“Have you ever defecated onstage?”

Straight from the horse’s mouth, take it away Bob Andelman:

When I was a freshman at the University of Miami in 1978, I worked at WVUM 90.5 FM as an air personality. One day, the station manager, Bob “Bear” Mordente, was looking for someone willing to go out to the Royal Biscayne Hotel in Key Biscayne to interview musician and pop culture legend Frank Zappa.

I said I’d do it if no one else volunteered. Then, as now, I wasn’t afraid of interviewing anyone. Then it was foolish; I had no on-air experience and even less experience interviewing anyone for broadcast. Oh, and I knew absolutely zero—ZERO!—about Mr. Zappa.

A time was set for the next day and I went back to my dorm to see if anybody had any idea what I should ask the man. Lucky for me (not really) the drug dealers—I mean students—in the room next to me had piles of Zappa and the Mothers of Invention albums and purported to be experts on the man. Experts on the myth, as it turned out, but “urban legends” as a buzzphrase was still a good 20 years off. Anyway, these two knuckleheads filled me up with wide-eyed stories of ridiculous things that Zappa allegedly had done on stage over the years and I took copious notes.

The next day, Mordente and I drove out to the Royal Biscayne Hotel and our moment with destiny. Mordente handled recording the sound on a reel-to-reel machine so I could focus on Zappa and my litany of ludicrous questions.

I asked the most idiotic, moronic things of this brilliant American master and I must say that he treated me with great kindness in return, encouraging me to see him as a person, not some bizarre cartoon, and to just engage him in conversation. It was advice I remember and follow to this day, whether I’m talking to musicians, authors, politicians, athletes or entrepreneurs.

My unvarnished, unedited interview with Frank Zappa aired immediately on WVUM, was repeated often, and became a legend in awfulness.

Despite this, I had a blast working on the college radio station, mostly handling Friday and Saturday overnights, spinning deep album cuts, taking requests from my pals in the dorms and meeting some really bizarre stoner listeners in the greater Coral Gables community.

What survives from my day with Frank Zappa—we were together a couple of hours—is the edited, 30-minute recording you’re about to hear. Ladies and gentlemen, my day with Frank Zappa, September 14, 1978.

 
Below, Zappa a month later on October 13, 1978 at The Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. Zappa is playing the famous burnt guitar that Jimi Hendrix gave him: