Session Information
As 1992 went on the popularity of Nirvana was showing no signs of slowing off the back of their hit album ‘Nevermind’. The band spent the early months of the year touring far and wide, with shows in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and culminated with two performances in Hawaii upon their return to the United States. With those duties fulfilled the band finally had a decent length of time to rest and reflect upon a crazy few months, with their next live shows not set to take place until June. In early April the band headed back into a recording studio, planning to record several songs for upcoming minor releases. Rather than head to another large facility like Sound City, the trio instead opted for something more down to earth.
By this time Barrett Jones had settled in after his move across the country to Seattle, with his Laundry Room now set up in a “little yellow house” in the city that he shared with Dave Grohl. It was upon his recommendation that Nirvana visited twice in April 1992, recording demos and cover tracks. The studio in this house was never really considered an official spot for Laundry Room by Jones, with only two other artists recording there. Buzz Osbourne of The Melvins visited to record tracks that would be released on his King Buzzo EP and the other, also in April of 1992, was a trio by the name of ‘Allister Lobb’.
The makeshift band was, in fact, Dave Grohl on drums, his sister Lisa Grohl on Bass Guitar and Mike Dees, most well known as front-man of Washington punk band Fitz Of Depression, on guitar. Grohl and Dees had first met in Olympia, Washington with Nirvana playing on the same bill as Fitz at a handful of shows in early 1991. The pair also jammed together on a few occasions around this time according to Dees, usually at the Fitz Of Depression rehearsal space.
Dave invited the pair to join him at the house to help record yet more new songs he’d penned, with Barrett Jones on hand to record the session. Five songs were put to tape and according to Dees, they were so new that none had been given a title by Grohl. The songs were instead referenced as simply ‘Song 1’, ‘Song 2’, and so, on during recording.
Three of the tracks recorded were in actuality early versions of the songs which would later be known to Foo Fighters fans as ‘Podunk’, ‘Make A Bet’ and ‘How I Miss You’. The songs were already well structured at this early stage with only minor changes made in later recordings. In the case of ‘How I Miss You’, this is the only occasion on which the song was recorded.
The remaining two songs recorded by the trio would also be unique to this session, although one would bear a passing similarity to the song ‘Exhausted’. They were, again at a later date, given the titles ‘I Don’t Want Your’ and ‘Watered It Down’.
Mike Dees brought his own equipment to the studio and his 1961 Gibson SG Guitar left a signature mark on the recording of ‘How I Miss You’. The guitar had a faulty jack connection and the noise heard at the very end of the song is Dees adjusting the jack to try and keep it connected. For amplification, he brought a 1980s Ampeg SS140C amp as well as a 1980s Mesa Boogie 2x10 Bass Cabinet which according to Dees “had some wicked low end”. The Grohl siblings used equipment already present at the house since Dave lived at and stored most of his equipment there.
No vocals were recorded by Grohl during this April session although he would add them during another session at the studio later in the year (November 1992, detailed later in the book).
The vocals from that later session were added to these instrumentals and one track, ‘How I Miss You’, saw official release. The track was included as a B-Side on the 1995 Foo Fighters single ‘I’ll Stick Around’, although neither Lisa nor Mike were given any credits on the release, something which Dees said did not bother him.
Whilst no other songs from this session have seen official release a tape containing all five instrumentals was shared online in 2004.
The moniker for this one one-off band, Allister Lob, was bestowed upon them by Barrett Jones, borrowing the name of a friend from his early childhood. The session was recorded on Barrett’s Tascam 8 track tape recorder through a Carvin MX2488 mixing desk.
