Oh Shit That Wasn't a Fart

Alright, Zoo Freaks, settle in and maybe open a window. The Zoo Crew just dropped the needle on “Oh Shit That Wasn’t a Fart” by The Fraps, and before anybody writes in asking which Motown box set we pulled this from, let’s get the record straight the way a good freeform station should. This is not a lost 1963 Detroit side. It is a novelty cut cooked up by Sus Records, the outfit that bills itself as the label that never existed and tags its own uploads with the plain admission that the music is generated and the gag is the point. They frame the track like a banned soul single from another timeline. The chorus still lands like a barroom confession everybody in the room has lived through at least once.

The bit is simple and mean in the old novelty-record way. A guy is in a crowded room, then a classroom, then alone with nobody to blame, and every time he tries to sneak one out the chorus comes back around: oh, that wasn’t a fart. The lyric sheet, such as it is, keeps the punchline in plain English. Breakfast is fighting him. He does not want the other kids to laugh. He does not want to clear the room. He tries to hide it and the runs win. By the last pass he is singing about the evidence on his clothes. It is bathroom humor dressed up in a Motown backbeat, which is exactly why it works on a station that still believes a deep cut can be weird as long as it swings.

There are no old interviews with The Fraps, because there was no group to interview. No trade-paper quotes, no midnight-special booking, no laundry bill from a real session. What does exist is the comment thread under the upload, and that thread is the whole story. One listener wrote that the track is actually really good, that the music bops and the words are legitimately relatable. Another said he battles this on a daily basis. Somebody else left the only useful advice in the whole discussion: never force it, there might be dire consequences. A fourth chimed in with “here comes the brown river.” One joker claimed the make-believe band went through underwear and laundry detergent like other groups go through guitar strings. Another swore they lined a 1975 stage with fake evidence for a television spot. None of that happened. The jokes are doing the job the liner notes used to do.

That is the modern version of a Dr. Demento side, except the “band” never rented a van. Sus Records says outright that these are songs that never were, built to sound like they fell off a radio playlist from some decade that already passed. The Fraps are a name on a title card. The arrangement is a pastiche of early-sixties soul: handclaps, a walking bass, a chorus you can holler from the back of the room. The album field on our log is blank because there is no album. No label copy, no catalog number, no B-side about the drive home with the windows down. If a Freak asks which pressing to hunt, the honest answer is there isn’t one.

So how did the artist get started? They didn’t, not in the way we usually tell it on this station. There is no garage in Oak Cliff, no first gig at a VFW hall, no manager who believed in them when nobody else would. The name showed up when somebody wanted a fake Motown credit for a stomach-trouble joke. Search the usual places and you will not find an official site, a verified Facebook page, an Instagram, or an X account for The Fraps that mentions this song. A Paris rock band called FRAPS has a Linktree and a 2024 EP called Grey Mud. That is a different bunch entirely, playing post-rock and metal, and they have nothing to do with this cut. We are not going to hand you their pages and pretend the song lives there. Fan clubs and Facebook groups for this particular Fraps do not turn up either. When a link does not resolve to the record, it does not belong in the break.

That leaves the Crew in a familiar spot. We have always played the strange ones alongside the album tracks, and a station that still talks between songs gets to say what the log cannot. The joke works because the situation is universal and the music does not wink too hard. People in the comments are not analyzing a chord change. They are admitting the same small disaster. One called it assmazing. Another just wrote “great lyrics, great shit,” which is about as close as this thing gets to a pull quote. If you grew up on radio that would slip a novelty 45 between two long players, you already know the move. The song is the setup. The jock is the one who has to look the audience in the eye afterward.

Spinning it here is the same instinct that used to put a Weird Al single or a local comedy side on the overnight show. Nobody is claiming a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Zoo Crew is claiming the right to play something dumb that still has a pocket, then tell you exactly what it is. Listener-supported freeform only works if the people on the mic do not dress up a gag as a rare acetate. You can laugh at the chorus and still want the next record to be a real album cut with a real sleeve. Both belong on the same shift.

If you are new to the joint and wondering who lets a song like this on the air between the deep cuts, that would be us. THE ZOO is the independent, commercial-free rock station at thezoorocks.com, built out of the old KZEW idea that a station can still be a room full of people hearing the same record at the same time. No sponsor telling us to fade the joke. No clock telling us the bit ran long. Zoo Freaks keep the lights on, the Crew keeps the turntables honest, and every once in a while the honest thing is a fake Motown group singing about a mistake you cannot walk back.

When this one ends, we are back to records that came from real sessions, real vans, and real arguments in real studios. Until then, consider the chorus a public service announcement. If you are not sure, do not test it in a crowded room. The Fraps, whoever they aren’t, already took that hit for you.