The Radioactive Bite of a Very Groovy Bug...

Just over a year ago I posted an article about the elusiveness of the background music from the late nineteen sixties Spiderman cartoon that was produced by Grantray-Lawrence and Krantz Films (and sometimes featured Ralph Bakshi as a director). It has gone through some serious revisions since then and you can read it here. The program enjoys cultish adoration due primarily to its incredible music score.  Anyway, the basis of that article was all about how awesome the music from the show is and how impossible it seems to be to track down the original masters. Well, that problem, I am happy to say, has been solved - at least in part. The second and third season music tracks come from the KPM music library in England, they still exist, and they sound great. I did a podcast today pitting the muddy sounds of the music as it sounded beneath the dialogue and sound effects of the original show against the crystal clear master copies of the background music. The podcast also features some reminiscence from the man who provided Spiderman's voice in the series, Paul Soles.

Listen to the Spiderman Background Music Podcast!

Perhaps the most revelatory piece of information that the discovery of these KPM masters unearthed is the name of the tracks themselves. Since the music was recorded for generic purposes to be used by anybody for any project or production, the sounds do not possess Spiderman related titles. However, if you've ever had the frightening experience of watching the notorious episode Revolt in the Fifth Dimension, you likely felt that it was a psychedelic cartoon made by animators high on acid. Turns out that the title of the crazy music in that episode was, indeed, titled LSD!

Comments

[missbhavens]

All I can say is this:

god bless you for this.

god bless you.

[George Berryman]

This is epic! =)

[Louisville Dan]

Ditto...my spider sense is tingling!

[E.Coppers]

Wow, nice post. Wowzers on the podcast. I can see that you put a Hell of a lot time into it. Sounds of cartoon and followed by the clear music. Cool stuff, a nice mix of 60's jazz with Nuggets 60's rock. Thanks

[Jim]

As a comic collector in the 1970s (still own them now, just don't buy new issues...) I bought a 45RPM single of the show's theme on a blue-label record that had decent sound quality. Looked like an unofficial release, probably was, and the copies were new or at least uncirculated. The music of the show was at time in the overly-dramatic realm of Dragnet, though with much punchier pacing.

[carrybagman]

haven't listened to this yet, but i'm going to thank you in advance...the musicians on those cartoon sessions were hopped-up beyond belief, at least that's the way I remember it, watching episodes after school, sitting on a couch on long island, gouz iced tea running through my veins...

[Jukeboxmafia]

I really enjoyed listening to this. Thanks for putting this together!

[Umbriel]

Fantastic stuff! Unfortunately, I don't believe Kliph ever gave the names of the first two David Lindup tracks in the podcast (the fourth and fifth tracks played). If he happens to check back here, could he enlighten us?

[BillZ]

Thank you, thank you, f**king thank you for this. I've been searching for this music for over 20 years. I can now check another one off my list.

[DJ TBA]

This is F***ing amazing. It proves why the original Spiderman is still cool - who would have thought that "stock music" could be so gripping after all these years? BTW Dementia 5 still scares the hell out of me (I saw the Rocket Robin Hood version as a kid).

Anyway, I dj in the Toronto Swing Dance community - you can bet I'll be pulling some of these hep cat tunes out. Sweet. Thanks, love.

[jinenjo]

Thank you Kliph! It's uncanny, how for years I've been dying to get more info on this music and recently decided to get to the bottom of it. Something Weird Video featured it on a couple of their releases and I loved it. I just put "Hell Raisers" on my answering machine, and got great responses from callers--so then I did a search the other night, came to Beware of the Blog, and the rest is beautiful history...

Gottta get tracks from the first season!

As for the above poster who wanted track names, iTunes has the two volumes of KPM music. Just search for Syd Dale.

[robb]

Way to go CiTR! Vancouver represent.

[Hans Keller]

Hey, I just came across something cool. I was checking out the old Glueleg album "Heroic Doses", which I knew for their supremely dissonant version of King Crimson's "Red", and I realized that the album also contains a cover of some of the stock music from the old Spiderman cartoon. Pretty cool considering this stuff didn't have nearly as high a profile way back in '94 when these guys were around. I think they were Canadian- maybe the music had more currency up there. The originals are less interesting, kind of sub-Morphine, but not terrible.

[Big D]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZLJ83TUM

some good Spidey BMG music here! enjoy!!!!

[Stuart Robertson]

The Spiderman track from Glueleg is pretty cool. They were big in the Toronto area back in the early to mid 90s. The Spiderman cartoon show was shown in re-runs all through the 80s, so just about everyone in their late 20s to 30s knows the tunes.

[sean prussel]

awesome awesome awesome!!! than you very much!!!!!!

[Mindwrecker]

I'm late discovering this post, and now that it's been downloaded and listened-to, here's a late response to an old blog post; but a subject that I've written on myself over the years.
First off--Nice job on the podcast! Although, I would love to know the NAMES of tracks 4 and 5 that you played in the set (you mentioned that they were by David Lindup- but didn't give the track titles), otherwise- fine work! Now I have to find out if this music is now 'commercially available' or if it's only going to pop up here and there on the 'net forever.
A couple of points to mention:
No one seemed to point out that this KPM library was used on the REN & STIMPY show back in 1991-92 and onwards, and it was at that time that I began to try and find out more about those old cues--as they were obviously still available to use, since the show was being scored with some bright-sounding tracks from KPM.
I wonder how many folks, like me, used to cassette-tape Spidey episodes, to get the great music and sounds, back before I could afford a VCR (early '80s), these K7s were later made into a fantastic Spidey music and vocal CD, which I then used for years...

How about the VERY BRITISH production-sound on the tracks? They have the TOTAL Chappel/EMI studio sheen of 60s-70s Brit recordings....so apparent once you can hear them all alone. I'll never hear the music in the cartoons quite the same way again!

I must mention that, even thought it's pricey (I lucked out and got mine cheap)- the SPIDEY cartoon boxed set of six DVDs is VERY nice, great quality, and although it was a guilty pleasure when I bought it-- I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of studying those crazy old shows. I even enjoy the pre-Bakshi season! The relationships between the characters are much more developed and funny in the early shows with the original animators- once Bakshi came in--they decided that scripts and plots and characters were unecessary to their mad new Spidey version.
It's also interesting how the print-quality fluctuates in the set- obviously there's a story there- the print transfers are pristine, until they get a couple of discs into the Bakshi seasons, and then all of a sudden, the prints get incredibly bad---- like beat-up 16mm TV prints...just horrible, and then they get back to the nice 'fresh outta the can' look later on in the set. Apparently someone threw out some masters.

Thanks again for the great work in preparing this show/ the KPM story--- a lot of us have hovered in the outskirts of this story for a while, and I knew a breakthrough would come someday!

[S.Clark]

I was just on google.com and under album#898770 there is a CD titled: Spider-Man: music from the KPM record library. There's an ared to click and buy, but i'm unalbe to. Does anyone out know about this CD and wher it can be purchased?

[Zeppo]

Tracks 4 and 5 are called "Unarmed Combat" and "Men of Action" respectively.

Thank you for posting this. My search for Spider-man music (ongoing now for about 10 years) has lead me to your blog which I have now bookmarked. For years I have always thought that Ray Ellis was responsible for all the music and not just the first season. Many of these tracks are just as quintessentially Spider-man as any of the Ellis stuff. Sadly, I don't think the Ellis music will ever be available. There are those out there who have taken it upon themselves to try and reproduce the music, and while they deserve praise for their efforts, I find their music to be lacking in the "swing" department. One can only accomplish so much with apple's Garageband. I hope people will keep trying till they get it right though, until then I will covet these KPM tracks. Thanks again.

[Carlos Gonzalez]

I wasn't able to download the mp3, but I wonder if you have the music from a party in some of the episodes, it is realy psychedelic, very groovy. I haven't heard that in probably 30 years

[Jay Clary]

Nice thank you, you just made my year !!!!!!!!

[New Listener]

Incredible show!

[Sarcasmo]

Nice collection...but it was missing the one song I wanted. It was used in Rollarama, The Winged Thing, Down to Earth, Pardo Presents, etc. A few of the KNOWN backgrounds songs of the Spiderman series weren't there. Very disappointing.