For some students, breaks from school are for relaxing and sleeping in, but the members of local band Cloverleaf used winter break to record its debut CD.

The group's efforts will be on display tonight at Crowbar, 420 E. College Ave., when the band celebrates the release of its album with headlining act The Boogie Hustlers and The Daily Supplement.

The four freshman members of the acoustic/piano rock band Cloverleaf recorded their CD first.class.mind.ride over a two-week period in December back home in Pittsburgh. They laid down 10 tracks, which required hours in the studio and brought new challenges to the group.

Drummer Garrett Bogden (freshman-marketing) said recording his parts took up to eight hours of one day alone. He added that there is a "whole different vibe" to recording in an isolation room as opposed to performing live onstage.

"When we play live together, we feed off each other's energy," Bogden said.

"It's not like we're sucking each other's souls," base player Jon Rigatti (freshman- chemical engineering) interrupted with a laugh.

Recording a disc is not just time consuming, but expensive as well, with rates that can exceed $50 an hour.

"When you're an unsigned band, you just have to fund yourself," vocalist T.J. Cornwall (freshman-architectural engineering) said.

The guys said they raised most of the funds by selling band T-shirts and playing gigs throughout Pennsylvania. However, it wasn't quite enough.

"I paid for it with my Christmas money," Rigatti said.

The band members said they agreed the expense of recording was worth their whiles because the new record has heightened the band's profile.

"When we finally got the recording process done," Bogden said, "we pulled down the old songs [on our Web site] and posted the new ones. The response so far has been amazing."

Cloverleaf members said it's just as important to play shows with bigger acts, like The Boogie Hustlers. Headlining act The Boogie Hustlers is an eight-piece eclectic group drawing on jazz, soul and hip-hop that also hails from Pittsburgh. No stranger to the State College scene, The Boogie Hustlers played last fall at Crowbar and have recorded a debut CD, 122 Ellsworth.

"We have a really good vibe, really positive," vocalist and lead guitarist Sean Rig said. "We try to speak out about real issues, like government and social injustice, war, things going on in the world. It's from our viewpoints and our take on events. We also write a lot about the struggle of being unsigned artists."

After receiving a lot of exposure from local Pittsburgh radio stations, The Boogie Hustlers continue to tour while working to get a deal with a major label.

"A lot of us are in our late 20s, raising kids," Rig said. "We're all struggling to get financially secure in this industry. We're letting everything fall in place, trying not to rush anything. We're just focusing on the art, and things are starting to pick up on the business end."