"Rome, Italian Style" Track of the Day: Mike Patton, "Deep Down"

Song: "Deep Down" by Mike Patton
Released: 2010
Why's it part of the "Rome, Italian Style" playlist?: When I first learned that for his '50s and '60s Italian pop music tribute project Mondo Cane, Patton recorded a cover of "Deep Down," Ennio Morricone's wonderful theme from the 1968 Mario Bava cult favorite Danger: Diabolik, I was worried that Patton's version was going to be overly kitschy. A 2009 video of Patton and his Mondo Cane orchestra giving a soaring performance of "Deep Down" in concert put that worry to rest (see the video below).

The Faith No More and Mr. Bungle frontman is a Morricone fan who once released a compilation of his favorite atonal Morricone score cues on his Ipecac label and who, like myself, wishes that more people would notice Morricone's non-spaghetti western compositions like "Deep Down" because, as he once noted in Spin, "Many people think of him only in terms of spaghetti western music." During "Deep Down," Patton and his orchestra honor the material with a non-kitschy take that's a worthy addition to the "Rome, Italian Style" playlist. Their cover is the opposite of that occasionally amusing but otherwise terrible Mystery Science Theater 3000 series finale where Mike and the Bots wrongheadedly trashed Danger: Diabolik, one of the best comic book adaptations ever filmed, as if it were a crime against humanity like the previous--and much more deserving--MST3K target Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Double O Section, a blog that reviews films and shows from the spy genre, said "[MST3K] did a grave disservice to cinema in general" with that Diabolik episode.

"The film has been tagged unfairly in the pop-consciousness as trash/camp," said the SpyVibe blog. "As much as I enjoy their riffs on bad-but-fun flicks, Mike and the robots had no business dragging Bava's Diabolik into that campy pigeonhole."

"When it turned up on [MST3K] as a turkey to be laughed at, I thought they were missing the point, it's supposed to be fun," said Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright in his entry on Diabolik for Time Out's "50 Essential Comic-Book Movies" list. "It made me really angry!"

Mr. Wright, whenever you get angry again because you're reminded of MST3K's shabby treatment of Diabolik, do what I do. Listen to Patton's calming and respectful cover of "Deep Down." It's like all is right with the world again whenever I hear it.

Mike Patton covers the Danger: Diabolik theme

Because I'm an Ennio Morricone fan and I like Mario Bava's Morricone-scored 1968 comic book flick Danger: Diabolik, I got a kick out of Mike Patton's awesome cover of Morricone's "Deep Down" theme from Diabolik. The track, which was originally sung by a female vocalist named Christy, will be part of Patton's forthcoming Mondo Cane album of covers of '50s and '60s Italian pop songs. Also next up from the frontman of Fantômas and previously, Faith No More: the Crank: High Voltage score.



Tim Lucas, who did the Diabolik DVD's audio commentary and wrote Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, said on his blog that "seeing ['Deep Down'] performed live by such an expressive vocalist, a full choir and orchestra brought tears to my eyes."

The Mike Patton's Mondo Cane version of "Deep Down" is my favorite cover by Patton since his cover of the Nestlé "Sweet Dreams You Can't Resist" jingle from his Faith No More days.

Patton and I happen to share both the same birthdate and a love for film and TV scores, especially Morricone's. I didn't come up with the name A Fistful of Soundtracks--another DJ at my college radio station did--but I chose that name for my college radio show because I thought it would be a cool way to pay tribute to Morricone and his work on the Fistful trilogy and A Fistful of Dynamite, a.k.a. Duck, You Sucker.

This post is also an excuse to show Marisa Mell in her Diabolik hot pants.