The first clip from an unaired Frank Zappa television special from 1974 has been released. The performance comes from Cheaper Than Cheep, which was initially filmed on June 21, 1974 when Zappa and the Mothers of Invention invited a small audience to their modest rehearsal hall on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, California. What followed was an intoxicating, sweat-drenched two-hour-plus performance. The first song made available from that performance is “RDNZL,” a signature Zappa tune at the time.
The new release that features the full performance, Cheaper Than Cheep, is available in a variety of formats, including a special, limited edition multi-format Super Deluxe box set featuring the concert film on Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround and stereo mixes, a companion stereo soundtrack presented on both 2CD and 180-gram 3LP black vinyl, plus an extensive 12-page booklet with unseen images and liner notes. The Blu-ray includes four extras – two performances, a blooper reel, and a deep excerpt from the out-of-print Claymation film, “The Amazing Mr. Bickford.”
The two-hour concert film was directed and produced by Ahmet Zappa and produced by Frank Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers. The project was a labor of love for Ahmet who has a special connection to this period of his father’s music: “My dad filmed this just weeks after I was born—at a time when both my mother and I almost didn’t make it,” he writes. “I had a collapsed lung that no one caught—except for my dad. He heard something the doctors didn’t. He saved my life.”
Inspired by television performances like The Midnight Special and Soul Train, Zappa self-funded every aspect of the concert, from the psychedelic light show and stage setup, to the camera crew and audio recording. At the top of the concert, Zappa jokes that it’s “cheaper than cheap.” The intentionally misspelled “Cheep” in the title is both a nod to his song “Cheepnis,” about his love for cheap yet charming monster movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, as well as a tongue-in-cheek comment.
Unfortunately, similar to his troubled Roxy project the year prior, the audio and video weren’t synchronized. Two months later, Zappa would team up with the Los Angeles-based PBS station KCET and get the sought-after TV special he wanted, later released commercially as The Dub Room Special. As a result, the June concert was shelved for five decades.
“This was a pure labor of love and I poured myself into every frame, every audio match, every restoration choice,” says Ahmet. “It was brutal at times—we had to fight through decades of decay, glitches, missing pieces—but I wanted to do it right…. This is more than just a concert film—it’s a thank-you note to my father, and a love letter to the fans who’ve kept his music alive.”
Cheaper Than Cheep was assembled by adhering to Zappa’s lead, incorporating all of the planned segments, while sequencing the live material based on performance order and typical 1974 live set lists. The lineup, which consisted of Zappa (guitar, vocals), Chester Thompson (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals), Jeff Simmons (guitar, vocals), Napoleon Murphy Brock (tenor sax, flute, vocals), Ruth Underwood (percussion) and Tom Fowler (bass), were still finding their groove together. While dealing with issues like intense heat from the lighting which at one point made Duke’s keyboards too hot to play, the band performed a rousing set of songs pulled from his already deep catalog. Highlights include the title track from his Apostrophe (‘) album released a few months prior, “Montana” and “Camarillo Brillo” from 1973’s Over-Nite Sensation, “Let’s Make The Water Turn Black” from 1968’s We’re Only In It For The Money, live favorites “Dupree’s Paradise” and “Penguin In Bondage” and “Inca Roads,” and an early version of the then-unreleased “Village of the Sun.”
Interspersed throughout the concert are segments with artist Cal Schenkel, who created many of Zappa’s album covers and Claymation animator and director Bruce Bickford, a frequent Zappa collaborator. This footage is the earliest known of Bickford who had only just recently signed on to Zappa’s production company, Intercontinental Absurdities.
Buy Frank Zappa’s Cheaper Than Cheep now.
