Billy Corgan 1991-09-XX

September 1991 – London, UK
Live performance by Billy Corgan
Artist	Billy Corgan
Date	September 1991
Venue	(hotel room)
Location	London, UK
Venue type	Hotel room
Personnel	Billy Corgan
Order of bands	Billy Corgan
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Setlist

1. (interview)
2. "Drown" (acoustic) [3:57] 
3. "Suffer" (acoustic) 
4. "La Dolly Vita" (acoustic) 
5. "Obscured" (acoustic) 
6. "Tristessa" (tease) (acoustic) 
7. "Rhinoceros" (tease) (acoustic) 
8. "Snail" (acoustic) 

Notes

• Last performance of "La Dolly Vita" until 1999-04-10

Banter

Corgan: Are we on?
Interviewer: We are on, what we gonna hear?
Corgan: This is a new song, kind of not done, but it's called "Drown". We've been playing it here and there on tour
Drown
Interviewer: That's beautiful
Corgan: Thank you
Interviewer: It's very nice, so it's not on a record yet but you play it live?
Corgan: Sometimes, I'm still working on it. This is a song off the record 'Fish' called "Suffer"
Suffer
Interviewer: Wow, beautiful, sounds really good
Corgan: Thank you
Interviewer: Very different than on record
Corgan: That's what I mean like the difference sometimes, it's the same song but a different interpretation in how you approach it and stuff
Interviewer: What is your favourite song of yours?
Corgan: I don't know. I mean I like them all, I like all the songs but sometimes I don't like the way I did them, you know what I mean? I mean I like this song and I still like the way it sounds on the record and there's other songs I still like the song but I don't like the way I did it on the record... um, probably a song that consistently stays with me is "Snail" because it's a song that, it wasn't one of those songs when you first played it you thought 'oh, this is a great song' I really had to work on it and work on it and kept it in my mind and kept thinking about it... I don't know. OK, I'm gonna try and play a song I haven't played in a while, it's the b-side of our Sub Pop single, it's called "La Dolly Vita"
Interview: Yeah! Very good
Corgan: I haven't played this for about nine months so I'll give it a try.. what we call a 'college try', it's a dumb American saying
La Dolly Vita
Corgan: I barely remembered how to play that
Interviewer: It sounded good to me
Corgan: Thank you, I was remembering the words at the last second
Interviewer (laughing): Really?
Corgan: Yes, I was going.. 'ok what's the next line?'
Interviewer: Do you play your songs often or not at all when they are done? Once, like on the record?
Corgan: Well see like a song like this we don't play live you know. Mostly, not because it's a bad song but because the band's never found the right way to play it, you know. We managed to record it in the studio but I would much rather not play a song and have it be sacred... I don't wanna sound religious about it, but I mean if something is dear to your heart and then you have to go out every night and ruin it, and trying to play that song live it just seemed like we were ruining it and ruining it. And part of that song too is that it has an alternate tuning so it was to try and get in tune live...
Sometimes you play them for friends
Interviewer: I could sit here for hours really listening to you
Corgan: Well, OK, I'll play you another song. This is called "Obscured" and it'll probably be on the next record but who knows what'll happen to me in between so I'll give it a try, it's kind of a strange song so...
Interviewer: Strange?
Corgan: Strange, me? Me, Strange? This is a song that's strange and emotional
Obscured
Interviewer: It sounds very sad
Corgan: Does it sound sad?
Interviewer: It does, so is it not intended?
Corgan: No, it's just my melancholy self, that's all. I don't think of it in terms of "sad" or "happy", I just think of it in terms of how I feel, and I lot of times when I'm happy I have mixed emotions with my happiness and just a lot of sadness has to do with disappointment. You're sad because you're disappointed about something that you want which is happy, you know, you want happiness and so to me it's all one big convoluted stew/mess/craziness.
You could see me go through the whole album, this [shuffles paper] is all the titles of the album
Interviewer: What about 'Tristessa'?
Corgan: On guitar?
Interviewer: Doesn't work at all?
[tries to play Tristessa riff]
Interviewer: Yeah you're right
Corgan: See it wasn't written on acoustic and then transferred
Interviewer: It wasn't?
Corgan: Like 'Rhinoceros'...
[plays Rhinoceros intro]
Corgan: Cos I wrote it on this and then you take the song that you have and make it work for the band. You put in extra parts and work out the guitar.
Do you want to hear a song off the record.. you keep picking the rock songs.
No, I'm just asking you is there a song you wanna hear?
Interviewer: Snail?
Corgan: OK I'll try, it's interesting translated to acoustic
Snail