Bakshi Spiderman music
WFMU'S Blog Beware of the Blog always has some offbeat and ecelectic offerings from the musical fringe, and last month's The Radioactive Bite of a Very Groovy Bug post is certainly no exception.
It features a 65 minute podcast (recorded may 20, 2008) of music featured in the second and third season seasons (the Steve Krantz produced, Ralph Bakshi directed episodes) of the original 1967 Spider-man ABC cartoon series.
The program enjoys cultish adoration due primarily to its incredible music score of original Spider-Jazz (recorded for the show's first season) and the vast library of 1960s production music 
cues that it utilized. Those tracks have been all but impossible to come by over the 40 years since the series ended. Well, now it seems, that problem has finally been resolved - at least in part.
According to WFMU's :
"The second and third season music tracks come from the KPM music library in England, they still exist, and they sound great. The podcast also features some reminiscence from the man who provided Spiderman's voice in the series (as well as "Hermie" in Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer), 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!"
I have my own memory of that particular piece (which sort of has an early-Pink Floyd-Syd Barrett groove) As a kid when I'd visit my Grandmother in Florida, The only thing there was to watch on Sunday morning was Bullwinkle (and the Munsters, curiously). And the only commercials they'd show during that hour were Florida PSAs. Lots of No-smoking 60 and 90 second spots, including one that showed a guy suffering from nicotine withdrawal --to the LSD beat!
Obvious HUGE thanks to WFMU's Beware the Blog, Ralph Bakshi and D.E. O'Connor!
Labels: Ralph Bakshi Spider-Man. KPM Library, Rudolph, Stan Lee, Steve Krantz, WFMU
posted by C. Martin Croker at 8:03 PM
3 Comments:
Mighty sweet post. Most of that music seems just right for Dick Shawn to be dancing to in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" Nice choice o' stills, too-always dug JJJ's wacky pose-YOU try to talk on the phone like that!
2:12 PM
Since WFMU posted them I've been listening to those tracks nonstop while i work- and I'm not even a jazz fan! Great stuff.
9:17 PM
I really need to hear the background incidental music from the episode, "Home".
In it, Peter Parker is stood up by his mysterious date, Carol - who unbeknownst to him at the time is an alien with spider powers. Spider-man, dejected, says, "I guess I'll swing for a while" and swings along the cityscape. This is where the organ music is playing. The music stops when Spider-man sees Carol in the middle of a theft.
12:18 AM
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