Since the web first exploded around 1996, a lot of contents sites have come and gone. At the heart of the dot-com trend was the birth of a number of entertainment sites, complete with millions in venture capital, black Armani suited executives, Vegas style launch parties, and cool loft offices filled with programmers and Nerf footballs that would eventually be vacated as the reality of business 101 hit them in the ass.

Most of those that still exist because they were created by music fans who wanted to spread their love of a band to the masses sitting behind a computer, have never had a huge expense account, and are run by the seat of their cargo pants. One such site exists in Ft. Collins - Aversion.com - featuring new CD reviews every day, and covering the artists rocking the indie, punk, ska, and pop music scene.

The brainchildren of Aversion.com, Matt Shield and Dan Stewart, were right out of college - one was a journalism major and the other a programmer. Having been friends for a number of years, they were both avid music fans that found it difficult to find information about some of their favorite artists. Matt explains their frustration in only finding sites that supported mainstream music or articles "written by a murderer sitting in prison. I was terrible writing. So we started kicking around the idea in October of 1998, and went live in Feb 1999," and adding copy editor is Liz Robinson to the team.

One thing that was important to them, was that it was to make Aversion.com as user friendly as possible, "When we first started we were both on 56K. We wanted [the site] to be easy to navigate and load fast. We pushed functionality over crazy designs, which was all the rage at that time."

Having a variety of music was also key, "We've always tried to expand our focus and try to cover more than just one specific niche or just one genre. I find that irritating." So if you click on just the "A" in the artist index listing, you'll have your pick of various bands, including Adam Ant, Anniversary, AFI, Andrew WK, Ash, Atari Teenage Riot, or Aphex Twin.

Although they've built a history of being a solid media source, Matt's still pining for one interview that has continued to evade him is, "Joe Strummer from the Clash. But I really enjoy working with smaller bands, where they aren't jaded and burnt out on the whole interview thing, where they're not spitting out the same answers that you've seen in 15 other magazines." Some of those bands have included the Reputation, and Travis, the singer and guitarist formally of Sarge, "he's a pretty cool guy."

Their diversity could also relate to their own musical tastes, which is why Matt says Aversion.com was started in the first place. For them to feature anyone, "It has to be a band that we like. We've had offers to write about high profile bands, but it's hard to get behind a band if we don't like them, like Tool, or cover the 500,000th review of The Strokes. I don't see what I can say in my story that hasn't been said a long, long time ago."

So at least once a month Aversion.com features a band that is virtually unknown, but one they really want to get behind such as, "The Mayfayer, fully realizing that we may not get as many hits. But people that come to our site realize that we aren't going to waste their time with something that's stupid." Aside from featuring bands they're really into, they also "try to focus on bands that we think our readers will like, from skateboard punkers to people who listen to really underground music that has no representation of any level. We probably get five letters a week asking about an article, and sometimes complaining about a band not enough getting exposure. I can appreciate where they're coming from. I think it's good that people stand up for their kind of music that they're into."

Since Aversion.com doesn't put a huge emphasis on advertising, Matt, Dan, and Liz all have the proverbial "second jobs". "We've never made a ton of money from the site. It's still a semi-professional hobby," Matt says, explaining that although it would be nice and easy to take big ad dollars from a company, " we never want to sacrifice our integrity. It's really easy for a larger record label to come in and dictate what happens. It comes from a journalistic and ethical decision. It's funny, we discussed this all during school. But people forget about it immediately when they enter the professional world."

One of the cool features on the site is their "Soundroom" that allows you to listen to clips of songs from CDs they've reviewed. Or, you can meet neat people on their message board. The programming skills of Dan have really allowed them to keep up with new features, while keeping the look and feel simple.

So why is Kaffeine Buzz covering another entertainment site? Simple. Matt and his team are based in Colorado and part of our music community. No one watches just one station on TV. So the more we are able to offer our readers in terms of quality content, the better. Even if we end up pointing you towards another site. So check out Aversion.com - this week they feature Gordon Gano from Violent Femmes, Mike Johnson, Orbiter, and the Naysayers.

-Kim Owens, kim@kaffeinebuzz.com