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Every Dog Has Its Day

Mike Patton triumphs as an Italian crooner on Mondo Cane.

Adrian Mack 20 May 2010TheTyee.ca

Adrian Mack contributes a regular music column to The Tyee and frequently sits behind Rich Hope.

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"Almeno dammi il tuo numero di telefono, prego..."

This is what most casual observers know about Mike Patton. In the 20-odd years since then, the restlessly creative musician has wandered a skittish path from the Top 10 to the avant garde, dabbling along the way in hip-hop, mutated lounge music, movie soundtracks, and seemingly infinite variations on metal.

In the '90s, Patton wandered all the way to Italy, setting up shop on his then wife's home turf. Thus was Mondo Cane born, in which Patton learned the language, pieced together an orchestra, and started exorcising his growing infatuation with the florid Italian pop hits of the '50s and '60s. Arguably, he simultaneously raised the delicate art of sucking up to the in-laws to a literally operatic level.

After recording a handful of concerts, Patton finally got around to releasing Mondo Cane earlier this month. The acclaim has been universal. Typically, Patton brings such gusto to the project, rolling his Rs as if he has a rare form of Mediterranean Tourette's, that you can't be sure where the dividing line between sincerity and satire lies, or even if there is one.

Assume either and you can still just enjoy the shit out of Mondo Cane, especially if you're the kind of person who always keyed into the fragrant background music in Mean Streets, or whose appreciation of Italy is refracted through grindhouse movies. Put me in that culturally anemic category. There's a fairly broad clue in Patton's title for the project. Mondo Cane was of course the sleazy '60s docu-fakery that launched a nasty muck-wallowing genre unto itself, and Italian cinema is where a movie like Cannibal Holocaust is bracingly paired with a poignant score from Riz Ortolani that borders on syrupy genius. Mondo Cane itself gave us Ortolani's mushy "More" (here's somebody from Sesame Street doing it).

But Patton's evident taste for trash is otherwise kept in check on Mondo Cane. He implicitly knows that he's tackling the Italian equivalent of Bacharach/David or the Brill Building, even if much of it might sound kitschy to our ears. He inserts himself respectfully into these beloved songs, mostly losing himself in the melodramatic swirl, while maintaining enough of his persona that he never gets lost.

You hear it in a track like the antic "Che Notte", where he's a Latin Mel Blanc on a bric-a-brac stuffed tune that sounds like a cat and mouse chase through a Foley studio. On "Urlo Negro", his trench work as a metal screamer comes in especially handy. Taken all together, Patton conjures a Mondo in perfect balance.

And it's attracting a lot of attention, whether he likes it or not. Patton studiously went about his work and avoided celebrity after the hitmaking days, but between Mondo Cane and the ongoing Faith No More reunion, it looks like it might be a big year for him. Maybe even epic. Or epico, if you like.  [Tyee]

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