A long-in-the-vaults Frank Zappa television special, recorded in June 1974 but never aired, will finally be released next month as a concert film and live album.
Cheaper Than Cheep captures Zappa and his Mothers of Invention on June 21, 1974, performing to a small crowd in their intimate Sunset Blvd. rehearsal hall.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to welcome you to the world’s cheapest television special, which is being manufactured for your edification right here in the midst of our Mothers of Invention rehearsal hall at 5831 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, California,” Zappa said at the onset. “Can you all turn around and look at each other so everybody who’s watching this can tell where we are and what the inside of this place really looks like. As you can see, it’s cheaper than cheap.”
Following the two-hour-plus concert — packed with Freak Out! tracks, live favorites, and songs that would appear on Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe, and One Size Fits All — Zappa was devastated to find out the audio and video didn’t sync, and the concert was shelved permanently in the vaults.
That is, until May 9, when Cheaper Than Cheep arrives via Zappa Records/UMe in a “super deluxe” box set featuring a Blu-ray of the concert film (with “perfectly and painstakingly matched picture to audio for the first time”) along with a 2CD and 3LP of the performance; standalone CD and vinyl versions are also available.
The Blu-ray also boasts four extras – two additional performances, a blooper reel, and a deep excerpt from the out-of-print Claymation film, “The Amazing Mr. Bickford,” about artist Bruce Bickford, who later worked with Zappa on Baby Snakes and A Token of His Extreme.
(Zappa’s concept was later revisited for 1982’s The Dub Room Special, which combined an August 1974 television studio performance with a Halloween 1981 concert, as well as interstitials with Bickford.)
Zappa’s Mothers at the time of the performance included drummer Chester Thompson, keyboardist George Duke, guitarist Jeff Simmons, saxophonist Napoleon Murphy Brock, bassist Tom Fowler, and percussionist Ruth Underwood, who also contributed her memories of the June 1974 show to the liner notes. “You’ll see a man wearing every possible hat, as he attempts to control all aspects of this filmed event from uncontrollable variable conditions and locations,” Underwood writes of Zappa. He does this while presiding over and participating in the musical performance. That, in and of itself, isn’t new for FZ, but what is new is that we see it unfold in real time.”
Cheaper Than Cheep is available to preorder now ahead of its May 9 release.
Cheaper Than Cheep Track List
CD1:
1. “Cheaper Than Cheep”
2. Cosmik Debris
3. Band Introductions
4. RDNZL
5. Village Of The Sun
6. Montana
7. Duke Goes Out
8. Inca Roads
9. “Get Down Simmons”
10. Penguin In Bondage
11. T’Mershi Duween
12. The Dog Breath Variations
13. Uncle Meat
CD2:
1. How Could I Be Such A Fool
2. I’m Not Satisfied
3. Wowie Zowie
4. I Don’t Even Care
5. Let’s Make The Water Turn Black
6. Dupree’s Paradise Introduction
7. Dupree’s Paradise
8. Oh No
9. Son Of Orange County
10. More Trouble Every Day
11. Apostrophe’
12. Camarillo Brillo
