Hi everyone!

My family and I have a lot going on in Pittsburgh for Halloween weekend so I wanted to let you know and get all the details down in one place. If you're from out of town, this would be an excellent weekend to visit Pittsburgh and get a taste of the city and all of the musical projects I am involved in.

Friday, October 28th, Rusted Root will be playing on The Gateway Clipper Majestic Fleet. The Gateway Clipper is a historic riverboat that usually plays host to tourists, but on occasion we rock it out down the river. We always try to do something special for these shows, and being Halloween weekend, you never know what we'll be up to. Plus, in preparation for our new album we have a lot of new material in the set right now. Not to be missed!

Saturday, October 29th, my son's band Lightning Box will be playing the Monster's Ball not too far away in Jeanette, PA at the Keynote Cafe. So I'll be on the other side of the show: stage mom, road crew, sound, you name it. Lightning Box is really good, and I'm not just saying that because it's my son's band! I've been mentoring them since they formed at my Real.Life.Music Camp about 4 years ago and they have become one of the most promising young bands out of Pittsburgh. They range in age from 12 to 16 years old and I would say they have an indie/rock/pop/punk kind of thing going on. To get a taste of what Lightning Box sounds like visit www.reverbnation.com/lightningbox

This is an all ages costume party featuring many of the area's best young bands. Tell them you're there for Lightning Box when you arrive. Tickets are only $8 and that includes drinks and food.

Sunday, October 30th, my new band Drowning Clowns will be playing our first headlining show at Mr. Smalls Theatre as part of our Creative.Life.Support 2011 Revival Series. The concept behind this series is that in a perfect world, shows would be free, people would show up, bands would get paid and local music would reign supreme. So this is our little experiment to see if we can't make that happen.

Drowning Clowns is a collaboration with my husband Mike Speranzo and Frank Spadafora (both formerly of Crisis Car and Out of the Blue) as well as Dirk Miller (The Speeds, Rusted Root), Shaggy Marcello (The Distractions, Isabella, Love's Gun Shop) my nephew Evan Smith (DC/Element/Independant Skateboarder), Nate Campesi (Airplane Graveyard) and Mike Hammer (Modus, Moving In Stereo, InSpiral).

Listen to Drowning Clowns tracks at: www.reverbnation.com/drowningclowns

Many other bands will be appearing including: Una De Luna, City Dwelling Nature Seekers, John Bechtol, The Wreckids, Steve Tribou and Emily Rodgers.

October 27th - 30th, is the now ledgandary "Evenings In Quarantine: The Zombie Opera". It's a hybrid film and stage production and my son Jordan has a major role in the video portion. If you're coming to all the other events above, maybe check this out on thursday Oct. 27th at 8pm or the Sunday Oct. 20th matinee at 2 pm.

So that's it for the weekend, as you can see I'll be super busy! I really hope you can come to the shows and hopefully I'll see you there!

--Liz Berlin