Mister 8

This is sort of another follow-up post to our look at Ennio Morricone’s “Deep Deep Down” from Danger! Diabolik earlier in the week, continuing to spotlight musicians who have Italo-espionage influence in their music.

First, in the comments section of our last post, Nick of DVDTrash pointed out another Diabolik themed video, this one made semi-official by the acting presence of John Philip Law and direction from Mario Bava’s son, Lamberto Bava. Nick writes at his site:

Lamberto Bava has directed a music video for Italian pop group Tiromancino very much in the style of Diabolik, so much so that Diabolik himself John Philip Law is in the video with a small cameo. Also stars Dan McVicar as Diabolik and the lovely Claudia Gerini as Eva Kant.

Next, our new pal Simon from the band Kriminal Hammond Inferno emailed to tell us about his other band, The Lunar Tikis. He writes:

The Lunar Tiki’s began as instrumental surf trio (Luc on drums, Flupke on bass, Roland on guitar) in 2003. When Simon came in 2004 with his Hammond organ, the band slightly changed their direction and covered more 60’s music, including some spy themes like “Man from UNCLE,” “The Persuaders,” “High Wire” (from Danger Man) and “The Money Spyder” (James Taylor Quartet) but also 60’s classics like “She’s Not There” and “Green Onions.”

In 2006, they became “Leo & the Lunar Tiki’s” with a young girl singer, Léonor. They stopped with spy music then.

You can learn more about the Lunar Tikis at their website.

Simon sent along some MP3s from the Lunar Tikis’ early days as an instrumental band. Enjoy!

The Man From UNCLE

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The Money Spyder

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High Wire / Danger Man:

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The Persuaders:

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Simon was kind enough to tell us the chord progression to the last of these songs, and so we’ll soon be featuring the tablature to the Persuaders here at Mister 8!

But that’s not all. Simon also tells us more about his other band, Kriminal Hammond Inferno:

In 2006 Simon had the opportunity to make a side project with Kriminal Hammond Inferno with Daniel Wang on drums, and they included Lunar Tiki’s cover songs plus 2 new scores from Danger:Diabolik , “The Bubble Theme” and “Deep Deep Down.” They played in 2007 in Italy and Belgium with as guest Sarah Bogart for those 2 songs and performed in 2007-2008 in UK , Netherlands and Belgium .

Here is the group, with singer Sarah Bogart, singing the other theme from Danger: Diabolik!:

And here’s the end of a concert in Rome where they do a different version of “Deep Deep Down,” this time with some Italian lyrics (also includes a rocking version of Green Onions):