Tim Mulhern and the other guys in Looseleaf started at the top when it came time to master a live recording they'd made as high school seniors at Club Laga. They recruited Tripper, frontman for their favorite local band, the Buzz Poets, to handle the honors.

	Looseleaf With: The Buzz Poets. WHERE: The Loft at Sports Rock, Strip District. WHEN: 10 tonight. COVER CHARGE: $5; 412-552-1000.

"That was pretty much the band we always looked up to," says Mulhern. "We thought they were pretty much the only people doing original music in town, and we really loved their style. I always thought that it would work well, me and Tripper."

And it did work well -- so well in fact that Tripper went on to produce the band's six-song acoustic CD, "Sketches," a clear departure from what Mulhern describes as the "hard, high-school-screaming-type stuff" on the live CD. When it came time to record a proper full-length effort, the choice for producer was obvious. A year -- on and off -- in the making, "Anywhere But Here" finds Looseleaf covering both Incubus and the Foo Fighters to round out an album of Tripper-assisted originals that Mulhern breaks down into three camps -- "harder rock, some reggae-influenced tracks" and those with a "chilled-out acoustic feel."

The new disc will be celebrated tonight in a CD release party at The Loft at Sports Rock, Strip District.

Mulhern was honored, he says, to work so closely on the new material with Tripper. "I think he's an unbelievable songwriter," he says, "so it was a great opportunity for me to work with somebody like that and get feedback."

As Tripper himself recalls the writing process, "They had a lot of ideas they would throw at me, and I would help them to make it into a song. Occasionally, I'd throw out lyric ideas. A lot of times, I'd throw out ideas about what a certain instrument should be doing or, in a lot of cases, not doing. [I spent time] getting to know them, finding out what their goals are to begin with and helping them achieve those goals based on their talent and their level of playing ability at the time. We worked on this for over a year, and I can even hear in the songs how they've gotten better."

To hear him talk, it's clear Tripper has come to admire his fans.

"They work so hard, and they're so nice and genuine that I think, based on those things, they'll do very well," he says. "They're gonna be maybe the next Buzz Poets in town. And hopefully beyond."

One quality he hears in Looseleaf that he's pretty sure will set the band apart is sensitivity.

"A lot of young rock bands these days want to play loud and hard. They want to sound like they're mean, and they may not be mean individuals," he says. "I've definitely fallen into that trap myself. But these guys, they don't care so much if people think they're cool or tough or anything like that. They just want to get across their emotions.

"I think their personality comes across in the music, and I think people will like their personality."