Nick The Lizard

Italian Spiderman Master Tapes- Backstory

In 1964 Alrugo Entertainment went in to production of the feature film Italian Spiderman, four years later, the film was complete and the company was bankrupt. The film was considered so edgy and generally confusing that no Italian distributor would pick it up. Alfonso Alrugo, the film’s producer and head of Alrugo Entertianment sent the only existing 35mm print of the film off to an underground distributor friend of his in New York in a last ditch attempt to get Italian Spiderman out to the world and maybe re-coup some profit. The cargo ship containing the only print of the film sank somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Alfonso closed the gates to Alrugo Entertainment and went back to the trade that made his millions, orange farming. Alfonso’s oldest son, Francesco Alrugo decided to join his father in re-building his orange empire whilst his younger son, Tedesco Alrugo stayed in the city to continue running ‘Alrugodisc’ the record company Alfonso had established.

In 1969, the only artist signed to Alrugodisc, was Enzo Bontempi, the man responsible for composing the Italian Spiderman soundtrack. Over the next two years, Tedesco and Enzo worked fastidiously on Enzo’s seminal Disco album entitled ‘Enzo Bontempi - WOW!’. On it’s release in 1971 the first single from ‘Wow!’, which was also entitled ‘wow!’ soared to number 7 in the Italian charts. By Christmas 1971, it had reached number 1. The album went on to sell 1.3 million copies. Both Tedesco and Enzo became rich as oil sheiks. Thanks the success of “Wow!” Enzo and Tedesco are widely regarded as the granddaddies of Italian disco beat.

However, wealth and stardom soon took a toll on Tedesco Alrugo. He succumbed to a life of fast women and cocaine. Enzo looked on in disbelief as his manager, producer and mentor, flushed his life down the drain. The straw that broke the camel’s back came when Enzo caught Tedesco in bed with his wife. Enzo left Tedesco and Alrugodisc, for life.

Having squandered his millions, and now having no artists signed to his label, Tedesco turned Alrugodisc into a front for a drug running operation. During an attempt to smuggle a large shipment of dope into Spain, Tedesco was involved in a gunfight at the border between police and a gang of Spanish drug dealers, He was shot 17 times and died in a hospital in Pamplona. After his death, Italian police raided Alrigodisc headquarters where they seized a great deal of cocaine, a small weapons cache, some exotic species of birds, and all the master tapes of Alrugodisc’s back catalogue.

In November 2007 Luis of Soulful Torino records uncle Ettore, previously chief of narcotics in the Milano police department, passed away. A month later, Luis’ Auntie Gilda asked if Luis was interested in a box of tapes and records that she had discovered whilst going through Ettore’s belongings. Always on the lookout for an undiscovered jem, Luis and his partner Jimmy did not hesitate to investigate auntie Gilda’s find. In Gilda’s basement they discovered Alrugodisc’s entire back catalogue including the Soundtrack to Italian Spiderman.

Upon hearing that the grandsons of Alfonso Alrugo had discovered the lost print of Italian Spiderman and were planing to restore and distribute the film via the net, they made contact and struck a deal to release the Italian Spiderman soundtrack to the world via Soulful Torino Records / Record Kicks.