What actually happened with Led Zeppelin, a mud shark, and a groupie in 1969

Of each of the chaotic municipality legends successful the history of stone and roll, Led Zeppelin’s infamous 1969 ‘Mud Shark Incident’ is possibly the astir baffling and graphic. And it mightiness adjacent beryllium true. 

The communicative involves a groupie, immoderate of the most celebrated rockers of each time, plentifulness of drugs, what could arguably beryllium called outside-the-box thinking, and, well, a mud shark.

If your archetypal question is, ‘What is simply a mud shark?’ you surely aren’t alone. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a mud shark refers to ‘several kinds of sluggish bottom-dwelling sharks.’ If you’re having occupation picturing it, the food looks much similar a elephantine catfish than a shark. 

You’ll beryllium upset to person specified a wide intelligence representation shortly, but present that you do, we tin get down to it.

Music rapidly changed in the precocious 60s, with a taste gyration sweeping the US and UK and leaving a restless procreation starving for a caller benignant of euphony to correspond them. Led Zeppelin was among the bands answering that call, earning a level of devotion from fans that bordered connected fanaticism and idol worship. 

As the fable goes, the set played the Seattle Pop Festival connected July 27, 1969 conscionable months aft their eponymous debut album skyrocketed them to planetary stardom. 

Who was progressive successful the Mud Shark Incident?

Jimmy Page (founder and pb guitarist), Robert Plant (lead singer), John Paul Jones (Bassist and keyboardist), John Bonham (drummer), and their roadworthy manager Richard Cole stayed successful the Edgewater Inn aft the gig. 

The circumstantial edifice is worthy noting because, sitting atop Puget Sound, it’s known for the information that guests tin food straight from the windows of their rooms. Maybe you tin spot wherever this is going. 

Summarily, arsenic the communicative goes, immoderate oregon each of the members of Led Zeppelin and a set called Vanilla Fudge (with whom Zeppelin was playing astatine the festival) pleasured (or astatine least…sexually engaged) a groupie with a mud shark and filmed the encounter. 

Over the years, galore person written disconnected the salacious rumour arsenic wholly made up, portion others importune it’s conscionable excessively bizarre to beryllium fiction. Here’s everything we cognize astir the information down 1 of the astir celebrated and bizarre pieces of lore successful stone history. 

How a Frank Zappa opus made the Mud Shark Incident famous 

The fishy communicative has been circulating for decades, and it’s challenging to cognize erstwhile it archetypal became a fixture of Led Zeppelin instrumentality knowledge, but it was decidedly memorialised (and possibly sensationalised) connected Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s unrecorded album, Fillmore East, successful 1971.

Simply and aptly titled The Mud Shark, the opus includes the lyrics: ‘Let’s accidental you were a travelling rock‘n’roll set called The Vanilla Fudge / Let’s accidental 1 nighttime you checked into the Edgewater Inn with an 8mm movie camera.’ 

The opus continues: ‘Enough wealth to rent a pole, and conscionable to marque it much absorbing — a succulent young woman (mnaaaah!) with a sensation for the bizarre…’ The chorus past describes The Mud Shark arsenic a caller creation craze sweeping the nation. 

The opus claims Zappa heard the communicative consecutive from members of Vanilla Fudge during a ‘chance meeting’ successful the airdrome successful Chicago close aft the incidental supposedly took place. 

This mentation of the communicative agrees with the 1 your run-of-the-mill Zeppelin instrumentality is astir apt to know: Vanilla Fudge’s drummer Carmine Appice handled the seafood and keyboardist Mark Stein was down the camera. 

According to this account, lone Zeppelin’s John Bonham was involved, and adjacent that is questionable. The remainder of the members of Led Zeppelin were either simply onlookers oregon not determination astatine all, depending connected who you ask. 

Richard Cole’s mentation of the Mud Shark Incident

(Trigger Warning: Graphic depictions of a intersexual concern involving an carnal and unit from this constituent on)

A much factual relationship of the incidental came to airy successful 1985 erstwhile the unofficial Led Zeppelin biography Hammer of the Gods deed bookshelves. The publication claims that each oregon astir Going to California set members were progressive successful the event. 

Road manager Richard Cole describes the incidental arsenic follows, according to writer Stephen Davis: ‘A beauteous young groupie with reddish hairsbreadth was disrobed and tied to the bed. Led Zeppelin past proceeded to worldly pieces of shark into her vagina and rectum.’

If this is to beryllium believed, Cole and Bonham were the superior food wielders and Mark Stein was down the camera (this item remains accordant successful astir versions…).

Cole defended the incidental successful the book, saying: ‘It was thing malicious oregon harmful, nary way!…She mightiness person been deed by a shark a fewer times for disobeying orders, but she didn’t get hurt.’

The roadworthy manager gave different first-hand relationship successful his 2002 autobiography Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored: ‘Word astir the escapade dispersed quickly. Rumours circulated that the miss had been raped…that she had been crying hysterically…that she had pleaded for maine to stop…that she had struggled to escape…that a shark had been utilized to penetrate her. None of the stories was true.’

It’s worthy noting that members of Led Zeppelin person agelong dismissed galore of Cole’s stories implicit the years arsenic nonsense, claiming that not lone did helium person a penchant for exaggeration, but helium was truthful obliterated connected drugs and intoxicant during his years with the set that it’s improbable his representation is precise reliable. 

Carmine Appice’s mentation of the Mud Shark Incident

This brings america to what is astir apt the astir close mentation of the Mud Shark Incident (if specified a happening exists), and it’s by acold the astir shocking. 

In Carmine Appice’s 2016 autobiography, Stick It! My Life of Sex, Drums, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, Appice gleefully describes the drug-fuelled nighttime that has go a celebrated portion of stone history. 

We tin spot Appice’s memory, according to his co-author Ian Gittins, who wrote: ‘Carmine has ne'er truly been a large drug-taker oregon large drinker, truthful his memory’s intact. He tin retrieve things successful excruciating item and is an unusually fertile source.’

According to the drummer, his bandmate Tim Bogert, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, and Plant’s wife, Maureen, were getting precocious successful Jones’ country connected the nighttime of the incidental erstwhile an unnamed groupie Appice hooked up with the nighttime earlier reappeared and declared: ‘I privation to marque a movie with you guys.’

At immoderate point, Appice went to the next-door edifice country wherever John Bonham, his woman Pat, and Richard Cole were sportfishing retired the window. He told them astir the groupie and took a look astatine the ‘two-foot-long, dead-eyed, ferocious-looking mud shark’ they had reeled successful and kept live successful the room’s bathtub. 

Sometime later, backmost successful the archetypal room, Appice recounts that Bonham, Cole, Mark Stein, and respective unit members came into the country with a camera and lights, wanting to fulfill the groupie’s cinematic aspirations. 

The details of what went down betwixt the groupie and the shark are adjacent much shocking than you deliberation (Trigger Warning, again)

While Appice insists it was each consensual (did anyone inquire the shark?), helium does let that the miss was connected drugs astatine the time, and it’s not wide whether she knew a unrecorded shark was going to beryllium involved. 

When Appice realised the shark had been transported from the different room, helium asked the men: ‘What the f*** are you going to bash with that?’

Told to portion naked, the groupie was ‘thrown connected the bed,’ and Cole ‘started whipping the miss with it [the mud shark], beating her again and again arsenic she writhed astir the bed,’ arsenic Stein filmed. 

Each clip the shark deed the girl, Appice writes, ‘its teeth ripped her tegument and near tiny blood-red scars each implicit her back.’ 

As acheronian arsenic that sounds, Appice claims she ‘was bucking and screaming with pleasure’ passim the ordeal. 

Things lone escalated from there, and soon the groupie was penetrated by the food (the details of this are blessedly vague). At immoderate point, Led Zeppelin roadie Clive Coulson and Vanilla Fudge roadworthy manager Bruce Wayne joined the chaos, according to this version. 

Appice said the miss was ‘so into it’ and that the country was crowded with radical progressive successful some bands – though it was Wayne and Cole who were the starring players – arsenic Stein continued to film. 

According to Appice, it was Wayne and Cole who took it into the realm of bestiality, and it was astatine this constituent that astir radical left.

He claims the remainder of the radical successful the country soon entered the hallway, laughing hysterically successful disbelief. At immoderate point, the full happening got truthful large that the edifice manager appeared and enactment an extremity to the location movie. 

Appice aboriginal wrote of the groupie: ‘I privation her well. Believe it oregon not, she was a bully girl.’

In a (somewhat) comforting summation to the sordid business, Appice told Classic Rock successful 2016: ‘I started doing these play vigor shows successful the States a fewer years ago. One clip we were talking astir Fairbanks, Alaska, and this idiosyncratic called up claiming to beryllium the woman. 

‘She really spoke to my friend, the DJ connected the greeting show. Let’s look it, you’ve got to beryllium either the pistillate oregon retired of your caput to marque that claim. But she said she had moved to Alaska, raised a family, and lived happily ever after.’

Is the Mud Shark Incident silly folkore oregon a disturbing relationship of thing darker?

While it’s often told arsenic a comic and far-fetched spot of trivia involving 1 of the astir celebrated bands successful history, the incidental is simply a reminder of the excesses and debauchery synonymous with stone and rotation successful its heyday. 

To telephone musicians similar those successful Led Zeppelin ‘rock gods’ was by nary means an exaggeration passim the late-60s, 70s, and 80s, erstwhile groupies were truthful devoted to their favourite bands that they were consenting to bash thing to get adjacent to them. 

Men successful the rock scene – often young, often thrust into the spotlight abruptly and with precise fewer guardrails successful spot – were allowed to run with adjacent impunity arsenic they partook successful a increasing cause civilization yet to afloat uncover its lethal consequences. 

As a result, stone stars and different almighty radical successful the manufacture often took vantage of their presumption to dainty those successful their orbit (often women nad young girls) arsenic disposable forms of entertainment. 

Steven Tyler of Aerosmith was conscionable 1 stone prima to publically day an underaged miss without consequences, having groupie Julie Holcomb’s parent motion implicit custody to him erstwhile Julie was conscionable 16. 

Its communal cognition that Lori Mattix, 1 of galore children successful the stone country successful the aboriginal 70s known arsenic ‘baby groupies,’ was approached by and subsequently began a narration with 28-year-old Jimmy Page of The Doors erstwhile she was 14 aft archetypal losing her virginity to David Bowie. 

Nicki Sixx of Motley Cue admitted successful the band’s autobiography The Dirt that successful the 80s, helium ‘pretty much’ raped an intoxicated groupie and past sent Tommy Lee to bash the same.

Guns N’ Roses’ pb vocalist Axl Rose was notorious for his ‘rock and rotation lifestyle,’ which often fell into grey areas of intersexual consent. In Rose’s case, arsenic with galore of his peers, helium was enabled by the manufacture and its representatives. 

In conscionable 1 illustration of his dubious attraction of groupies, the band’s manager, Vicky Hamilton, fto Rose fell from the constabulary successful her location aft a pistillate pressed charges against him successful the 80s. 

As The Telegraph notes, celebrated stone writer Mick Farren was appalled astatine uncovering backstage scenes with Led Zeppelin ‘running successful semen and brew and unpleasantness,’ noting that helium witnessed members of the set ‘getting their d—- sucked by 13-year-olds nether the table.’ 

Many women progressive successful the country during classical rock’s aureate years present callback toxic, drug-fuelled environments successful which saying nary seldom felt similar an option. 

Even erstwhile determination was nary accusation of wrongdoing, the civilization of hedonism was distinct. Gene Simmons of KISS often boasts helium slept with implicit 4,200 women during the band’s biggest years, and adjacent claims to person taken a Polaroid representation of each woman. 

It’s intolerable modern musicians could get distant with this benignant of behaviour astatine specified a ample standard without backlash. In fact, during the #MeToo movement, different celebrated figures faced backlash for their years-past behaviour, but classical stone stars look immune to akin reckonings. There’s adjacent a benignant of awe and glorification that continues to exist, adjacent now, astir manufacture stories of stars taking intersexual vantage of their positions. 

Dr. Rosemary Lucy Hill, from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies astatine the University of Leeds, uses the illustration of Pamela Des Barres to The Guardian – a celebrated groupie who slept with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, and Jim Morrison, among others –  erstwhile discussing the mode the stone and rotation groupie has evolved.

‘Her thought is that the groupie is the muse,’ Hill says of Des Barres, who has written galore books astir her experiences. ‘The mode that she talks astir enactment with musicians arsenic being astir getting adjacent to the euphony is truly powerful.

‘When you commencement to deliberation astir euphony and enactment successful those terms, it changes your thought of what it means to beryllium a groupie. I’m talking astir consensual sex, but immoderate radical deliberation it’s ne'er a escaped prime due to the fact that of each the expectations. I deliberation some of these things are existent astatine the aforesaid clip – and that makes it truly complicated.’

Cameron Crowe – who the movie Almost Famous is based connected – was a teenage Rolling Stone writer profiling Zeppelin successful 1973. He aboriginal said of the film’s depiction of stone groupies: ‘What I was trying to seizure was the elaborate denial that the girls bargain into. They speech astir themselves arsenic muses … but erstwhile you get the stone stars, you realise (the girls) of people are the trinkets.’

The ‘free love’ of the 60s besides played a relation successful creating an situation successful which the Mud Shark Incident could happen, and it’s not intolerable that everyone progressive was a consenting and enthusiastic subordinate contempt uneven powerfulness dynamics. 

As Appice enactment it to Classic Rock: ‘You person to recognize that those days were truthful different. It was each bid and emotion and women walking astir with nary bras and see-through blouses. It was a truly brainsick time, commencement power pills were conscionable coming retired and, politically and socially, everything was different.’

Jimmy Page has enactment it adjacent much succinctly: ‘There’s a batch of h2o nether the span for everyone who survived that era. End of story.’

However you privation to contextualize it, the Mud Shark Incident is undoubtedly among the astir memorable stories successful stone and rotation past – adjacent arsenic it forces 1 to see the genre’s problematic bequest that modern fans stay reluctant to face. 

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