The Mud Shark (Live 1971)

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew is spinning that wild live cut "The Mud Shark" from Frank Zappa and the Mothers' Fillmore East June 1971 album, and man, this one has a story that still cracks us up every time it comes around the turntable. Frank takes the mic and spins this tale about a hotel up in Seattle called the Edgewater Inn, built right out over the water so you could rent a fishing pole down in the lobby, stick it out your window, and haul in whatever was swimming by, including mud sharks. According to the way Frank tells it on the record, members of Vanilla Fudge checked in with an 8mm movie camera and a succulent young lady who had a taste for the bizarre, and somehow a mud shark got involved in the proceedings. He says he first heard about it from a chance meeting at Chicago O'Hare Airport where the Fudge guys told Don Preston all about their home movie. Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, those former Turtles cats known as Flo and Eddie, jump in and demonstrate the Mud Shark dance for the crowd, turning the whole thing into this funky little groove that was supposed to sweep the nation. It's pure Zappa satire, poking at the excesses of the rock and roll lifestyle while the band lays down that soulful beat underneath the narration. Later on, Frank even sat down and interviewed the hotel's front office manager Martin Tickman, who confirmed that rock bands and regular folks alike would catch fish from the rooms and leave them in the bathtubs, though he played it cool when asked about any stranger activities with the creatures. The whole bit became part of the legend, with different versions floating around over the years involving various road crews and groupies, but the way the Mothers laid it down live at the Fillmore captures that hippie biker spirit of telling tall tales from the road.

What makes it even better is how Frank frames it as the origins of this new dance craze, with the band chanting Mud Sh-sh-shark while he lays out the details in that dry, observational way of his. Audiences would holler for it on other nights too, and sometimes he'd just use the riff as a secret word between songs. It fits right into the album's concept of peeking behind the curtain at life on the road, the kind of freeform storytelling that keeps the Zoo Freaks tuned in while the records spin. The Edgewater Inn had advertised the fishing for years, and bands from the Beatles on down had stayed there, but this particular yarn stuck because Frank turned it into comedy gold. Carmine Appice from Vanilla Fudge has talked about sharing the story with Frank, and it all ties back to that Seattle Pop Festival weekend when the groups were in town together. It's the sort of rock and roll folklore that gets passed around in dressing rooms and airport lounges, the stuff that makes for great late-set banter when the lights are low and the audience is locked in.

Frank Zappa got started in music the way a lot of us did, messing around with whatever was handy and chasing sounds that most folks weren't ready for. Born in Baltimore back in 1940, his family moved around a bunch because of his dad's work, eventually landing in California. He started on drums as a kid, joining his first band the Ramblers around age fourteen, and he was already deep into the weird modern classical stuff from composers like Edgard Varèse. For his fifteenth birthday he even called Varèse long distance just to say hello to the guy whose percussion piece Ionisation had blown his mind. In high school out in the Antelope Valley he switched over to guitar, formed a band called the Black-Outs, and met up with Don Van Vliet who would later become Captain Beefheart. After graduating he bounced through a couple junior colleges, studying music theory a bit, got married young, and started writing scores for low-budget movies while gigging in local R&B cover bands. He scored enough cash from one of those film jobs to buy a little recording studio in Cucamonga that he renamed Studio Z, where he lived and experimented with overdubs and all sorts of wild ideas. Trouble with the local authorities over a tape he made got him a short jail stint, which also kept him out of the draft. Not long after that he joined a bar band called the Soul Giants as their guitarist. Pretty soon he was writing the material, took over leadership, and renamed the group the Mothers, which became the Mothers of Invention once they signed with Verve. That first double album Freak Out! came out in 1966 and set the tone for everything that followed, mixing rock, satire, and experimental noise in a way that felt like it came straight from those desert high school days and late nights in the studio. The rest is history, but it all traces back to a kid who taught himself the guitar, called up his classical heroes, and decided the rules were just suggestions anyway.

You can dig deeper into all of Frank's music and stories over at the official site zappa.com, and catch up with the official accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Fans keep the conversation going in places like the Totally Unauthorized And Completely Unofficial Frank Zappa Fan Group on Facebook and detailed notes sites such as donlope.net. And of course, you can always hang with the Zoo Crew right here on THE ZOO for more of that freeform album rock that keeps the freaks coming back for another spin.