Peel Sessions

Peel Sessions is an EP by The Smashing Pumpkins, released in 1992. The songs were recorded live on September 8, 1991 for John Peel's Radio 1 show, with exception of some minor overdubbing. All recordings later appeared on Rarities and B-Sides, and all but "Smiley" were included in the deluxe reissue of Gish. "Girl Named Sandoz", originally performed by The Animals, later appeared on 1994's Pisces Iscariot. The title is a reference to Sandoz Laboratories, where LSD was invented.

The band showed up two hours late to the sessions due to a technical misunderstanding. Billy Corgan spoke lowly of the experience, citing the poor treatment by the production crew, but added that this in turn forced the band to give a more powerful performance:

Recorded for our first bbc session, we were led like lambs to the slaughter by a bored ex-rock star (who was assigned to us as session producer) and his chief assistant (a cockney who hated our too-loud sound). we were mocked for asking any question, and each and every request to change a sound was met with a fake turning of the knobs; to which i yelled "do you think i'm deaf and can't hear you haven't done anything?" the upside from this charade was that in anger we played with ferocious might; one of the few documents we have in studio that captures the way we were meant to destroy music and each other be exalting in its ad infinitum power.

The album's cover photo was taken by James Iha.

Personnel

 * The Smashing Pumpkins


 * Production