics written on it.
GAZ recorded drums for this track but left the band before the release, so he’s credited on this paper as “THANKS FOR GAZ”.

Finding a physical copy of this tape is extremely difficult, since many more bootlegs/fakes exist than genuine copies. Even the fakes are rare and expensive, since most people owning or selling a fake don’t even know theirs is fake.

Real ones have clearer audio quality than fakes, and their cover art contains many subtle, soft, nuanced greys and miniscule details, opposed to the less-detailed covers with lots of brightness contrast of fakes.

A real one always has a lyrics insert, and is on a TDK AE10 stock from 1993, sometimes with the store-bought TDK AE insert still in it behind the cover. If it’s not on a TDK AE10, it’s almost certainly fake. I don’t think many copies exist, it’s probably in between 100 and 200. Maybe a little less, or more? Who knows! Maybe the band members don’t even remember the exact number either.

The cover image is a xerox copy of a photograph of the sculpture “The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia” by Roman 17th century sculptor Stefano Maderno. It is the same image as on the “THE 1TH ANNIVERSARY” demo tape. The difference between the cover images of both tapes is just some text, and minor details in the copying process.

I own it, but won’t share HQ scans of it as I don’t want more bootlegs to get created based on these scans, sorry!