The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
Celebrities
 frank zappa playboy interview




From: Int'l Institute for Energy Consrv. <iiec@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Date: 24 Jan 94 22:35 PST
Subject: Zappa Ate Crap On Stage?

There seems to be a lot of rock and roll urban folklore. From the April 1993 PLAYBOY Interview with Frank Zappa (for full interview text, see alt.fan.frank-zappa):

One of the more colorful rock legends maintains that Zappa and Alice Cooper had a gross-out contest onstage: After Cooper allegedly squashed some live baby chicks, Zappa supposedly picked up a plastic spoon and ate a plate of steaming feces. Although Zappa denies it, he's been haunted by the story for years.

PLAYBOY: You certainly offended people with the Phi Zappa Krappa poster.

ZAPPA: Probably. But so what?

PLAYBOY: And some of your antics from the Mothers of Invention days, like the famed gross-out contest.

ZAPPA: There never was a gross-out contest. That was a rumor. Somebody's imagination ran wild. Chemically bonded imagination. The rumor was that I went so far as to eat shit onstage. There were people who were terribly disappointed that I never ate shit onstage. But no, there never was anything resembling a gross-out contest.

PLAYBOY: Another rumor was that you peed on an audience.

ZAPPA: I never had my dick out onstage and neither did anybody else in the band. We did have a stuffed giraffe rigged with a hose and an industrial-strength whipped cream dispenser. Under it we had a cherry bomb. That's how we celebrated the Fourth of July in 1967. Somebody waved the flag, lit the cherry bomb. It blew the ass out of the giraffe. Another guy reached behind the giraffe and pushed the button and had this thing shitting whipped cream all over the stage. That amused people for some reason.

PLAYBOY: So it was simply contained outrageousness?

ZAPPA: Stagecraft.

PLAYBOY: To entertain or just to alleviate boredom?

ZAPPA: There was a third factor, too. There's an art statement in whipped cream shooting out the ass of a giraffe, isn't there? We were carrying on the forgotten tradition of dada stagecraft. The more absurd, the better I liked it.

----------------------Mike P. in D.C.-----------------------


Any proceeds (net proceeds from merchandise sales) from TAFKAC solely benefit The Chuck Reed Fund.

Copyright Information

http://tafkac.org/