Kim Kelly's Riff Wrecks, Vol. I

What’s up, nerds! My name is Kim Kelly, and I’m stoked to be a part of Flaming Hydra. If you dig unions and class war, you may be familiar with my work as a labor journalist for publications like Teen Vogue, In These Times, Rolling Stone, and a bunch of others, or might have heard about my book, FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor (now available in paperback!). This column has nothing to do with that, though. 

Before I started organizing at my last media job and joined a union and began working as a labor reporter, I’d already spent like twenty years in the trenches as a music journalist—specifically, a heavy metal music journalist. I love covering the working class struggle, but I also love big dumb riffs and songs about Satan (it’s called containing multitudes, babe). I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss writing about music regularly. “Solidarity Forever” slaps, but it’s no ‘World Eater,” you know?

I got my first Deicide album when I was 15, have written about heavy metal for a wide variety of fancy publications like NPR, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times as well as for underground faves like Metal Maniacs, Terrorizer, and Decibel, traveled to 20-some countries as a roadie for a variety of metal bands, spoken at metal gatherings from Montreal to Neskaupstaður, and served as the heavy metal editor of Noisey, VICE’s now-former music site, for five years. I know my shit, is what I’m saying, and I also have damn good taste (provided you like the same kind of stuff I do; if you don’t, give it a shot anyway). So look for one of these jawns here each month, assuming I don’t get pulled away by a book deadline or some other eldritch horror. 

All that being said, grab your headphones and turn ‘em up high—it’s gonna get loud.