Hello and welcome to another week of music industry features and advice here on the official blog of Haulix. We have a number of great pieces on the way in the coming days, including a brand new advice column on retaining new fans following live performances. If you want to stay up-to-date with everything we have going on, be sure to follow and interact with us on Facebook and Twitter.
To kick things off this week, we’re headed to the great state of Nevada to learn about a writer and passionate music lover who calls Sin City home. Like many people, his desire to work in music grew from a love of local talent, but it’s what he did with that interest that makes him a fitting addition to our Blogger Spotlight series.
Steven Matview loves Las Vegas. He’s called it home for well over a decade, and in that time has gained an appreciation for the local music scene that rivals the love parents feel for their children. Out of a desire to add to the scene in his own way, Steven took cues from sites he frequented online and launched PunksInVegas, a site dedicated to supporting and promoting everything the Vegas music community has to offer. A few years and hundreds of posts later, Steven now finds himself the face of a global entertainment brand with dozens of new readers daily and growing demand for new content. We spoke with him about all of this, as well as his plans for the future, and you can read what he had to say below.
I’ve known of PunksInVegas for awhile, but it wasn’t until starting this feature that I learned anything about Steven. His love and thoughtful concern for the quality and longevity of his local music is nothing short of admirable, and I believe there is something everyone can learn from in his journey.
If you would like to learn more about Steven and his work, be sure to bookmark PunksInVegas. Any additional questions or comments can be left at the end of this post.
H: For those unaware, please state your name, the site you work for, and your role at said site:
SM: Steven Matview. I’m the founder of PunksInVegas.com and I currently run the day to day operations, including photographing shows, filming Stripped Down Session acoustic videos and writing show reviews.
H: To what or whom do you attribute your interest in music?
SM: I had a hard time relating to people as a kid and prior to the 8th grade, and musically I mostly just listened to soundtracks (“Ninja Rap,” anyone?). One day in school, this guy Patrick handed me his headphones and it was my first listen to Offspring’s Ixnay on the Hombre (on cassette, of course). I was hooked and spent the whole break from school working odd jobs to buy Offspring, Green Day, Rancid, Bad Religion and everything else that was popular back then. I even did the Columbia House 12 CDs for a penny thing so I could build up my collection faster (and ruin my non-existent credit at the time, but it also introduced me to Circle Jerks so I call that a win).
H: What was the first album you ever purchased with your own money? Do you still own it today?
SM: The first album I bought with my own money was Bad Hair Day by Weird Al. I didn’t have any money so I borrowed a lawn mower from a neighbor and mowed lawns with my friend Raul until I could afford it. And I do still have it! Weird Al plays Vegas all the time and I always try and get in touch with him to film a Stripped Down Session, to no avail. So if you’re reading this, Mr. Yankovic, let’s talk!
H: Where did your interest in journalism begin?
SM: I’ve wanted to be a writer as far back as I can remember. My original life goal was to be a comic book author. I was sure I’d grow up to be the next Grant Morrison. So in high school I took as many writing classes as possible to focus on and improve that part of me. That’s how I ended up in a journalism class where I wrote an article for the school paper about whether or not CD-Rs and Nero were going to be the end of the music industry (which seems like a pretty quaint concern now). That experience taught me that I was much better at writing shorter, more focused nonfiction pieces than trying to pen the next Invisibles or Flex Mentallo, so I started writing reviews and doing interviews for a ‘zine my sister was putting together called Brown Bag. Many years later while I was finishing grad school for Library Science I started submitting show and album reviews to PunkNews under the name Timorous_Me and fell in love with it all over again.
H: The name could lead people to believe your site is focused on regional talent. Is that where your origins lie?
SM: The site’s name comes from a Bouncing Souls song that was itself titled for a Punk Rock Bowling show the band played in Vegas in the early 2000s. The site originated as a local show guide that I created for a web development course I took in graduate school. So it was very regional at first, just a way for me to let locals know about rad shows that were coming up on something a little more official than my personal Facebook page. I was tired of going to under-attended shows and then hearing people say “oh man, I didn’t know so and so played in town!” I also felt like Vegas had a really bad rap online, with word spreading amongst bands that we didn’t have a good music scene. So I wanted to show that we have fantastic local talent. After I finished grad school I found myself with a lot of free time during a long job hunt and I decided to expand to show photography and reviews. I was posting really amateur, point-and-shoot stuff at the time, which I feel almost embarrassed about now (there was so much red eye!), but that built the foundation for what was to come. I thought back to all those local ‘zines I read growing up that would have a cool interview with a local band like Happy Campers right next to a review of NOFX at the Huntridge. I wanted to create something like that for the digital age.
H: The site has become an internationally recognized outlet for original video content, including exclusive performances. When did you begin incorporating video into the site? How has your approach to it changed over time?
SM: Original video content was something I had in mind very early on. I’m a big fan of Dave Garwacke of IfYouMakeIt.com and what he does with the Pink Couch Sessions. I found out about so many cool bands from that series, like Bomb the Music Industry and Andrew Jackson Jihad, and I wanted to make a west coast equivalent, which is where the Stripped Down Sessions came from. My ultimate goal for the Sessions is always to be good cross promotion between local and national bands. I hope that someone who comes to the site to watch a Less Than Jake video stays because of a band like The Swellers and then discovers local unsigned talent like Narrowed. Conversely, I know a lot of people who only check out their friend’s local shows, so I wanted them to be able to see acoustic sessions from smaller national acts that would motivate them to check out that band the next time they roll through town. I also really liked the idea of giving bands another reason to want to come to Vegas. Even if their first Vegas show wasn’t great, (it takes a few trips to this city before you can build up a crowd), I hoped that bands could look back on their experience here and say it was worth it because they were a part of this series (or because we bribed them with free pizza and beer).
My approach to the Stripped Down Sessions has changed immensely over the years in the sense that it’s far more professional these days. I started out with very little video experience and as I met people with more knowledge I began using better lighting, picking up better equipment and having contributors Chris Duggan (of Unfair Fight and TheCore.) and Tyler Newton (of Nothing With Numbers) graciously give up their time to edit the WAV files. And Rode MICS have been very generous to us, providing a bunch of great microphones to help make our videos sound better.
H: I noticed there are no ads on the site. Have you monetized your efforts in any way at this point? How do you plan to expand those efforts in the future?
SM: We actually do have a few Google ads here and there, but I’ve set them up to be as unobtrusive as possible, which is probably why we’ve made next to nothing from them. I don’t want prominent ads to be a part of the Punks in Vegas experience. There’s this great quote by Frank Turner from an interview he did with PunkNews, it’s about religion but I think it applies here: “Punk rock is very, very much like Catholicism. It gets you when you’re young, you probably hate it at some point, but it never goes away. It still informs the way you see the world.” I’m very much influenced by the basic “don’t sell out” ethics of punk rock that were instilled in me when I was first getting into the scene, even if I know that’s silly. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting paid to do what you love, but as far as advertising is concerned, I like that I don’t have anyone specific to answer to. I don’t have to worry about getting a certain number of hits to please anyone. I’m meeting so many of my heroes, I’m going to unbelievable shows for free and I’m making a lot of new friends in the process. I’ve considered doing hyper-local advertising with venues and promoters that share my passion for local music, but I’ve made no serious efforts to make that happen.
H: In addition to covering all today’s top talent, you do a great job of exposing new talent as well. Where do you turn when looking to discover new music?
SM: First and foremost I find out about new music through friends. My buddy Austin Jeffers (vocalist for Last Call), for example, introduced me to a ton of bands like Forever Came Calling, The Sheds and Stickup Kid very early on in their careers. Going to so many shows, I’m also exposed to a lot of new bands through tour packages. I wish more people would show up early for shows to see the smaller bands. Other than that it’s mostly the usual channels. I’ve been browsing sites like Absolutepunk and PunkNews for over a decade and they continue to be good resources for finding new bands. I know the comments section on PunkNews gets some flack (oftentimes for good reason) but I’ll also see a band getting hyped up a lot there, like Gaslight when Sink or Swim was released, and it gets me to give them a shot.
H: You’re covering more and more national talent. Does local talent still take priority on your site? How do you balance the two?
SM: Continuing to cover local talent is very important to us. And as far as news is concerned, we only cover local news. We let the bigger fish handle news about national acts. But admittedly, balancing local and national show coverage has become more of a challenge as the site has grown. I have a lot more external commitments then I had when I started the site. I simply can’t make it out to every show I want to and I know that some people take that personally. We’re all doing this for free, for fun and in our spare time between school, work and other commitments. I feel sad when I hear from bands who are miffed that I wasn’t able to make it out to their show but I was able to cover, say, Fall Out Boy, as if it’s an either or situation. No one at Punks in Vegas has a quota or assignments on who they’re going to shoot, we just try and cover who we’re excited about at the time, and we have varying tastes and schedules. Bigger bands don’t necessarily mean more views to the site, but it does bring in new people that might not otherwise check out the local stuff, and my hope is that some of those people stick around and give the local bands a try. I hope that some of those kids who discovered us through our Rancid show coverage check out the local posts about bands like TheCore. and The People’s Whiskey and realize we have really talented punk bands right in our backyard.
H: What are the most common mistakes you see young artists making when attempting to market themselves?
SM: I’ve seen a lot of bands burn out by trying to do too much too soon. Touring, developing merch and all that is important but I think it’s more vital to focus on making sure you’ve got the best possible music to share with your audience and that you’re having fun doing it.
H: Your staff has been growing steadily. What do you look for in a new contributor?
SM: I think the fact that we can’t pay anyone means we end up with the best, most passionate and purely driven contributors. I look for passion and drive, even more so than raw talent, because if you’re going out and shooting show after show, you’re going to improve. Reliability is another quality I really value. In the beginning it was me and my wife Ashleigh doing everything. She still edits every piece of content that goes on the website, and I wouldn’t be able to run the site without her. We’re very protective of the Punks in Vegas name. We’ve spent a lot of time building a solid reputation and I don’t want to bring someone into the fold who’s going to flake out on a show or be disrespectful.
Everyone I’ve brought in is someone I’ve noticed taking their own time, putting in their own money covering local shows first. Bringing their cameras to bars and small venues because they love music and our scene out here, not just people who need help getting in to shoot AFI. This is a lot of work – shooting, editing, writing – and it’s all for free so you’ve got to have that self-motivating passion to really want to do this.
H: When it comes to receiving music for feature consideration, which services do you prefer and why?
SM: Dropbox. I’m rarely home, so I need something like that that I can access from any computer. So I can start working on something on my laptop on my lunch break at work and then go back to working on it when I get home.
H: If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
SM: It’s cliché, but I wish there were more ways for small and mid-level bands to make money. There are countless could be great albums that will never be recorded because so many musicians simply can’t afford to make it their number one priority.
H: At the end of the day, what is your ultimate career goal?
SM: I think I’m older than a lot of people who get into this kind of thing. I’m 30 now and I don’t have any misconception that I’m ever going to make this my full time career. I’m just happy with giving the Vegas scene more attention. I’d love to see one of our local bands get signed and really blow up in some small part due to exposure I was able to provide. I’d love to see our writers and photographers, especially our younger ones who are studying photography and journalism, be able to make a career in these fields and point back to their time with the site as what helped them get where they want to be. On a personal level, I just want to keep the site going as long as possible and one day get to the point where Punks in Vegas is a more ubiquitous name and we’re able to shoot sessions with bands like Green Day while maintaining solid local coverage.
H: Before we let you go, can you tell us a bit about what you have planned in the months ahead?
SM: We’ve been working with Tyler Gibson of DoomToof design on some rebranding on the site, helping us make everything look a little more modern and sleek so we should be rolling that out over the next few months. We just put out some new merch that he and Adam Blasco (of Last Call/Broken Arrow Collective) designed. We have a couple of really awesome local sessions coming that I think people are going to enjoy. One of our contributors, Lance Wells (formerly of Faded Grey), has some cool stuff coming down the pipe with a series he does for us called “Vegas Archive” where he interviews and writes about older Vegas bands that have broken up and we put their albums out for free download. And we have two contests going on, one for Jimmy Eat World at the House of Blues and one for Senses Fail at the Hard Rock Live.
