February 1997 – Chicago Recording Company

February 1997 – Chicago Recording Company
Studio session of The Smashing Pumpkins
Artist	The Smashing Pumpkins
Date	February 1997
Location	Chicago Recording Company
Producer(s)	Billy Corgan
Engineer(s)	Chris Shepard

The February 1997 Chicago Recording Company sessions is where roughly 30 demos for Adore were recorded. These were intended to be a Bob Dylan-inspired live-in-the-studio session. The album version of "Annie-Dog" as well as the B-side "Once in a While" comes from these sessions. The band also supposedly recorded about 45 minutes worth of demos for the Batman & Robin soundtrack, probably also done at this session; "The Guns of Love Disastrous" and "The Ethers Tragic" are probably from this session as well. While all this session appeared in remixed form on the Adore remaster, the original mixes leaked as a bootleg in 1999.

“ James, D'arcy, and I go in to Chicago Recording Company with Matt Walker on drums, and over about 3-4 days quickly lay down some of my new tunes… (the Adore album version of "Annie-Dog" is recorded live in these sessions, as is the first run thru of "For Martha" without the lyrics) … James and D'arcy and Matt play really great (we record live), and seem to like and appreciate the new songs… the lack of any outside pressures, the laid back atmosphere, seem to suit everyone's mood and we are optimistic that this is going to be a quicker, less painful album to make (my original estimate was it would take all of 6 weeks to record Adore - Mellon Collie had taken 8 months) … buoyed by the latest work, I make plans to start the album "for real" … I want everything to be recorded live, or if not totally live, be done really quickly … I am inspired by Bob Dylan's approach from the 1960's where you just when in and did your songs really fast (1 or 2 takes)… I tell myself this is what has been missing from the band, this sense of freedom and spontaneity… ” — Billy Corgan, "Starcrossed, and Subsequently, a Door is Opened", livejournal, April 12th, 2005

Tracks recorded

• "Annie-Dog"
• "Blissed and Gone"
• "Chewing Gum"
• "Do You Close Your Eyes When You Kiss Me?" (Do You Close Your Eyes?)
• "For Martha" (take 1)
• "For Martha" (take 2)
• "My Mistake"
• "Once in a While"
• "The Ethers Tragic"
• "The Guns of Love Disastrous"
• "The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete"
• [about 20 other Adore demos]
• [about 8 or 10 other Batman & Robin demos]