Demo Week 2, Day 1.5: Harmful Venoms

Last Demo Week had a Day 1.5, and so too does this one. Like last time, Day 1.5 is for a minor, disappointing demo, that just barely is maybe worth telling people about, but really isn't compelling enough to warrant a proper "Day." And today's entry receives the .5 status for pretty much the same recent the original did: all the songs on it wound up getting released commercially. So whoop-de-doo, right? But, still, it could be an interesting artifact, especially for serious fans of the artist, so let's have our .5.

It's Deadly Venoms! As in the official, all-girl sub-set of the Wu-Tang Clan. I got this tape during my time at The Source, and it represents the time after their first indie 12", which was really good and had people excited about the prospect of Deadly Venoms... and their eventual major label releases, which weren't terrible but pretty much let the air out of the world's collective enthusiasm. And this is a tape of seven songs from when they were still shopping for a major label home to follow up that 12". All songs that quickly found their way onto their A&M Records album, The Antidote.

Now, granted, The Antidote was pretty much shelved and "lost," making these songs still unreleased. But there were promo copies released, and of course it was all leaked onto the internet. And all of those promo copies, etc were of the full LP, not just these seven songs. It's interesting to see which seven songs they had prepared first, and which were made later... and this tape was nice to have before any of their stuff came out.

But I've listened through it plenty (for a while, it's all that was available, after all) and none of the songs are any different than the ones every Wu fan who cares enough has heard. I remember when I first went back to this tape after the full-album leaked online decades ago, hoping to find some lost LinQue verse that was edited out from the final retail version, or a different beat or an extended intro or anything. But nope. A few of the titles are slightly different; "D-Evils" here is simply "Evils." But that's it. Nothing special.

So there ya go. Check out the photo posted above, and you've probably extracted all their value there is from this tape. But check back for Day 2 and I'll have something meatier again.