Posts Tagged Mille Petrozza
Wolverine Like Creature Reviews Carcass “Surgical Steel”
Posted by Keith Spillett in Pointless Music Reviews on August 13, 2013
I woke up about two months ago with a wolverine on my porch. I think it was a wolverine. I can’t really tell. It is a horrifying beast that smells like dead otters. When I found it, it looked cute enough. Whoever left it for me put it in a basket with a blanket around it like it was a baby. However, the minute I took it into my home it went berserk destroying my entire Manowar vinyl collection and the Mille Petrozza velvet painting I had commissioned during a particularly serious Kreator listening binge. I call the thing The Freon Neonate.
The first issue that needed to be addressed was finding it food. I tried microwave pizzas, guacamole dip, Cheetos, Lysol, pepper spray….but it wanted no part of those things. I picked up some groundhogs from the pet store and it seemed to like those much better. They are expensive. One groundhog is about fifteen bucks. Way too much to spend to feed this thing regularly.
My problem was solved about two weeks ago when I took the thing for a walk to the park up the street from me. The Freon Neonate spotted a hipster Jehovah’s Witness knocking on a door in our neighborhood and went wild. He snapped the leash I was walking him with and, in what seemed a matter of seconds, retracted its jaws consumed a hipster five times his size. It was incredible. Nothing was left. Bones, horned-rimmed glasses, Converse sneakers, beard, Elvis Costello tee-shirt, Watchtower magazines….gone.
I wasn’t sure if it liked hipsters or Jehovah’s Witnesses. I fed both to The Freon Neonate. While it barely touched the Witness, gnawing briefly on her arms before losing interest, it sucked down the hipster like it hadn’t eaten in months. It even polished off her Hello Kitty vintage purse in two bites. Problem solved. All I needed to do to keep it healthy was go down to Little Five Points every few days, bag a fresh hipster and we were set.
After a while, I found The Freon Neonate was getting bored. It would lie on its side in its cage for hours making terrible howling noises and horrifying the neighbors. I decided that I would try to teach it English. Its language abilities aren’t bad for a wolverine. It had learned enough to communicate on a basic level by the beginning of August, but we had both got sick of the didactic nature of the lessons pretty quickly. We needed a new challenge.
That’s when I decided to give it a chance to do album reviews for Tyranny of Tradition. I called up Nuclear Blast’s PR department to see if I could get one promotional copy of the new Carcass album for The Freon Neonate to review. They immediately sent me 127 copies of the CD along with a wolverine sized “Surgical Steel” tee shirt. I threw the CD in immediately. Here is how the creature responded to each of the songs.
1985-The Freon Neonate was staring off into space when the album came on, but immediately began to pace back and forth nervously. Halfway through the track it started howling in a perverted attempt to mock Bill Steer’s guitar tone.
Thrasher’s Abattoir-The quick beginning to the song startled the animal. It began thrashing its body against the bars wailing louder and louder.
Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System-The wailing continued reaching its crescendo halfway through this tune. Then, the animal began to say “Gooooooood. Goooooood. BLERGHYPHERB!!!! GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!”
A Congealed Clot of Blood-It didn’t seem to like this one as much. For the first minute, it bobbed its head, but it lost interest and began to lick its own feet.
The Master Butcher’s Apron-Something in this song made the wolverine unhappy. “EHHHHHHHH…..NO SONG GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD…..GLERPHICKLUHR!!!!!!” With 2:30 left, it gnawed through the bars and began a rampage through the house, breaking furniture and dishes.
Noncompliance to ASTM F899-12 Standard-I spent most of this song chasing the animal around and was unable to take notes. Great tune, but beyond smashing a vase that belonged to my Aunt Penelope, I can’t tell you much about the animal’s reaction.
The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills-Satiated in its desire to destroy things and chewing on the fingers of some kid with an MGMT that I found down at the local mission, the animal was finally able to relax and enjoy the magnificence of this utterly amazing song. We both agreed on this as the best song on the album.
Unfit For Human Consumption, 316 L Grade Surgical Steel, Captive Bolt Piston-I was, again, unable to record any response as the animal had nodded off while enjoying the sedating effect of eating hipster fingers. It seemed happy enough, but I don’t want to speculate as to the animal’s views on the songs based on its snoring.
Mount of Execution-It came out of its comatose state during the acoustic guitar intro and began to howl:
“Souuuuuund….like…..GLERGHPH……GLRRGPHHHHHHHHHHRG……………laaaaaater….Maaagaaaaaaadeth!”
Without knowing the animal’s opinion on the last few Megadeth albums, I was unable to figure out whether this was an endorsement or a criticism.
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’.”
The Tyranny of Tradition 