Louis Cuneo

Louis Cuneo, nicknamed "The Turkey", was an audience member with a distinctive laugh that sounds like a turkey, hence his nickname. He can be heard on several Zappa albums, most famously Lumpy Gravy.

Frank Zappa

In 1967, Cuneo attended a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert at the Cafe Ramsey. Since the theater was barely filled, Cuneo's laughter could be heard by Zappa from stage. He invited him to come up on stage, just to laugh in the microphone and entertain audiences during follow-up concerts.

"Another regular was a guy we called 'Louie the Turkey' - because of his laugh. His real name was Louis Cuneo. He wound up on the Lumpy Gravy album as one of the people talking about incomprehensible stuff, inside a piano. We would always know when Louie was in the theater because we could hear him in the back of the room. I would invite him onstage, give him a stool to sit on, hand him the microphone and stop the music. He would sit there and laugh - at nothing - and the whole audience would laugh with him for five minutes. Then we thanked him, and he'd leave."

The Real Frank Zappa Book

Cuneo was invited to record his stammering narrative voice and loud signature laugh in Zappa's studio, immortalized on the tracks White Ugliness and at the start of the track Amen on Lumpy Gravy. .

Recordings of his voice and laugh can also be heard during Filthy Habits , What Ever Happened To All The Fun In The World and particularly on the Civilization Phaze III tracks: Beat It With Your Fist , Oh-Umm, A Very Nice Body, Religious Superstition, Saliva Can Only Take So Much, I Wish Motorhead Would Come Back and Attack! Attack! Attack!

His laugh was also sampled at the end of each episode of Duckman during its first season.

Later career

Louis Cuneo has been active as a poet , editor, teacher, playwright and photographer.

External links

• United Mutations page.
• 2003 interview with Louis Cuneo