Frank Zappa’s DIY TV Special Resurfaces After Half-Century In The Vault

An unaired Frank Zappa television special filmed in 1974 is set to see the light of day. Cheaper Than Cheep arrives on May 9 via Zappa.com, uDiscover Music and Sound of Vinyl in a variety of formats.

Filmed on June 21, 1974, Cheaper Than Cheep was inspired by popular 1970s music programs “The Midnight Special,” “Soul Train,” “In Concert” and “The Old Grey Whistle Test.” Or as press materials noted, “perhaps because of potentially not receiving offers to perform on them, or even more likely, wanting to control all aspects of the production, Frank Zappa took matters into his own hands, as he often did.”

Here’s Zappa’s introduction from Cheaper Than Cheep:

“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. 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.”

After capturing Cheaper Than Cheep, FZ was dismayed to learn the audio and video were not synced up. He would also get his invitation to make the TV special via the Los Angeles-based PBS station KCET, The Dub Room Special. Cheaper Than Cheep would languish in the cavernous Zappa vault for half a century.

Until Vaultmeister Joe Travers, who produced Cheaper Than Cheep alongside Frank’s son Ahmet Zappa, recently unearthed the lost TV special. While Travers had seen the tapes marked “June 21, 1974,” they eluded discovery.

“I had no idea what they were or what they were for,” Travers writes in the liner notes. “They remained a mystery for years. The digital transfers of the elements happened over a long period of time, mostly due to budget and priority. Some were done for identification purposes while Gail Zappa was alive during the 2000s. Imagine how exciting it was for us to finally discover what this stuff actually looked like for the first time. It was a gold mine waiting to be unearthed. Most of the masters were transferred during the ‘Save The Vault’ Kickstarter campaign by Alex Winter circa 2017 or so.”

The Mothers of Invention lineup for Cheaper Than Cheep saw The Maestro leading 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).

Ruth Underwood shared recollections of the sessions in her essay for the Cheaper Than Cheep booklet:

“We had a long rehearsal and a detailed soundcheck that morning. With the lights set, and the photographers and audience crammed into our modest space, the heat in the room became extremely problematic,” Ruth recalled. “Frank insisted on doing several takes of specific pieces, which added to our general exhaustion.”

On Zappa during the sessions Underwood wrote: “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… 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.”

Songs performed include classics such as “Cosmik Debris,” “Apostrophe (‘),” “Montana,” “Camarillo Brillo,” “Inca Roads” and more. Watch the trailer for Cheaper Than Cheep below:

Head here for the full Cheaper Than Cheap tracklist.