Late! - Pocketwatch

If you like early Foo Fighters, you'll definitely like Late! That's because it's Dave Grohl prior to Saint Cobain's death. I know, many of you were probably well aware of this and I have offended your sensibilities. My apologies, I just like to inject a little humor from time to time.

Anyway, Late! was Dave's project from 1992 and was released only as a cassette through the long-deceased Simple Machines label. As with the first Foo Fighters album, Dave played all instruments and wrote almost everything, which historically drummers are not known for, but our Dave was a man of many unknown talents and would introduce them to us over the next decade or so, but in 1992 he was having fun during his off-time with Nirvana and, not trying to upstage his day-job, quietly released the "Pocketwatch" cassette as a mail-order only item. At the time it certainly looked like it would be a Nirvana-related rarity that only the die-hardest of fans would show interest in, but of course time told a different story.

For the most part, these songs have all lurked in obscurity on bootleg compilations, trader lists and sharing blogs :) but a few actually found release in one form another. Most notable of the few released tracks was "Color Pictures Of A Marigold" which was re-recorded by Nirvana as "Marigold" during the "In Utero" sessions and featured Dave on vocals. It was released as a b-side but fans definitely liked it. "Marigold" was again re-recorded along with "Friend Of A Friend" for the Foo Fighters' "Skin and Bones" acoustic album in 2006, and "Just Another Story About Skeeter Thompson" was somewhat misleadingly released on The Melvins' "King Buzzo" EP in 1992 as "Skeeter", even though it was only a remix of Dave's Late! version and featured no participation from The Melvins. "Winnebago" was also re-recorded and saw release as an early Foo Fighters b-side, although there isn't anything terribly different about it apart from a mid-track shout-out to someone named either Chad or Gregg who supposedly wrote the lyrics.

After the Foo Fighters became popular, the "Pocketwatch" cassette was widely bootlegged on b-side and rarities compilations and often listed as the "Pocketwatch Demos". Misleading information from a bootleg? Shocking! But to be serious, that's how legends are created only to be broken by the hardest of the hard-core fans who find the true stories about where the songs came from and provide me with the backing knowledge to write this blog. Aww, did I just reveal part of my secret? In all honesty though, I've known about the "Pocketwatch" cassette since 1996 when a fellow Bowling Green attendee turned me on to them when it became clear we were both Nirvana fans. I never got ANYTHING from that redhead I was trying to lure from his dorm, but knowledge was gained, a friendship was born and a lo-fi dub of the "Pocketwatch" cassette came into my possession.

This is a very good quality rip of the "Pocketwatch" cassette taken from a lossless source, but said lossless source was a bootleg cd so it's not as if I own an original cassette. On top of that, for the audio purists out there, since the album was released as a cassette in the first place the quality of any release will never achieve cd-quality if it's transferred from a consumer-grade cassette, so I'm sorry if I'm trampling on anyone's hopes and dreams here, but those are the facts. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this release for what it is, a snapshot of Dave Grohl's solo-excursions prior to his seriously considering them as a full-time job. These tracks showed a lot of promise in their time so it's no wonder that at least four of them have seen a release of some sort.


Late! - Pocketwatch

01 Pokey The Little Puppy
02 Petrol CB
03 Friend Of A Friend
04 Throwing Needles
05 Just Another Story About Skeeter Thompson
06 Color Pictures Of A Marigold
07 Hell's Garden
08 Winnebago
09 Bruce
10 Milk