Loudon Wainwright III and George Gerdes

New York City, WBAI Radio, Bob Fass Show

May 25, 1972

The bad news is that the quality of this recording leaves a bit to be desired,
especially the 8 tracks that come from one of my tapes (see below).

But somehow I personally can live with it and fully enjoy these wonderful
performances and the great atmosphere of two fine singer-songwriters collaborating.
So the good news is that this is a most enjoyable set, and I think
it's a must-have for all fans of Loudon Wainwright III and/or George Gerdes.
With the help of their announcements and Google I tracked down many of the origins
of the unknown songs; any help with the remaining ones would be appreciated!

Setlist:

01 Disc Of Gold [beginning cut] (parody of Heart Of Gold by Neil Young)
02 Weave Room Blues (written by Dorsey Dixon)
03 unknown (poem) [middle cut] (written by George Gerdes)
04 Surfin' Queen (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
05 Will You Love Me When I'm Dead?
06 Waiting Is A Pregnant Lady
07 Red Guitar (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
08 Life Is like A Mountain Railroad (written by M.E. Abbey & Charles Davis Tillman)
09 Son Of Obituary (written by George Gerdes)
10 Soldier's Last Letter (written by Ernest Tubb)
11 Coming Home To You (written by Jack O'Harris ???)
12 You Ain't Going Nowhere (written by Bob Dylan)
13 Everybody I Know Wants To Look Pretty (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
14 Have A Good Time
15 The Big Bomb (poem) (writtem by George Gerdes)
16 Roll Me Over Jehovah (written by George Gerdes)
17 Smokey Joe's Cafe (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
18 Long Time, No See (written by George Gerdes)
19 Hometeam Crowd (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
20 My Girl (written by William "Smokey" Robinson and Ronald White)
21 Waiting For You (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
22 Hello, Joe [end cut]
23 Hey Packy (written by George Gerdes)
24 Bela Lugosi
25 Come A Long Way (written by Kate McGarrigle)
26 The Movies Are A Mother To Me (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
27 Twist And Shout (written by Phil Medley and Bert Russell)
28 Philadelphia Lawyer (written by Woody Guthrie)
29 Ode To A Pittsburgh (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
30 Have You Ever Been To Pittsburgh? (written by Loudon Wainwright III)
31 Messin' With Missus (written by George Gerdes)
32 Wagon Train (written by Bruce "Utah" Phillips)
33 Sweet Janine (written by Joe Reissler)
34 Intellectual Baby (written by George Gerdes and John Burleigh)
35 What's Gonna Become Of You? [end cut] ("learnt from" Chaim Tannenbaum)

Total time: 1:53:14

Lineage info:

The joys of tape trading: getting this whole set came as a surprise to me.
I first received a tape from a well-known LWIII collector that contained
songs 1 and songs 9 to 35 (in that order).
From this tape I have the information on the date.
There was a clear cut between song 1 and song 9, and the beginning of 9 was missing,
which already indicated there might be more.

Then I got a second tape that had vaguely dated filler material ("1975"),
and that - to my surprise - partly overlapped with the first tape.
This second tape contained songs 2 to 13.
It looks like at least 2 through 35 are exactly as in the order played,
and while the end of 35 is missing, it is announced as the last song, so
there's not much missing. The question remains where song 1, Disc Of Gold,
fits in, but given the sound-checking at the end of that track, it is
quite likely that this was a first song, perhaps a teaser before the real
set would start.
In this torrent I combined songs 1, and 10 to 35 from the first tape,
which is a better quality recording, and songs 2 to 9 from the second tape,
which has some more distortion.

Two unknown generation cassette tapes ->
Sony TC-WE475 -> wav w. amplification (audacity) -> flac (level 8) (tlh)