“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.”
– Frank Zappa, June 21, 1974

In the early 1970s music performance shows like “The Midnight Special” “Soul Train,” “In Concert,” and concurrently “The Old Grey Whistle Test” in the UK, were all the rage in America, beaming rock, pop and R&B artists directly into people’s homes across the country, offering an unprecedented at-home concert experience. Inspired by these shows, or 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.

On the first day of summer, June 21, 1974, Zappa and his band, the Mothers of Invention, invited a small audience to the their humble rehearsal hall on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, Calif., for what would be an intoxicating, sweat-drenched two-hour-plus performance. A small film crew equipped with multiple cameras captured every riveting musical moment while the audio was recorded by a mobile recording truck. Unfortunately, when Zappa watched the footage he was devastated to learn, that similar to his Roxy project before it, 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 that he planned to shop to major TV networks was shelved, never to be revisited by Zappa in his lifetime. It languished in The Vault for more than five decades.

Now, more than 50 years after that magical, sweltering summer night in 1974, thanks to advancements in post-production editing tools, fans can experience the concert as if they were there in the front row. Dubbed Cheaper Than Cheep, this never-before-heard-or-seen two-hour concert program reveals the most intimate performance ever captured from the 1974 Mothers lineup, direct from the lovingly resurrected and restored original audio and videotape masters housed in The Vault.

Directed by Ahmet Zappa and produced by Frank Zappa, Vaultmeister Joe Travers and Ahmet Zappa, Cheaper Than Cheep will be released May 9 exclusively on Platenzaak.nl 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 picture disc vinyl, plus an extensive 12-page booklet with rare, unseen images and informative liner notes from Travers alongside a detailed and heartfelt remembrance from musician Ruth Komanoff Underwood who performed percussion that evening. The set will be housed in a telescoping slipcase and include four bonus lithographs. 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.” Additional options include a Blu-ray video + 2CD set and a standalone soundtrack on 180-gram 3LP black vinyl.