Frank Zappa: Cheaper Than Cheep

Untold stories behind the culture-defining and newsmaking musical performances, sketches and cameos of the past 50 years.

With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.

A look at the roots of the historic music scene in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon featuring the music of iconic music groups such as The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and The Mamas and the Papas.

1969. Man lands on the moon. Half a million strong at Woodstock....and Led Zeppelin perform in the gym of the Wheaton Youth Center in front of 50 confused teenagers. Or did they? Filmmaker Jeff Krulik chronicles an enduring Maryland legend, of the very night this concert was alleged to have taken place, January 20, 1969, during the first Presidential Inauguration of Richard Nixon. Led Zeppelin Played Here presents a mid-Atlantic version of what was happening nationwide as the rock concert industry took shape. Featuring interviews with rock writers, musicians, and fans, and several who claim they were witnessing history that night.

In this surrealistic and free-form follow-up to the Monkees' television show, the band frolic their way through a series of musical set pieces and vignettes containing humor and anti-establishment social commentary.

Emerging from the Detroit music scene of the 1970s in a flurry of long hair and sequins, Alice Cooper restored hard rock with a sense of showmanship, while simultaneously striking fear into the hearts of Middle America with the chicken-slaughtering, dead-baby-eating theatrics that would cement his identity as a glam metal icon. Meticulously crafted from rare archival footage, Super Duper Alice Cooper tells the story of the man behind the makeup, Vincent Furnier, the son of a preacher, who got caught in the grip of his own monster.

Utilizing potent TV interviews and many forgotten performances from his 30-year career, we are immersed into Frank Zappa’s world while experiencing two distinct facets of his complex character. At once Zappa was both a charismatic composer who reveled in the joy of performing and, in the next moment, a fiercely intelligent and brutally honest interviewee whose convictions only got stronger as his career ascended.

This episode focuses on Zappa's early 70s albums, Overnight Sensation (1973) and Apostrophy (') (1974). Together they encapsulate Zappa's extraordinary musical diversity and were also the 2 most commercially successful albums that he released in his prolific career. Included are interviews, musical demonstrations, rare archive & home movie footage, plus live performances to tell the story behind the conception and recording of these groundbreaking albums. Extras include additional interviews and demonstrations not included in the broadcast version, 2 full performances from the Roxy in 1973 and Saturday Night Live in 1976, and new full live performance done specially for these Classic Albums.

With one of the most memorably stunning voices that has ever hit the airwaves, Linda Ronstadt burst onto the 1960s folk rock music scene in her early twenties.

One Amazing Night is a 1998 live tribute show performed by artists such as Dionne Warwick, Elvis Costello, Luther Vandross, Sheryl Crow and others to honor the music of Burt Bacharach. It was recorded live at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City with Bacharach himself conducting the orchestra and playing the piano.

Genesis concert at Knebworth performed on August 2, 1992 with an attendance of 90,000 people. Includes the following songs: Land of Confusion; No Son of Mine; Driving the Last Spike; Oldies Medley; Throwing it All Away; Fading Lights; Jesus He Knows Me; Home by the Sea; Hold on my Heart; Domino; Drum Duet; I Can't Dance; Tonight, Tonight, Tonight; Invisible Touch; Turn it On Again.

"When in Rome" is a live DVD by the legendary British rock band Genesis, capturing their performance at Circus Maximus in Rome, Italy, on July 14, 2007, during their highly acclaimed "Turn It On Again Tour." This tour marked the reunion of the band's classic lineup of Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford. The decision to make the Rome concert free was a heartfelt gesture of gratitude from Genesis to their Italian fans, who had been loyal supporters since the band's early days in the 1970s. This extraordinary event drew an estimated audience of over 500,000 people, not only from Italy but from all over Europe, making it one of the largest concerts in terms of audience size ever recorded.

"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.

A Frank Zappa show goes way beyond a mere concert – it is an experience…a flight of improvisation, musicianship, and cerebral cynicism. An unparalleled Composer and Guitarist, Zappa redefined rock n roll paradigms by introducing into the mix his favorite influences from classical music, jazz, blues, Doo-wop, traditional and non-traditional music. And he did so with unparalleled humor and audacity. But it was the music itself that influenced generations of musicians and, quite frankly, blew minds. Roxy: The Movie, filmed over three nights in December 1973, at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, CA, is a powerful display of this experience, and reveals what made him such a pioneering musical revolutionary.

Recording of the first half of the Mama tour's setlist from a rehearsal tape. The location and person behind the camera are not confirmed, but the location is likely Dallas, TX, and the person filming is likely Jim Yukich, the man behind several of the Genesis and Phil Collins music videos. (Genesis Central on YouTube)

Phil Collins has made a number of appearances at Montreux over the years as a solo artist, with his big band or as a guest performer with the likes of Eric Clapton and Quincy Jones. In this performance filmed at the 2004 festival, he performs all of his best known hits from his solo career. Bonus footage of a performance by the Phil Collins Big Band at Montreux from 1996 is also included. This is the first time any of Phil's big band material has been made available and features Tony Bennett on a track. This combination of all his classic songs coupled with rare big band material shows the breadth of musical genres Phil has covered in his career and makes a perfect celebration of Phil's association with Montreux.

This concert Blu-ray sees Phil Collins take his superb new album Going Back into the live arena. Filmed in June of this year in the intimate surroundings of New York s famous Roseland Ballroom, this is a real chance to get up close and personal as Phil Collins faithfully recreates the soul and Motown classics that he loved as a teenager. His band includes three of Motown s original backing band The Funk Brothers: Bob Babbitt on bass and guitarists Eddie Willis and Ray Monette, as well as two stalwarts of Genesis live shows: Chester Thompson on drums and Darryl Stuermer on guitars. Phil Collins performs a number of Motown covers during the course of this high-energy show performed at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. The setlist of over a dozen tunes includes "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone,"and "Going to a Go-Go."

In 2004, Phil Collins began the first leg of an international concert tour which Collins announced would mark his retirement from live performing. Phil Collins: Finally...The First Final Farewell documents the Paris date on his last set of live shows, in which the internationally famous musician was joined by a superb backing band for a set of his greatest songs. Selections include "In the Air Tonight," "Against All Odds," "Sussudio," "Don't Lose My Number," "Take Me Home," "One More Night," and many more.

A one-hour documentary on the making of Frank Zappa's bizarre 1971 comic musical. Vintage private footage from Frank's personal archives plus behind-the-scenes of the actual shooting and recording. With Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, Keith Moon and such songs as "Sleeping in a Jar," and "Strictly Genteel." The inside history of the first feature-length film to be shot on video in 6 days.

Produced by Frank Zappa in 1982, The Dub Room Special combines footage from a performance at the KCET studios in Los Angeles on August 27, 1974, a concert performed at The Palladium, NYC on October 31, 1981, some clay animation by Bruce Bickford, and several interviews. Previously only available through mail-order, it was made widely available on DVD on October 17, 2005.

Frank Zappa: A Token of his Extreme is the 1974 television special recorded at Kcet in Hollywood that was produced by Zappa and aired only in France and Switzerland. The program, as thoroughly tweezed and produced by Zappa for his own Honker Home Video label, includes the following musical performances by Zappa and his band: T”he Dog Breath Variations/ Uncle Meat,” “Montana,” “Florentine Pogen,” “Stink-Foot,” “Pygmy Twylyte,” “Room Service,” “Inca Roads,” “Oh No,” Son of Orange County,” “More Trouble Every Day” and “A Token of My Extreme.” In the words of Zappa himself as he said it on The Mike Douglas Show in 1976, “This is put together with my own money and my own time and it’s been offered to television networks and to syndication and it has been steadfastly rejected by the American television industry.

On April 1, 2007, Zappa.com unveiled a redesigned website, which included the 30-minute segment from the Roxy performances, which had been used at the Zappa Plays Zappa concerts, on its new videos page. The clip for "Montana" was included as a bonus feature of the Classic Albums: Apostrophe(')/Over-Nite Sensation DVD, which was released on May 1, 2007. Neither song was included in ROXY the Movie

After disbanding the original Mothers of Invention in '69, Frank Zappa unleashed a second incarnation of the band by '70. This film focuses on the sophomore Mothers and this often-overlooked period in Zappa's career. Featuring rare footage, exclusive interviews, and contributions from many who worked with him, which all at once provide for the first film to tackle this phase in the Zappa legend

It is about a music school in Philadelphia, The Paul Green School of Rock Music, run by Paul Green that teaches kids ages 9 to 17 how to play rock music and be rock stars. Paul Green teaches his students how to play music such as Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa better than anyone expects them to by using a unique style of teaching that includes getting very angry and acting childish.

A drug kingpin's rise and tragic fall is witnessed vicariously by a reporter who uses the criminal's diary as the basis for his new book.

A funky hip-hop holiday special featuring a teenage boy named Orlando who lives in an underprivileged neighborhood.

Set in the 1970s, Tom Spader is an attorney who is determined to end what he has dubbed "the colored man's losing streak." When his winning of a high-profile case thrusts him into the limelight, he decides to move his wife and their two kids out of their mixed lower-middle-class town and into the posh enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut.