November is here and the weather is starting to get cold. I’m not a cold weather person at all and I’m no where near prepared for a long cold winter. It’s Nov. 5 and we saddle up and head for Charleston Illinois home of Friends & Company, a cool rock bar nestled in the center of the city. We were treated extremely well here by our pal Jason who owns the club. Jason plays in the metal band Speedealer, who are mucho rock and makes us feel right at home. An extremely young crowd gathers and we take the stage hoping to convert the Broadzilla virgins to lifelong fans. Mission accomplished. For as cold as it was outside, the place inside was on fire. Afterwards we enjoyed hanging out and playing pinball in the back room on one of the several uber cool collection of pinball machines around. Good times!

Next morning we wake up and head to St. Louis for a gig at the Creepy Crawl. We arrive in town early and head over to Jason Zillas uncles house where we raided the showers. A great family who welcomed our stinky asses into their homes. Thank you for your kindness. With not enough time to take the beer factory tour, I know how touristy of us but it would’ve been cool to take the tour, we head over to the macaroni grill for some pre-gig grub. Mmmm……love the grill.

Back at the venue, we arrive with even more time to kill. Sad part is, there’s an all ages show going on that we wished we were booked at. Kids were everywhere, all lined up to see the show, unfortunately, not our show. We were scheduled to play with the big gigs later in the evening. So to kill time, Jason’s uncle took us over to this awesome new outdoor/indoor science museum adventure/bar/play jungle. I can’t even begin to explain how cool this thing was. They took all sort of things, like school buses, airplanes, slides, ladders and so on and concocted this massive structure that folks can climb around on. It’s pretty amazing to stand below and look up at the monstrous contraption. We headed inside this small and cozy pub for a brew before making our journey back to the venue.

By this time, the all ages show was wrapping up and we began to load the gear inside. Once inside, we meet up with some of our myspace pals and hang out and chat before taking the stage. It was great to finally get to play the creepy crawl. The rock was laid down all BZ style and shit and the folks who survived the night were eating up, until a little too much testosterone was riled and the fisticuffs broke up. Somewhere in the middle of our set, a fight broke out in front of the stage, literally clearing the place out onto the street to witness the last few punches. At this point, the crowd was divided with a few folks making their way back in the bar and the rest just heading home. It was an unfortunate end to a great weekend but somehow, I know we’ll be back.

The next weekend we head back to Illinois this time to Champaign on Nov. 13 to Mike & Mollys. This is a cool little place but the stage is upstairs, the bar downstairs. Yes one of those. It sucks loading gear up the stairs but that comes with the territory. Once upstairs I was shocked at how small the room was. There were couches and table and lamps and living room type chairs everywhere. It literally felt like you were in someones living room or rec room. But that was kind of cool because it had a nice warm feeling to the room. With time to kill, we headed out to stir up some trouble at the local mall. Angie slept in the RV while Jason, Kim and I went malling. We did some early X-mas shopping and then headed back to the venue. We watched the other bands and then prepared to do the BZ rock. It was cool, the people there dug us and we enjoyed playing that room.

Last show of the month was unfortunately the last show for our friends in Forge. It was Nov. 20 and we were on the bill with our boys in Forge at Alvin’s. I love Alvin’s, I love Forge so this was a no brainer. We were set to go on first, the bar was totally packed, a great Alvin’s gig and of course not to be outdone by our brothers of metal, we knew we had our work cut out for us and ripped through a rocking set of tunes. It was awesome. But nothing could prepare us for the ass kicking of metal we were about to receive from the Forge boys.

They took the stage and laid it down loud and proud. The place was packed and there was an overall good vibe in the air. It was so hard watching them and thinking to myself that this is the last time I’ll see this band play. Those guys have been around for a long time, been through a few member changes and were faced with yet another member change before deciding to call it a day. Much love goes out to those guys. They know how to rock it and most certainly did. Towards the end of their set, it seemed everyone in the bar was on the stage celebrating a long run of Detroit metal courtesy of Forge. Thanks guys. That was awesome.

See you next month!