Reflections on the First Salvo

One year ago this week, I launched this newsletter slash publication slash website in the hope that I'd be able to find an audience of people who were interested in hearing from artists who embrace the more personal, political side of extreme metal. Honestly, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. It's been a few years since I decided to change gears and pursue labor journalism full-time, and that journey has taken me in all kinds of unexpected directions away from my blackened roots.

Metal has remained a core part of my life, but I'd be lying if I said I go to as many shows or listen to as many new records as I once did. Turns out, keeping up with the anti-labor actions of an authoritarian regime hellbent on destroying poor and working peoples' lives takes up a lot of time (as does writing my second and third books!). My initial publishing goal for Salvo has proven to be a bit more ambitious than was practical, but rest assured, I've got a killer new piece coming this week, and much more to come. A weekly publishing schedule may not be achievable for the next few months—at least until I make some headway on Book 3—but I promise not to disappear on ya.

I still love writing about metal, but there aren't a lot of places for me to do it anymore (thus, Salvo). At Decibel's Metal & Beer Fest this weekend, I got to catch up with a bunch of old industry friends, and one of the common refrains I heard from folks in the PR side of things was that they're rapidly running out of places to pitch their artists. It's true. The metal press has been in rough shape for well over a decade now, and the death of my personal fiefdom at VICE meant the loss of one of the few mainstream outlets we had to spread the gospel of filth. I was just one guy, of course, but I do believe it mattered that, for five years at least, we had a platform that regularly exposed leftist extreme metal to millions of people.

Stalwart independent sites and blogs are still out there doing the dark lord's work, and we're lucky to have them. But there are fewer places now to read solid, smart, in-depth reporting and analysis on heavy metal than ever before in my lifetime. So many great publications have folded. The Good Charlotte brothers own Revolver. Decibel really is the last proper U.S. metal magazine standing, and it's a shame—they do important work, but we need so many more, especially as a new generation of heavy music fans starts to learn about metal and explore the uglier edges. As various failed experiments have shown us, though, rock and metal print magazines just aren't all that economically viable anymore.

That's not going to change, either; it's not 1985 anymore, or even 2005. There's little that can be done now to halt the rise of Youtube, streaming, and short-form video reviews; they have come for every stripe of entertainment media, and metal has been no exception. On the bright side, that shift has opened up more space for new kinds of metal content creators, from my girl Ebonie's popular Metal and Coffee account to Maddie's Beaver Mosh Youtube channel. We need them, too, and I'm glad the metal media ecosystem has expanded to include more brilliant voices that have been missing for too long.

Perhaps there really are fewer people interested in reading long interviews and articles on the music they love. That's okay; tastes evolve, times change, and generations turn over. Adapt or die has always been metal's motto, and I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. There are a couple thousand of you here now, which is wonderful—and 10% of you have even ponied up for paid subscriptions, which I appreciate more than I can express and which has enabled me to devote time to this project. Given the state of, well, everything (Trump take economy, line go down, and so on) the fact that people are still willing to chip in a few bucks to keep an independent, leftist extreme metal publication going truly is incredible, and I'll continue doing my absolute best to make it worth your while.

What kind of changes can you expect to see in Salvo, Year Two? Not many, really; I like the work I'm doing here, and it seems like a good amount of you do, too. A more sustainable publishing schedule, for sure, and maybe some more op-ed writing alongside the interviews (if you think you'd be into that?). Writing has always been my focus, and that's what Salvo is going to be about, but it's fun to play with multimedia. I haven't done much metal-related content on my TikTok, but might give it a go—I'm unionmaid666 on there, and kimkellywriter on IG.

I'm very open to suggestions, of course. You can always email me at salvozine@gmail, but bear in mind that I don't take PR pitches or anything like that. I may have a little bit more silver in my mane than I did when I first started out in 2003, but I'm still just as stubborn about the bands and artists I support—the message and politics have to be on point, but the music's gotta rip too.

Alright, I've got to get a move on—Funeral Leech is playing at 5:15pm today, and I don't want to miss an excruciating moment. More soon.

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