Posts Tagged heavy metal
The Short, Strange Basketball Career of Kreator’s Mille Petrozza
Posted by Keith Spillett in Blithering Sports Fan Prattle on May 28, 2011
If you have listened to any thrash metal there is no doubt you have heard the legendary band Kreator. Lead singer Mille Petrozza practically defined the riotous, violent German thrash sound. What many people don’t know about Petrozza is that before he was writing classic songs metal anthems like “Betrayer” he was a remarkable basketball player who won an NCAA championship ring with Michigan State.
Petrozza was a high school phenom in Germany. Standing 6 foot 1, Petrozza was an average-sized guard with extremely quick feet. Although he lacked an imposing physical stature he made up for it with a jump shot that could find net from nearly anywhere on the floor. Petrozza was recruited heavily by several major colleges, but eventually chose to play at Michigan State.
As a sophomore, Petrozza was the second leading scorer for a team that featured future Hall of Famer Magic Johnson. Magic remembers his time playing with Mille fondly. “Mille was a pure jump shooter. One of the best I’ve ever seen. I knew when I dished it off to him, I was pretty much guaranteed an assist.”
Petrozza #12 With The 1979 Michigan State Championship Team
Petrozza was averaging 16 points and 7 rebounds a game going into the NCAA tournament when disaster struck. His knee gave out driving to the basket in a late season game against Indiana. Doctors said he might never play again. Michigan coach Jud Heathcote called a team meeting after the injury and remembered telling Magic “Mille’s down for the count. We might not get him back for the rest of the year. You are going to have to carry us.”
Magic stepped up and had a tournament for the ages. He carried the team to an improbable championship defeating the Larry Bird led Indiana State Sycamores 75-64. Mille got his ring, but was deeply disheartened by not being able to play. He never recovered his 1979 pre-injury form during his final two unexceptional seasons at Michigan State.
In the 1981 NBA Draft, Petrozza, who had once been projected a high first round pick, slipped to the 2nd round where he was nabbed by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cleveland was terrible that year but Petrozza began to emerge as a budding star. He averaged 12 points a game and wowed other teams with his speed and intensity.
His most memorable moment was when he scored 39 points in the Boston Garden in a January game against the Celtics. Kevin McHale, the power forward for Boston remembers the performance well. “I thought to myself, I can’t believe we are going to have to play this guy every year. He’s unstoppable.”
Robert Parrish, the Celtics Center, remembers Petrozza as well. “Man, I had never seen anything like that guy. He dunked over me in the third quarter and he actually yelled out ‘PLEASURE……TO KILL!!!!!’ I was like ‘WHAT THE HELL?!?!?’”
Petrozza During His Breakout Game Versus The Celtics
Just when Petrozza seemed to be getting things together he was struck with another terrible injury. While guarding Julius Erving in a game at Philadelphia he slipped on a wet spot on the floor and his surgically repaired knee gave out. “I just felt the thing buckle,” recalls Petrozza. “I knew I was done.”
Petrozza retired nine months later after an unsuccessful attempt to return after surgery. He decided to devote his life to his other passion, music. He took the money he had saved from his NBA contract and used it to pay for the recording of the first Kreator record “Endless Pain”, a title he came up with to describe his knee troubles.
He never lost his love for the game. In fact, many of the Kreator songs and album titles have subtle basketball references in them. According to Petrozza, the album “Extreme Aggression” is actually a tribute to the press defense he ran at Michigan State.
Life has a funny way of moving people to where they are supposed to go. If Petrozza hadn’t had knee troubles he easily could have had a long successful career in the NBA, but then thrash as we know it would have been changed forever.
“I’m glad things turned out the way they did. I love playing thrash metal for thousands of screaming metal maniacs,” remarked Petrozza. “But sometimes when I’m alone at night in my study having a brandy I remember my old playing days. When I think of my basketball career, I can’t help but recall a quote from my favorite poet John Greenleaf Whittier “For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, “It might have been’.”
Metamorphosis on Main Street: A Psychological Review of Graveyard’s “Hisingen Blues”
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness, Pointless Music Reviews, Pointyheaded Highbrow Stuff, The Poetry of Death on May 5, 2011
I started off trying to review Graveyard’s new album Hisingen Blues. Things were going really well. I had a neat little intro where I talked about their 70’s retro sound and compared them to a few bands. There was a cool section where I discussed the driving intensity of their sound and compared them to a freight train. It was going really well. All that is gone now. All that is left is chaos, despair and panic. I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot of a Burger King fast food. It’s 4:47 in the morning. How did I get here?
I was writing the review at the kitchen table. My wife and kids were playing in the other room. In the distance, I heard the vaguely menacing sounds of Dora The Explorer. My ears were much more attuned to magniloquent sounds of the song Hisingen Blues by Graveyard. I’d listened to the album a few times, but kept coming back to the title track. “WHERE IS THE FUTURE?!?!?!?!”
I was grooving to the song. I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew my wife was screaming. “WHAT ARE YOU!?!!?!??!?!? GET OUT OF HERE!!?!?!?!”
I tried to say “Honey, it’s just me. Why are you screaming?” But it came out “Kjqgjgnqrwlkgnjwqrngljnwrjlgnlg?”. I sounded like the creature in the Predator movies when it tried to talk. What was happening?
My wife picked up a broom and started hitting me. “Stop it!” (“Njndgjlqwrnlgkn!”) The sounds that came out of me only made her more frightened. I ran upstairs. Suddenly, I started thinking about our cat. I have to eat the cat. I have to eat the cat. I sprinted around the bedroom looking for the cat. I thought of how good the cat would taste. I have to eat the cat. “WHERE IS THE FUTURE!?” echoed in my minds ear. I need to eat the cat. It would be so delicious. I have to eat the cat. I looked under the bed, I looked in the shower. I looked in the closet on my wife’s red sweater where it likes to sleep. All at once it occurred to me that we don’t have a cat.
I looked into the mirror. What looked back at me was horrifying. Green neck, green skin, pointy nose, scales. I was…..a lizard!!!!!!! Dear God….A LIZARD!!!!!! I ran downstairs to try to explain it to my wife. She had both of the kids in her arms and she was screaming into her cell phone. “SDGASFHAFSHERJJET!” I pleaded.
“Get away you…..BEAST! What have you done with my husband????”
My children’s eyes were filled with confusion. I was not daddy anymore. I was some “thing” that they could not possibly understand. Some “thing” they conjured up in a nightmare, but not daddy. “WHERE IS THE FUTURE!?!!?!!” My wife’s eyes gleamed with hate and fear. I was a stranger to them.
I grabbed my keys and ran out of the front door towards my car. Our neighbor was blissfully jogging up the street with her headphones on. At first, she did not notice me. All at once her face grew pale. She turned and sprinted away from me. I leaped in my car. Could I even drive? Could I get the key in the ignition? My lizard fingers clumsily pushed the key in and I was off to somewhere. But where?
Most of the last nine hours has been about staying alive. I have cat scratch marks all over me that I cannot explain. I feel the empty exhaustion of a sleepless night. I don’t remember much of what has happened, but I am here. Soon, the sun will rise. I have to stay safe. There is no room for my kind on the street. Not among the animals. Not in the daylight.
And what of my condition? How did I end up here? Something in the song brought me to this place. I have become the poetry of doom and horror. Something in the song turned me into this creature. Something inside of me, both wretched and righteous, has escaped and become my form. “WHERE IS THE FUTURE?!?!?!” I am no longer what you would call human. I wear alienation as my skin. As the moments recede backwards into the night my fate stands before me. I am lost.
Trump Accuses Obama of Being First Overkill Drummer
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 30, 2011
Mr. Skates Goes To Washington?
In a continuing assault on the life and career of President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump accused Obama of being the drummer for the metal band Overkill on the albums “Feel The Fire” and “Taking Over“.
In an interview with syndicated conservative talk radio host Jonathan Winthrop, Trump said “If you look in the liner notes at the first two albums they have someone named Rat Skates listed as the drummer. That can’t possibly be a real name. I believe that Barack Obama was playing drums on both of those records.”
This is another in a series of accusations made by Republicans that Obama is, in fact, a “secret metalhead”. The accusations started two months ago when Glenn Beck revealed that Obama was in a thrash band in Chicago while he was working as a community organizer in the mid-1980s. Beck claimed that Obama’s band “mostly did Coroner and Slayer covers, but a few originals.”
Other reports have claimed that the band, known as Barry O’Death and the October Revolution (BODOR), recorded a demo but nearly all of the copies have been destroyed. Various media outlets have contacted three supposed members of the group but no one has agreed to go on record about having played in the band.
Trump claimed last month that one of his investigators had gotten their hands on a copy and he had heard the demo. According to Trump the sound was “very raw but pretty unoriginal. They seemed to be trying to copy Exodus ‘Bonded By Blood’ on most of the tracks.”
According to Trump, the demo had ten songs on it with titles ranging from “Destroyer of Worlds” to “When Death Rides A Horse” to “Free Healthcare for Everyone”. Obama has never directly addressed the metal rumors but in his biography Dreams from My Father he does discuss being “really impressed with the first Manowar album, particularly the epic feel of the song Battle Hymn”.
Rat Skates on Tour With Overkill in 1981
Trump supported his latest accusation by claiming that the drumming on “Feel The Fire” was extremely similar to the playing on the BODOR demo. “I have heard a lot of drummers over the years and this person who is supposedly known as Rat Skates plays just like Obama. There is no way you could hear the song Blood and Iron and think it was anyone but the future President playing. The styles are too much alike.”
Trump has encouraged Obama to come out and be forthright with the American people about his metal past. “It’s not right that the President is keeping the American people in the dark about an issue as important as his taste in music. If the President listens to thrash, death or even proto-doom, it’s important that the people know so they can make informed decisions.”
Venom Singer Saddened By Royal Snub
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 28, 2011
Uncle Cronos
There is one Brit who is still waiting for his invitation to tomorrow’s wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Cronos (Conrad Lant), the bass player and singer from the band Venom, has checked his mailbox everyday patiently waiting for a message that may never come. Why would the lead singer of a band that recorded songs like “Sons of Satan” expect an invite to one of the most sacred and important events in Britain this century? Cronos is, in fact, Kate Middleton’s uncle.
As hard as this may be to believe for many metalheads, Cronos is the brother of Kate’s mom Mary Lant. In an exclusive interview with The Tyranny of Tradition, Cronos revealed that he had a close relationship with Kate from the time she was a baby. “We were on tour supporting the Welcome to Hell album when I got the call. Little Katy was about to be born. The band and I cancelled the show and rushed to the hospital. I’ll never forget when I held her for the first time. Abaddon and I broke down in tears. It was beautiful,” recalled Cronos.
Cronos was always a big part of the future princesses life. She grew up going to Venom concerts and was even in the studio when the band recorded their third album “At War With Satan”. “Mantas had this great idea to have her voice mixed into the background of the song “Aaaaaarrghh” but it we were never able to get it to sound right.”
As Kate got older she got more involved with the band. “She started playing drums at age 7 and even sat in with us a few times during concerts. She played Buried Alive with us at a show in Coventry back during the reunion in 1995 and was amazing. She reminded me a lot of Dave Lombardo.”
When the royal couple first started dating Kate promised Cronos that they might play at the wedding if the two ever decided to tie the knot. “She had this whole idea about us playing Countess Bathory during the part of the service where she walked up to the altar. I thought it was crazy, but she kept bringing the idea up. I’d have been honored to play her wedding.”
Cronos was in touch with Kate as recently as seven months ago, but since the wedding announcement she has not returned any of his phone calls. “She used to call me her favorite uncle. She loved singing songs with me when she was a little girl. We used to sing the song “Black Metal” together. She loved doing the growling part at the end. Now she won’t even talk to me.”
There have been few mentions of Cronos’ relationship with Kate in the British press. He believes the royal family has conspired to keep the Kate Middleton/Venom connection out of the media. “There used to be video of her playing with us up on YouTube, but that was mysteriously taken down months ago. I feel like they are embarrassed by my career as one of the founding fathers of Satan influenced thrash metal. I’m not trying to get famous out of this or make money. I just want my Little Katy back.”
Dumb Metal Rumors and The People Who Love Them
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing on April 17, 2011
Metalheads, as a lot, tend to be some the most cynical people on the planet, but we are often willing to believe some amazingly suspect information. Get a roomful of bangers together and most of them will agree that the government, in league with a group of rancorous aliens who crashed in New Mexico, are conspiring to enslave the human race and force us to listen to Black Eyed Peas records until our ears bleed. What can be said of a group that seems to have a universal distrust Christianity but believe strongly in the existence of Satan? We tend to be suspicious of any sort of authority structure, but have complete faith in strangers who happen to arrange a series of musical notes in a way that makes us want to run into each other screaming “KILL!!!!”. In short, we are a group that is susceptible to getting caught up in some bizarre rumors.
Over the years there have been a some I particularly enjoyed. Here are a few of them…
Paging Dr. Goregrind
The story goes something like this…A bunch of frustrated med students dropped out of college moments away from becoming doctors. They took their wealth of medical training and used it to write a series of revolting metal albums in the late 80s and early 90s. These albums, which featured songs with catchy titles like “Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency” and “Cadaveric Incubator of Endoparasites”, must have been penned by people with an acute understanding of human anatomy, the type of understanding that could only be gained by hours of study at a medical college. It’s a great story and it actually makes some sense but it is completely untrue. Carcass are, in fact, brilliant musicians with highly overdeveloped vocabularies and no medical training whatsoever. This didn’t stop a friend of mine, years back, from sending a letter to the band offering to allow them to remove his spleen onstage.
Malevolent Obfuscation
The saga of Phil Fasciana, guitarist from the band Malevolent Creation, and his heroic killing of a “80-pound homeless crackhead” Kwik E Mart robber gripped the metal world back in 2009. Apparently, Phil stumbled in looking to buy some chocolate milk and was shot at by the thief. In a scene that seems right out of a bad Don “The Dragon” Wilson action flick (because it probably was), Phil tackled the bad guy and wrestled his gun away. But this cagey crackhead reached for his hideout piece located, in of all places, his sock. Phil was forced to fire on the guy and kill him. There were more holes in the story than in the USS Bismarck. The poor, desperate homeless guy with enough money for two guns. The lack of a murder weapon, a dead body or a witness. Days afterwards, the police confirmed the story was complete nonsense. This didn’t stop a good number of metalheads, myself in particular, from running wild with this fable.
The Parable of The Cave
Wolves in the Throne Room are just your average Rudolph Steiner reading, eco-anarchist black metal band. Over the years, they have rightfully gained a reputation for being somewhat eclectic. This, however, does not mean they live in a cave. Nearly every description I heard about the band went like this “They sound like ____________________ and they remind me of ______________________ and, get this, they live in a cave.” In fairness, they do look like they live in a cave, but so do 2/3rds of the metalheads under the age of 25. They live on an organic farm. There are clear structural differences between a cave and a farm that I shouldn’t have to explain.
Dead…Again?
Death rumors are a favorite among metalheads. Back in 2005, Type O Negative pulled off the ultimate hoax when they convinced the world that singer Peter Steele had died. This became quite confusing when Steele actually died last year. Was he really dead this time? Would he rise on the second day as some sort of ironic, Easter-themed publicity stunt? The last album was named Dead Again for gosh sakes! And Rasputin was on the cover. That zany Russian died something like 28 times and kept coming back! This had to be some sick joke. Unfortunately, it was not and Steele has not risen…yet.
The 2005 Steele death was the most convincing death rumor I have heard, but far from the first. I’ll never forget spending an embarrassing evening back in 1993 mourning Pantera singer Phil Anselmo’s untimely death. The word was he had dove off of the stage and the crowd had parted, unwilling to take seriously their responsibilities as members of the metal community, allowing Phil to slam into the floor. His neck broke and he was pronounced dead in the pit. The injustice! I remember mournfully looking at the sky and shouting “I would have caught you, Phil! I would have caught you!”
What If Danzig Dated My Daughter?
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing, Parenting Tips For Those With Children, Totally Useless Information on April 6, 2011
One of the things you come to accept as a parent is that your life is going to be filled with a series of irrational fears. After a while you get used to it, but there are a few that never seem to go away. Sometimes they appear in the form of a nightmare that wakes you up every night in a cold sweat with your heart thumping at 185 beats per minute. For me, that nightmare is Glenn Danzig pinning a corsage to my teenage daughter’s dress as they leave for her high school prom.
It is certainly a preposterous thing to be afraid of, but most fear has an element of the absurd to it. About three days before the prom my daughter starts telling me about this great guy named “Glenn” who she met at the mall. Fast forward to the night of the prom, the doorbell rings and I walk over to it. She is upstairs getting ready. I open the door. There he is…Danzig. Of course, my daughter is two years old right now and Danzig is 56, so there is a bit of an age difference. By the time my daughter is ready for the prom Danzig will be 72. In the nightmare, he doesn’t appear that old. He looks like the snarling Lucifuge-era Danzig that could beat up four Marine battalions and the Dallas Cowboys without breaking a sweat. He is wearing one of those horrible rental tuxedos with the godawful ruffled shirt and yet he still looks menacing. He is polite at first. I ask him to come in and have a cold soda. He sits on my couch and stares blankly at nothing in particular. I am freaking out. I keep hearing that part of the song Mother where he says “I’m gonna take your daughter out tonight….Gonna show her my world…. Not about to see your light….If you want to find hell with me…I can show you what it’s like” Ehhhhh!
“So, Glenn, how did you meet my daughter?”
(Here’s the part that is kind of strange. During this section of the dream, he sings everything he says in a sinister, baritone voice)
“We were in…Hotttttt Topicccc…..and we started….talkkkkkkking…..She said she likes Gothic Roccckkkkk…..”
I puff out my chest and try to pull off the intimidating, “make sure and have my daughter home by midnight or else” dad act. This would work on most high schoolers, but it’s not going to put any sort of fear into Danzig. “Uhmmmmm. What are your plans for this evening, Glenn?”
“We’re going for a ride on my….Harrrrlllllleyyy. Then, we’re going to go out (drums start to pick up from out of nowhere) dannnnnciiiiinnnnngggg!!!!”
I try to change the subject to something less threatening. “So, any chance of a Misfits re-union?”
Danzig just laughs and stares off into the distance. The room is filled with three minutes of icy, uncomfortable silence.
The next fifteen minutes are a blur of horrible memories. My daughter dancing down the stairs and leaping into Danzig’s arms, taking pictures out on the front lawn with her, her friends and the dude who once sang the lyrics “I Want Your Skulls, I Need Your Skulls”, sneaking glances at my equally horrified wife. I wake up screaming.
How does a responsible parent deal with this? If we tell her she can’t see Danzig, that might drive her right into his arms. I could see it now….“Honey, you can never see that Danzig fellow again!”
“I hate you mom and dad!!!!! You are trying to ruin my life!!!!!!”
Next thing I know it I come home and there is a note on the refrigerator that says “Went to Vegas to marry Danzig. Back on Monday.”
We certainly cannot condone this sort of behavior. I’d much rather see her dating one of those brooding, introspective Echo and The Bunnymen poet-socialist types. However, so much is out of your control. You just try to do the best you can raising them and hope they make good decisions. Being a parent is hard enough without having to worry about your daughter dating Danzig.
Op-Ed Response to the Sarah Palin Oystergate Scandal
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Sarah Palin Fiasco on January 15, 2011
If you want to find out what started this whole mess, here’s a link to the original article.
Get more coverage of Sarah Palin and Oystergate on Facebook or Twitter
There have been many scathing editorials written throughout America on the Sarah Palin Oystergate Scandal. This recent item was a column that appeared in this morning’s Fort Worth Examiner. Jonathan Winthrop, who is referred to in his bio as a “true, red blooded patriot”, writes a weekly column for the paper called “America: Love It or Leave It or Don’t”.
Even Bloodier Libel
By Jonathan Winthrop
If there’s one thing Americans have had enough of its Sarah Palin bashing. First, the liberal media machine said she was not “intellectual” enough to join their little club. Next, they said her words were causing deranged loners to turn violent. Now, they are saying that she hates Swedes. By the end of the year, they’ll be accusing her of the Kennedy assassination, breaking into the Watergate Hotel and turning Jeffery Dahmer into a cannibal. It is interesting that every time that Kenyan in the White House has his poll numbers drop or has to go to the sentencing of one of his former Chicago cronies, Sarah Palin says something that gets herself in trouble. If one looks closely, it starts to become obvious that the Obama administration, along with the wealthy Hungarian-American George Soros, are behind this latest round of Sarah bashing. Sound crazy? Let’s look at the facts.
First of all, lets clear up the comments made by Palin. We need to face the uncomfortable fact that much of what Palin said is true. Unless they started having elections recently without me noticing, Sweden is a socialist country. Tax rates for the average Swede are right around 99.3 percent. According to several studies, the average Swede works two and a half hours a week. Yet, for less than 12 hours of work a month, Swedes have full health care, a chauffeured limousine ride once a week to the local “free store” and are given up to four massages a month. And who pays for all these perks? Why the taxpayer, of course!
From a young age, Swedes are taught not to work. The most commonly used Civics Textbook in Swedish classrooms is a malignant piece of socialist propaganda called “Why Work…The Government Will Pay You Anyway”. The crime rate among Swedish teens is appalling. By the age of 15, 1 in 2 Swedes has committed a violent crime, stolen a car or missed more than 10 days of school in a year. Most young Swedes wile away their time hanging out with friends or listening to violent so-called “heavy metal music” or surfing on the Internet in these things they like to call “chat rooms”. Their government sponsored schools and socialist parents are getting them ready for a life of reading Lenin, taking government handouts and mugging senior citizens all while the US tax payer foots the bill. In this context, Palin’s point makes a good deal of sense. Do we want our young men and women forsaking their commitment to truth, justice and the American way and becoming like young Swedes? I, for one, do not.
Much of the rest of the story includes your usual cast of characters. Wildly inaccurate MSNBC stories, articles written by deranged (George Soros sponsored) bloggers and money hungry former employees and their fictitious accounts of anti-Swedish tirades by the Palin family. All the while, the Obama administration skillfully manipulates the media into anti-Sarah commentary and Swede-baiting. It is not a coincidence that several of the states with large Swedish-American populations were toss-up states during the 2008 election. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Indiana could all sway the 2012 election in favor of Obama. The Obama administration, a ruthless organization of Chicago pols bent on forcing all working people to their knees at the altar of Godless Islamic Communism, is again playing puppet master, pulling the strings of the media in order to force good people to believe bad things.
Before we join in with the legions of torch carrying former 60’s love children eager to step on the throats of hard working Americans with their collective Birkenstocks, let’s remember the lessons of 9/11. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The price of eternal vigilance is abiding loyalty. The price of abiding loyalty is everlasting devotion. Let us never forget the dream our forefathers struggled and died for. Let us never forget the price some have paid and others may pay and still others haven’t paid. We must defend freedom! We must defend liberty! We must defend Sarah!
The Most Amazing Thing That Has Ever Happened To Me….THANK YOU SARAH PALIN!!!!
Posted by Keith Spillett in Pointless Music Reviews, The Sarah Palin Fiasco on January 12, 2011
A Real Iron Maiden!!!
Some of you may have heard the big news today, but if you haven’t, I will tell you that today is easily the biggest day in the history of The Tyranny of Tradition blog. I have spent most of the last 24 hours dealing with calls from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and even the 700 Club. In order to understand what is about to happen I need to give you some back-story. About 3 months ago, a good friend of mine told me that he remembered at an early Sarah Palin speech during the 2008 campaign she came out to speak to the opening riff from Godzilla by the Blue Oyster Cult. I assumed he was kidding, but he was pretty insistent about it so I decided to look it up. Sure enough, I found the footage along with an interview with her talking about music and she mentioned listening to the Blue Oyster Cult when she was in high school. Being a die-hard Blue Oyster Cult fan, this utterly blew my mind. I wanted to find out if she was still a fan so I emailed her people again and again but never got a response. I figured that she had just blown it off as a series of bizarre emails and forgot about the whole thing. Then, about a week ago…I got an email FROM HER. I was astonished. She wrote me this lengthy letter thanking me for writing to her telling me all about her love for the Blue Oyster Cult. This was too much for me. I nearly had a heart attack. I decided to push things a step further and sent her a request to write a short piece for my blog. I had been listening nonstop to a record by a band called Ghost. The album, “Opus Eponymous”, is absolutely fantastic. On a whim, I decided to ask her to listen to it and write a review. Again, I was certain that I would never in a million years get a reply, but as I opened my inbox this morning I found the following email…
Keith,
Thanks for offering me a chance to write a review for your blog. I have been quite busy recently but I took a few moments to put something together for you. Hope you like it.
Yours truly,
Sarah
A Review of Ghost “Opus Eponymous”
By Sarah Palin
Over the last few years, many of you have gotten to know me as Sarah the candidate, or Sarah the Governor, or Sarah the Mother, but I want to take this opportunity to show you another side of me. Today, I want to introduce you to Sarah the Metalhead. A lot of people think of me as some kind of stuffed shirt who doesn’t know how to rock out. Nothing could be further from the truth. Todd and I are both huge fans of heavy metal. On one of our first dates, Todd took me to the nicest restaurant in Wasilla, a wonderful little Mexican place called El Taco that is owned by our close family friend Jerry O’Malley. To impress me, he hired the mariachi band to play the Blue Oyster Cult song “Astronomy”. At that moment, I knew I was in love. Of all metal and hard rock bands, I have always had a special place in my heart for the Blue Oyster Cult. I love them so much that I even tried to get Bristol and Piper’s Jazzercise instructor to use “Burnin’ For You” as part of their warm-up activities. When we were working on Sarah Palin’s America for TLC, we tried to film a sequence where we shot a moose with a rocket launcher from a moving chopper. To get ready to use this fine piece of military machinery, I listened to the Blue Oyster Cult’s song “Vengeance: The Pact”. Unfortunately, I missed the moose and the segment had to be cut, but that song really got me ready to go.
I recently picked up a copy of a CD by a band named Ghost called “Opus Eponymous” that reminded me a lot of what’s great about the Blue Oyster Cult. The album is filled with great solos, sweeping choruses and driving riffs. When I first heard the song, “Ritual” I knew I was going to enjoy their sound. There are definitely other influences on this album as well. I noticed a lot of moments that reminded me of some of the work done by the great King Diamond on the early records by Mercyful Fate, particularly the song “Elizabeth”.
At first, I really loved the album but then I found out some things about Ghost that troubled me greatly. First of all, they make reference to Satan on several occasions on this album. There are also a lot of violent lyrics. As you know, I am strongly against young people listening to violent music. This is not the sort of thing that impressionable children should be listening to. The thing that disturbed even more was the fact that Ghost is Swedish. They seemed to speak English very well so I, of course, assumed that they were American. It makes you think that a Swede could pretend to be an American an easily get away with it. A slick talking Swedish terrorist could easily get past one of those TSA government workers and bring weapons of mass destruction into our country. I don’t want to paint all Swedes with the same brush. There are probably some good Swedes out there, but it is a fact that the government of Sweden is socialist. Ghost may not be a socialist band. They may have fled Sweden to escape their brutal and oppressive government, but they have grown up living the socialist life and these things can change a person. They probably would come here expecting some sort of government hand out if they didn’t sell enough records. We have to at least consider the possibility that their music is meant as a Trojan horse to lead our young people to violence, Satanism and the belief that the government is going to solve all of their problems.
I would advise you to not buy this album in spite of the excellent quality of the music. There are plenty of good old fashion, red-blooded American metal bands that are struggling to sell records. Why give good hard earned, American money to a group of people who are just going to give it away to people who don’t share our values?
Read Sarah Palin’s response to the “Oystergate” controversy caused by this article.
The Tyranny of Tradition 
