Cover art: Back Ground   http://www.esnips.com/user/BackGround

The original spiderdome 1985 

Transport yourself back in time to 1985, location Whitstable in Kent, more precisely a little wooden house at the back of a shop by the traffic lights in Canterbury Road, named, for that time at least, The Red Spider Retreat.

  [Photo courtesy of The Hillside Photographic and Canoeing Studio, Whitstable

- for an update on the perils of canoeing through Whitstable see the file below, 'who lived in the house next door to this'

or for a similar rush of tarmac to the bottom, listen to the Trouser Trumpets live http://www.trousertrumpets.co.uk/track2.m3u]

Done that? Good. (Oh, look, Peter Cushing just went past on his bicycle). Now, take a £3 1950's tape recorder, from the long-gone (as is the tape recorder!) second hand shop on the corner of the high Street and Terry's Lane, to complement one bought a few years earlier from the window of a hairdresser's shop in London Road, Bath for £15, and take ages to pull off connections from leads that won't fit and wire them together so the set up (see the incredible Back Ground's file for a full explanation of what the set up is and from whence it came: http://www.esnips.com/web/BackGroundsMusic/ ) works even half decently, add a Yamaha Portasound mini keyboard and ludicrously huge ambition, and this is what you might get!!

What do you mean, "Unlucky!"?

The earlier 'Spidertronics' and 'Advanced Spidertronics' recordings (not yet available in digital format you'll be gutted to hear) were done with a microphone so you can hear Spider (dlb was not then even a twinkle in the night sky) drinking tea, sniffing, and the odd train passing by in the background; but these present recordings were originally entitled 'High Fidelity Advanced Spidertronics' because they were recorded directly onto the only decent equipment then available at the Retreat, an Aiwa cassette tape deck (which is still in the loft waiting for me to find someone who can mend it!). Sadly, I couldn't remove the buzz from one or other of the reel to reel tape recorders used (or perhaps it was one of the  sellotaped together leads?!)

Now take one giant leap forward to 1st January 2005. Dick Le Burgh is to be found trying to think of things to do with his new CD recorder. He gets up and paces around in the gloom of the cellar till he stumbles over a couple of discarded tape cases. 'That'll do nicely', he is heard to exclaim, and within as much time as it takes to make a cup of tea and run upstairs he is transferring these old Masters onto CD...the rest, as they say, is his story.

Or so he thought...

the spiderdome BG 2008

Back ground has worked his magic on the original recordings, preserving the music as it was played, removing much of the hiss and hum,. whilst bringing out the tones of the keyboard and adding some atmosphere along the way!

There is a CD cover (will add the back and inner cover later) if you feel compelled to create your own CD version. Front cover Art (guess who?)...Back Ground!

There are also two alternative versions of 'after all' and 'variations 2/mesmerism' which BG did, at the end.

Thanks to BG for his continuing support above and beyond the call of duty!