The singer of NOFX is reportedly under investigation after secretly spiking fans' drinks with urine at a SXSW concert. Fat Mike ended his set of dark songs by revealing the subterfuge in a video.
The Pinpoint music blog reports that Fat Mike, real name Michael John Burkett, swaggered into the Emo's Annex venue wearing the face paint of his character Cokie the Clown. Holding a bottle of Patrón Añejo tequila, he poured 40 shots for himself and others in the crowd before taking the mic and bringing the Austin festival to a new, GG Allinesque low.
Although the 43-year-old played acoustic versions of several of the punk band's tunes, the heart of the show was a string of sordid "true" stories – touching on rape, suicide and the alleged smothering death of his mother. "By the time he started talking about his relationship with his father, all of Mike's friends who were standing near me had noticeably changed their demeanour," the blogger reports. Fat Mike also played a new song, thick with foreshadowing: Drinking Pee.
"As Mike finished his last song, he announced that he had a video that he had prepared especially for this evening," the blogger recalls. "The mood in the building was completely fucked at this point. Upon instruction, his videographer hooked up the same camera he had been recording on the entire time to a 20-something inch TV that was positioned stage left. His camera man rewound through the entire footage to reveal a scene that occurred kitty-corner to the artist entrance of this venue."
The video showed Fat Mike urinating into the same Patrón bottle he seemed to have brought into the club – and poured from for dozens of fans. "I confirmed that urine was not classified as a biohazard waste and not subject to the risks of legal ramifications of blood, semen, or feces," Fat Mike told TMZ in an interview.
The Austin health department is now reportedly looking into the incident.