Starting in 1933, father-and-son team John and Alan Lomax traveled the South, wading through prison farms, border towns and Acadian communities discovering and recording untapped music with a 315-pound acetate disc recorder mounted in the trunk of their Ford. Fast forward 70 years and focus on Lafayette, and the cousin-and-cousin team of Marc Chaffin and Ben Fuselier are awake into the wee hours videotaping bands with a hand-held digital camcorder for lafayettelocalentertainment.com.

As late nights become early mornings, Chaffin and Fuselier only eat through more bandwidth as they post selections from the live shows they tape. The chosen content varies wildly from a classical guitar recital by Bimora's Josh Allen to a sci-fi rock freak-out with a theremin effect by The Transmission. Aside from the pair's 21st-century field trips, bands submit songs and CDs. Since its Jan. 1 launch, the site acquired 35 songs, 15 articles (about half are Q&As with bands), lots of image archives and links to upwards of 30 bands.

What's equally impressive is there are no ads on LLE. No pop-up offers for cut-rate generic Viagra or no-one-turned-down mortgages. No banners daring the viewer to answer an easy trivia question. In other words, the site is financially thankless. Instead, for gratification they look to promote the music of their friends and the bands they dig who have yet to become friends.

"It's being done to help friends, because I see the scene here just like I saw in Atlanta," says Chaffin, who grew up in Pine Prairie but moved to Atlanta at the age of 15 only to return at 21. "You know, (there is) a lot of talent running around, and I realize that in Atlanta there are already Web sites and there's publications and everything for these guys and here there wasn't and needed to be. ... That's what it is about - supporting the scene."

Chaffin rationalizes if five people find out about a gig through the site and pay the cover charge that is more money for the band. "That's definitely a good thing. They're out there putting themselves out there and that takes obviously bigger balls than I have."

His partner Fuselier concurs, stating, "They're doing this for money. These guys are washing their clothes, they're paying the light bill, so that they can power their amps that they make totally friggin' awesome music with."

Although the pair follows various performers, don't confuse them with the snide I-hate-everything music critic.

"That's really the point to me, we are all about positive remarks about these bands. (We are) trying to avoid anything negative," says Fuselier. Even if he may not enjoy a particular band's music, Fuselier gets around it by describing the style and structure of their sound.

"The thing is, who wants to hear our opinion?" says Chaffin, who works for 28 days at a time offshore on a supply boat. When he makes landfall, it is only for 14 days. In those 14 days, he is likely to catch around 10 shows. "It's not all about giving our opinion of that band. It's about us describing that band and who this band is. Then we will slap some music on there and let people decide for themselves."

After moving back from Atlanta, where he says bands ragged on other bands, Chaffin took a shine to Lafayette's live music scene. At the time, Fuselier did not live in town but came to visit his cousin on occasion. After deliberating about relocation, he caught a Nimble Like Jack show at Sidebar and turned to Chaffin, saying he had to move to Lafayette. Chaffin told him to pack his bags.

About a year before the eventual launch, the two began talking about covering Lafayette's scene. At the time, they had a third partner and wanted to make it a print magazine. After learning the costs of printing, the idea morphed into a Web site.

"It just got to the point to where I said, 'Look, I am tired of talking about it. I'm tired of telling these bands what I am going to do. I'm gonna do it.' So, I bought the site," says Chaffin. There were a few names in play, but James Hutchinson of Bimora cast LLE in cyberstone when he yanked Chaffin on stage one night at Changes on the Strip. After plugging what the site was going to do, Hutchinson handed the mic to Chaffin, and he blurted out the first one that came to mind.

"Right now, it's (the music scene) spreading like fire," says Fuselier who, while Chaffin is offshore, holds down the HTML fort, answering e-mails, doing interviews, posting video and taking in a show a week. "There's so many new bands popping up, it's hard to keep track of them all. ... I think as far as the scene goes there's so much talent out here. People are going to the other club over there with four sections that plays nothing but lame-ass booty music, then they need to come to Renaissance sometime and check out a show and see what they are missing. Don't be a sheep about things."

If someone takes Fuselier's advice, shears their wool and discovers a new band, Chaffin and Fuselier want to hear about it, stating that the site should be a community effort.

"We offer everybody the opportunity to submit anything that they want," says Fuselier. "If Joe Blow goes to a show and sees a band he likes and sends us in an e-mail that says, 'Hey, I saw this show, the band was really good. Some dude came out on stage wearing a hammerhead shark and he gutted it right there on stage.'"

"That be a good show," Chaffin interjects.

"... we'll post that e-mail."

"More bands need to do that."

"Hammerheads sharks?"

"Gut them on stage, you know? That'd be great."

"I don't think the board of health would like that," Fuselier assumes.