BedBugs invade Northwest Indiana tonight!!!

The BedBugs, (L to R) Sergio Quiroga, Mario Zavala, David Robles, Jenny Hunt with special guest Phil Angotti

The BedBugs are the world’s greatest pop-rock band from South Chicago.

I’ve known them since 1993 when they were based out of drummer Sergio Quiroga’s basement apartment near 91st and Baltimore.

The BedBugs started in 1985 as a straight ahead Beatles-Stones band. They were thrown out of BeatleFest in 1996 for doing too many Beatle songs in a “Stars on ‘45” medley. When the BedBugs added vocalist in Jenny Hunt in 1990 they expanded into a B-52’s and Sonny & Cher landscape.

Besides Hunt and Quiroga the BedBugs include bassist David Robles and co-founder, guitarist and long time van driver Mario Zavala. The BedBugs hit the old Lincoln Highway for a gig at 9 TONIGHT at the Quest eatery, 1204 Lincoln Highway in Schererville, Ind. (No cover).

“You an reserve a table for dinner but not for the band,” Zavala writes in an e-Mail. “The food is good.”

Be sure to check out the matching beige pleated leather bench and wall the restaurant purchased in 1979 from the Playboy Club in Chicago.

Sergio will do a drum solo tonight

The BedBugs are one of the unsung stories of Chicago rock. Despite trials, tribulations and the 2000 death of keyboardist Kiki Rodriguez, the band keeps on playing happy music. They remain friends with hipster radio newsman Buzz Kilman and Chicago’s legendary bartender-poet Sergio Mayora.

At tonight’s four-hour show expect cool covers of Blondie and the Go Gos as well as originals with pop-drenched influences.