Emily Matview has been taking photos of bands as long as she’s been going to punk shows, and that’s nearly her whole life.
In 2011, Matview founded the local website Punks in Vegas, a community resource dedicated to everything happening in the Valley’s punk music scene. As Matview began writing about shows, she started photographing them, too, turning a hobby into a full-time commitment. Matview has been capturing the essence of the punk scene—from its unbridled energy to its deep-seated camaraderie—ever since.
The Wonder Years at Warped Tour
Opening September 17 at the Whitney Library Gallery, Explosion of Silence marks Matview’s first solo exhibition and features her own music photography over the nine-year lifetime of Punks in Vegas.
“I’ve always been interested in music,” Matview says. “I can’t play an instrument, I can’t sing, but I’ve always had all this creative energy, so combining those things made sense to me.”
To say that Matview has been the punk scene’s biggest proponent would be an understatement. Whether she’s conducting interviews, writing stories, filming live sessions or archiving oral histories of local bands, Matview has created an environment where fellow music fans feel at home.
Explosion of Silence captures that passion and enthusiasm. “We have a lot more community and culture than people from outside of the state give us credit for,” Matview says. “[Explosion] shows there’s a lot more going on here.”
Featured in Explosion of Silence are photos of singer/songwriter Jeff Rosenstock from PIV’s three-year anniversary show, Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace during a solo performance at Punk Rock Bowling, The Wonder Years at Warped Tour and My Chemical Romance from a 2011 concert—plus snaps of local bands like TheCore from the past decade.
A librarian by day, Matview says her decision to present the show under her own name rather than the Punks in Vegas moniker came after a PIV group show at ReBar. (Though she works for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, she clarifies that she went through the same application process as everyone else).
“I was trying to think about what my next move was going to be, and I thought it would be more of a challenge for me to do something solo,” she says. “I didn’t feel like I needed to do this behind a pseudonym. Punks in Vegas started out as something that was just my blog, but I feel like it’s grown into a bigger community thing. I’m not Punks in Vegas anymore; everyone that contributes is Punks in Vegas. So it was a combination of being comfortable with myself and being able to do something.”
With music venues closed during the pandemic, Matview adds that she wants the exhibit to offer some reprieve for music fans who haven’t been able to see a show in months.
“I really hope that music lovers come and reminisce about all the good times and connect with other people like you would at a show,” Matview says. “You can meet and have that human connection, which is really rare right now. I also hope that it’s not like, ‘Remember how things used to be?’ but instead getting that excitement, like, ‘We’re going to get through this eventually, and we’re going to be back doing what we love to do, sooner than later.”
Ultimately, she says, “I hope people leave hopeful.”
Explosion of Silence Through November 17; Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Whitney Library, 702-507-4010
