Pittsburgh’s association with all things iron and steel provides ample opportunities for heavy metal wordplay. Descendants of Crom is a blue ribbon winner in that regard. The Pittsburgh metal festival, celebrating its seventh year the weekend of Sept. 26 and 27 with a banger lineup, takes its name from the Conan the Barbarian comic and movie series. In that story, the warrior characters worship a deity named Crom — the god of steel. How perfect is that?
”The musicians, the fans, the community, we’re all descendents of Crom,” the fest’s founder, Shy Kennedy, tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
Descendents of Crom is entirely masterminded by Kennedy, a multi-hyphenate metalhead who’s been involved in Pittsburgh’s extreme music scene for decades. Back in the ’90s, she got her start interviewing bands like Pantera and Cannibal Corpse for various zines, which evolved into her taking on a more collaborative relationship with bands she believed in. In 2012, Kennedy launched the noise label Blackseed Records, which reformatted into Blackseed Services a couple years later.
Kennedy’s company provides band bios, graphic design, and booking assistance for underground metal bands, and through Blackseed, she’s been booking gigs locally in Pittsburgh for the last 13 years. When she’s not helping other groups, Kennedy’s fronting her own band, the 412 doom purveyors Funerals, who will be performing at this year’s Descendents of Crom.
Kennedy lives and breathes underground metal, and Descendants of Crom was founded to provide a platform for the culture she devotes her life to. The festival started in 2017, back when Kennedy didn’t feel like there was enough infrastructure for Pittsburgh’s local metal bands — particularly in the doom, sludge, and psych-metal scenes. With Descendents of Crom, she not only wanted to signal boost the region’s precious metals, but also bring bands from all regions and all styles together under one roof.
“It’s about uniting the underground and getting exposure for the bands that are really putting the work in,” Kennedy says.
The mission statement on the DOC website puts it succinctly: “No compromise, no filler.” Kennedy stands by that message, and says her festival lineups always prioritize local acts that are functional and willing to grow.
“I don’t just pick my friends or something like that,” she says. “In fact, I may have lost some friends over [booking choices]. It’s not just a favor to get you up onstage. It’s for the working underground.”
Every DOC lineup has been diverse by intention. This year, Kennedy’s two-day bill includes representation from sludge (Black Tusk), doom (Crypt Sermon), death (Sathanas), noise (Cherubs), and even metallic hardcore (Ringworm) bands — an alloy tapestry that encapsulates one of the fest’s central theses.
“I feel like festivals should be blended,” Kennedy says. “I don’t want to see 16 sludge bands or 16 noise bands. Here, it’s all blended. Most festivals that I’ve been to are almost all dedicated to one type of genre.”
Even the actual scheduling of the festival is geared toward keeping things fresh. “You’re not gonna have two back-to-back doom bands,” she says of the daily lineup orientation. “Or, if you do, one’s going to be extremely different than the other.”
Descendents of Crom is a true-blue DIY affair. Kennedy books and coordinates the entire festival herself, and has a few friends volunteer their time day-of to help with logistics. “I don’t get paid at the end of the day,” she says. But of course, she’s not in it for the money.
“I get run down doing all the work, and sometimes I lose sight,” Kennedy explains. “But the day of the festival, when I see everybody talking to each other, people talking to the musicians, it’s just a very great time for everybody.”
Descendents of Crom’s first four years were at the Lawrenceville haunt formerly named Cattivo, now called Sidequest on 44th. In 2023, the festival moved to the Shred Shed, a quasi-DIY space up in Allentown. This will be DOC’s inaugural year at the more professional Thunderbird venue in Lawrenceville, a partnership that Kennedy hopes will continue in future years.
In addition to music, Descendents of Crom will feature live tattooing by Kindred Spirit tattoo artist Kristin Hawk Snyder. There’ll also be Descendents of Crom hot sauce courtesy of Riff Zealot, as well as a DOC-themed beer from Helltown Brewery called the Riddle of Stout. Fittingly, RYTHM Cannabis will also be sponsoring the event and handing out swag to any dopesmokers in the audience.
“You can see how cannabis would be,” Kennedy says, pausing to snicker, “relevant.”
Descendents of Crom is a decidedly niche event. The festival is created by and for the metal underground, and everything about it amounts to an intimate, organic alternative to the soulless vapidity of most mainstream metal festivals. However, Kennedy emphasizes that there’s no gatekeeping at Descendents of Crom, and that anyone — no matter how involved they are in Pittsburgh’s local metal scene — is welcome to attend.
“I want people to know it’s an inclusive, safe environment,” she says. “Metal can be intimidating to some people, but this is a very comfortable environment where you’re going to be welcome.”
We are all, after all, Descendents of Crom.
Descendants of Crom VII. Fri., Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. and Sat., Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. Thunderbird Music Hall. 4053 Butler St., Lawrenceville. $33.26-70.22. descendants-of-crom.com.
