In Clover's new CD, "Music for Silent Films," recorded at Montana Studios, is so named because vocalist Tara Lane says it "resembles a soundtrack. Each song has a unique sound and a definitive direction, sort of like life."

The band's past catalog includes two EPs, but "Scott (Gordon) and Karen (Shealy) (guitar and bass) and I have grown musically as individuals and as a band, so the stuff we're doing today only vaguely resembles that old stuff, even though we're still doing some of the same songs. This is really why we changed the name of the band (from Skuttlebutt), to make that distinction."

During the change-over in style and skill, the band continued to write. "We've always got around four songs in the works at any given time," said Lane. "Plus we're rewriting Skuttlebutt tunes to bring them into line quality-wise with the In Clover material. Some songs are getting big facelifts, so we'll be able to keep playing them and record them again in the future. With our drummer Ryan (Gryder) at the arrangement and creativity helm, he's orchestrated some major changes that will make the songs completely fresh for 1998.

"Rewriting words and melodies is a difficult task for me because we've been playing these songs the same way for five years. It's like I have to step back and see them as completely new songs, which is what they feel like when they're done."

In Clover has also broken a promise they made to themselves not to play covers anymore. "But the frats are waiting," says Lane, "and we're aggressively trying to book college parties and events in the spring, so we want to be ready. We're at least learning cool covers this time around and not current stuff that you won't remember three months from now. We're keeping a few staples, like Jane's Addiction and Offspring, but we're learning some retro tunes and some good party music. Believe me, you haven't lived until you hear In Clover do AC/DC. It's fun to play, and funny, too, in a way, because it's so not like our originals, and yet it sounds pretty good. We were surprised it turned out as good as it did."

We'd like to start with Virginia schools and branch out, but it probably won't be that organized. Scott will work on booking fraternities and I'll work with program boards. We want Karen to handle out of town clubs so when we go, we hit two shows in a weekend. We might pull a Mistaken Identity move and pack up our stuff and just knock on fraternity doors until we find a party where they'll let us play. Of course, we hope East Coast will pick us up. Maybe after they get the CD.

We first heard of Mark through Pat DiServio and the Colossal Eds. When Mark was at Glass Hand, he did a demo for them which we really liked. We listened to demos from other Richmond studios and, after talking with some of them, and asking around to other musicians, decided Mark suited us best. We recorded a four-song demo at Glass Hand last summer and were impressed with the result, considering the small amount of time and money we spent. When we decided to do the CD, the question of whom to work with was never asked. Mark and his new studio were the obvious choice. Plus, we all knew he was in a different, more comfortable space with really great equipment. We were excited about recording at Montana.

Mark thought 14 songs were just too much to throw at anyone on a debut, and it would be a stronger, more focused product if we used the 10 new songs we tracked last July and not the stuff from the "Liminal Time" demo. Plus, Ryan (who rejoined the band after a series of other drummers) really wanted something to call his own, and we could understand that. We decided to retrack the Liminal songs for the next CD, which we're thinking about already. So the refinished "Liminal Time" will be available locally as an EP, for those who really want a good, not home-dubbed, recording of our older songs. We'll have a little archive of ourselves and everyone will be happy.

We went in hoping to get eight songs tracked for a 12-song CD. We dropped one song we planned to do because it wasn't working, and added one that, surprisingly, turned out very well for a song we hadn't practiced in two years. We had more than we needed when we went in, so we had choices after we got started. Luckily, tracking went very well. We worked really hard to make sure we didn't waste time during the initial tracking. We worked out the arrangements and all the bass and drum specifics ahead of time. After the basics, we added cream and gravy to everything until the songs were like we wanted. Up until mixing the very last song, we were still adding enhancements like cymbal swells and hand claps and piano and extra guitar tracks. We wanted this to sound like a real record and not a demo, so it's very produced. There's a lot of special additions to make the songs sound good.

Songwriting is very fluid for us because we all write. There is an even distribution between Karen and Scott and me as far as who originally conceives the songs. Ryan led the sessions on arranging to get them tight, but we all worked on it together to figure out what would sound best. The way we write gives the music variety. Karen will come up with a bass riff and Scott will add a lead riff, then I'll put in the rhythm, while Ryan glues it all together, and then the idea is archived until we come up with more. It works best when we come up with extra parts when we're away from each other. If we get together and just ditty around, we rarely come up with anything to add to a song in progress. Usually I write the melodies and then arrange the song around the lyrics. Then we rearrange it to get the intros and endings just right. Sometimes I'll write a whole song and present it to the band, or one of them will. None of it would sound good without Ryan's drumming. He's no less than incredible, and he'd have to be, to play the variety of styles we throw at him. We're an eclectic band musically, and without good drumming, the music would be lost.

I don't know the final tally yet, but we were in off and on since July, and, including mixing, I'd estimate 200 hours. We were naïve going in about how much time it would take. But you get on a roll, you're adding four vocal tracks and six guitar tracks, and auxiliary percussion, and guest musicians playing horns and piano and congas, and next thing you know, you're two months behind schedule. People told me it'd take twice as long as I thought, and that was definitely the case. It took eight hours to record a four-song demo last summer, including mixing, so we underestimated when it came to this record. The thing is, we waited so long to do this CD, until we got the right band line-up, and the right songs, and the right sound, we wanted it documented. Plus, we're all growing as musicians, and we didn't want to waste resources on the CD until we thought we were good enough to deserve one. We had no budget. We just wanted the best product we could have, and we'll worry about the money later. Now we're worrying.

We learned in the past that everyone stays happy if everyone has equal input. We never wanted to be a one-man band with back-ups. We're grown up enough not to hurt or be hurt when musical discussions take place. We all strive for the best finished product we can have. We're more concerned with how the public will receive these songs than our own feelings. Every decision made was for the good of the record. We worked from Mark's model during mix downs. He'd mix it the way he liked it and then we changed it from there. We kept remixing until we got a take we all liked.

A few years ago, I wrote a little finger picking ditty on an acoustic that reminded me of the music played behind silent films, so we talked about that idea for a big project, and when the time came, it was just a matter of agreeing on it again. It's an easy concept to work with, you can do fun stuff with it. The record reminds me of a soundtrack because the styles change drastically from song to song and can suit a variety of moods or scenes. Everything fit together for the movie concept thing. We thought of calling it "Griddle" for awhile, but that was more of a joke than an alternative.

It's modern looking, which I like because it doesn't connect obviously to the title, but more to the feelings behind the songs. The CD is painted like a film reel, and the case behind it is a photo of the arm of the projector, so when you put it away, it looks like you're loading the film reel. That was Karen's idea.

Going in with no money. We're financing it as we go along and getting deep in debt. We wouldn't have done that if we didn't have faith in the product. We just hope everybody likes it and we can sell enough to break even. I think we'll be all right if we tour aggressively in the spring.

The best was bonding, spending time with each other and laughing at and with each other, and hearing a song when it's done and you're proud of what you've accomplished and know it's preserved for eternity. It's a powerful thing. Oh yeah, and Aladdin's Express Delivery. The worst part was the frustration when you're trying to nail a part and it ain't hap'nin, and waiting for mixdowns. The anxiety builds and it's tough. There are late nights when the songs are too complex to mix easily. And oh yeah, Aladdin's Express Delivery.

During spot-erasing some vocal tracks, Mark discovered a line that said, "What do you see" when it was played forward, but "He sees the one" when it was played backward. We were cracking up. Oh, and watching Ryan do his vocal tracks. He's such a comedian and kept us in stitches during the whole process.

I can't say we're looking forward to the promotion part. It seems like a daunting task. We've got some good label contacts we'll be in touch with, hoping against all hope they call us one day and say, "Fly to New York right now!" We'll be distributing heavy to college radio and supporting the release with touring and gigging from New York to Atlanta on weekends. I'm really stoked for touring and I can't wait for people to hear the CD. We'll divide business duties. We feel we'll do better doing the distributing and promoting on our own because we have so much invested in it.

It was originally scheduled sooner. Life. Shit. The usual. People underestimate the time they need to accomplish things because they're so anxious for a finished product. When it comes down to reality, the goods just can't be delivered on schedule. The art was going to take a week, and then it was more like three, and the mastering was to take two days, and it was more like nine, and the turnaround with pressing was supposed to take two to three weeks, and it was more like three to four because of Christmas. I used the original estimates to schedule the release parties, so I was working with bad information. Even so, I never should have scheduled all this stuff until I had the box of CDs in my hands. We screwed up. It's our first time doing this and we didn't know any better.

Nothing we kept is live except for the drums and most of the bass tracks. Everything else was added later, which is generally the way it works. We made rough mixes along the way to fiddle with until they were done. I took notes on all the rough mixes so we wouldn't forget to fix everything before mix down. A few enhancements were added at the last minute, but not much.

We'd get pretty sick of most of them when the mixing took a long time, but we tried to stay out of Mark's way when he was working. We'd play cards and he'd come out with a good take. We'd listen and make suggestions until everyone was happy. Then the next day, we'd listen again and go back to not liking it.

We're pretty straightforward when we play. Only on the rare occasion do we do any extended jams, mostly because when we see other bands doing it, we notice the audience gets bored. Unless you're really great at making things up on the fly, I don't think you should do it. We try to play for ourselves at practice and for the audience at the show. We try to keep things tight, and you can't do that when you improv.

Many! But it's hard to be unbiased. You have personal feelings about the writing or the lyrics or the emotions you feel when playing. All those things influence the way you hear your own songs, so it's hard to step back and listen with new ears. There are songs I think would be great for radio, but they're not indicative of what I consider our main style. While it doesn't matter to the public, you don't want a song to be huge when it's a one-time fluke, although if it happens, we'll be thrilled anyway.

"After Today." It's a bitter break-up song which is easy for anyone to relate to on a lyrical level. I wrote it on acoustic last spring, so it's really fresh to us right now. We usually open shows with it. Mark likes it because it's the most layered thing he's ever mixed. There's a lot of guitars and interesting little stuff going on with it, a neat, very full sound. But I have a hard time picking a favorite. It changes from day to day.

Thank god for Visa and MasterCard.

One thousand CDs. Maybe we'll do some cassettes later.

You have to be licensed from ASCAP or BMI to get royalties when your song is played on the radio. I'm not sure what the advantages are between one or the other, but when we inquired, ASCAP was the most accessible and helpful, so we decided on them. When you become a member, you have to join as a writer or as a publisher. If you join as a writer, then everyone in the band has to join and it's $10 per person. So we set up a publishing entity called Skuttlebutt Music which will handle all the band business and joined as a publisher, which is $30. BMI and ASCAP both have websites where you can order the forms you need.

I think bar codes are the biggest gyp in the industry. It costs $300 to get an exclusive UPC (Universal Product Code) from the Uniform Code Council, and you HAVE to have it if you want to be tracked by SoundScan, a whole 'nother topic. And you have to have it if you shop to labels, if you're serious about getting signed, and who isn't? You can get the forms to register off the internet.

SoundScan is a group that tracks your sales and airplay, and if you don't have a bar code, you won't be included in the their reports if a label is looking for the hottest new band on college radio, with nice local sales. That's how I understand it. If anyone knows differently, write to the Journal and educate us all.

As far as copyrights, it seems like someone ripping off our songs would never happen, but you never know. If someone sold them as their own, that would be really sucky. I've heard horror stories about that, but not from anyone I know personally. All you have to do to get a copyright is fill out a PA form for the composition, or an SR for the recording, depending on what you don't want stolen, or an SR for the composition and the recording.

If you do a really cool alternative version of Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes," for example, you can use the SR to copyright it even though it carries a copyright for the composer already. It's only $20, and you can put as much music on a cassette you copyright as you want. You can send a 90-minute cassette full of the stuff you're releasing, plus rough recordings of stuff you're working on, and have a cushion between the writing and the release. That's how we've been doing it.

I haven't researched if the forms are available on the web, but you can get them by writing to Information Section, LM-401, Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington DC 20559-6000. I hear you can do a "poor man's copyright" by mailing a copy of your recording to yourself and not opening it. Then you have sealed, postmarked evidence. But who knows if that would hold up in court?

If you're really serious about your music, you need to set yourself up as a business, but I couldn't find any good information on the internet about how to do this yourself. Every trail led to "you need a lawyer." So we made an appointment. So now we'll have to pay taxes on what the band makes, but if we have a loss, like we are with $9000 worth of recording, (ouch!), then we might get a refund.

Also, if you're a business, you can write off all the business related expenses, like CDs, concerts, etc., because that's considered research. I know when I see a show, I'm always making comparisons between the artist and myself to see what I can do better, and I watch crowd response.

I learned the hard way that everything takes twice as long as you think it will, so don't schedule anything to do with your release until the CD box is sitting in your living room. There's nothing more racking than the realization you've scheduled six CD release-related events and the CDs won't be there for them or you may be selling the records without the artwork and have to mail out the covers later. Average turnaround time is three weeks ONCE your master and artwork are mailed, so keep that in mind.

Montana has the ability to do just about anything musically you want to do. It shares space with Slipped Disc, the digital mastering half of the building. Montana has a brand new multitrack mixing board which runs to 2-inch tape reels at something like five feet per second, so the sound is crystal clear and very easy to edit.

Mark has a full array of digital effects equipment, more than you could ever use, but nice to choose from. He's also got some guitar equipment, so you don't have to use your own. I personally enjoyed playing through a Marshall head for a song. It's fun because you have so much freedom to do stuff you can't do live, but might be perfect for the song. He's also got an old Hammond, a grand piano, and tons of state of the art mics, as well as stands and cables.

I really like the space itself, too. It's professional looking, and clean and big. You can see the engineer when you're tracking, which is an advantage over some studios where you just talk back and forth. Mark and I got so we could look at each other and know what to do next. It made recording vocals a lot quicker. Plus, I have to mention that with my limited experience cutting vocals at other studios, I think Mark is the punch master when it comes to fixing your parts. I tend to be a real perfectionist when it comes to vocals, and Mark had so much patience with my method. He's really good at editing out even the tiniest imperfection. He's the undisputed Punch Master of Richmond.

The studio is set up nice for hanging out, too, with a fridge and microwave, and a computer you can play games on. Scott toured studios in California and said Montana is very similar to ones he saw out there.

With the new computerized board, it'll bring Montana up to par with the big New York and California boys, so they're expecting to get more label money from signed bands that need to record. That probably means less time for locals except the ones who can fork up the dollars for the quality. I can't wait to do our next record there because the new board will make mixing so much more precise.