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Garden Fest had it’s rain-date on Sunday the 17th. 

It was happening rain or shine…  And boy did I ever love waking up at 6:45am with a migraine.  Lying with a sleep mask and an ice pack I get the phone call an hour later that no music in Drake’s Garden.  Cool.  More time to recover.  After rolling out of bed, trying to choke down tea and realizing that maybe, just maybe, this migraine may just be a bad hangover I left to the Hill. 

Manuevering around the closed roads, tents, vendors, mediocre bands, crowds, rich over privileged underage moms is a talent most enjoyable.  Spending years trying to get in and out of Chestnut Hill during the Festivals (in addition to getting from one end to another for gigs) has put me in prime form.  No problem getting to Drake’s.  By 11:45am the sun is starting to burn through the clouds and it occurs to me that we could pull off the outdoor gig after all.  I make two calls, Katie and Drew.  I figure voice, drums and keys and voice would be a good starting point.  They are up for it, yet start to hate me for the wishy-washiness of this gig, and I go back home for all the gear. 

By the time we set up and start playing I notice Dave Cope arrived.  After hearing us from street he went home and got guitar and returned.  And look over there!  It’s Malcolm “the Raven” Sheppard, then Jason Fifield on bass.  Quite a band for two phone calls.

“You guys are the best music on the Avenue” is something we heard more than once during the Festival.  It is nice to be appreciated, but leaves us puzzled why others are getting booked for the stages.  Some of the acts booked are great.  Some are friends of mine.  Others are so bad that everyone, including the crowd listening, is making fun of how really terrible they are. 

After Drake’s was the Tavern on the Hill.  The Tavern is more or less my home base here in Philly.  It is what the Maple Leaf or Spotted Cat was in New Orleans.  People know now (as they knew then) if I didn’t have my cell phone they could call one of those bars and usually find me.  Whether I was able to talk or not…

Thirty one hours until I leave for North Carolina.  It’s been years since any sort of travel for a gig.  I did clock in almost 100 gigs more than 150 miles from home back in 2001 or 2002, but that was long before I even met my loverly wife.  She was commenting on how, when we met, I didn’t really present myself as a musician.  I told her I worked part time in a CD store, which I did - rather poorly.  I tried to explain that at that time, late 2003, I had left the whole “jam-band” thing.  Fun scene, but couldn’t see myself ten years later still wearing t-shirts and jeans “noodling” around the same two or three chord vamps watching college trustifarians pack another bowl with some strain of something laced with something exotic that I always thought was either an oven cleaner or made in a trailer equipped with three Bunsen burners too many.

Tomorrow night the Nuns will be at the Venetian Clubin Philadelphia.  We end at 12:30am.  By some miracle I will be in bed and fully rested when I hit the road 6:45am with Melissa.  The rest of the band is leaving tomorrow, lucky bastards.  Sleep is all but over-rated.

Ryan Plattsmeir, aka Ground Round, was a friend and a bandmate and someone you could always rely on.  He and Lou were inseparable and if one was invited the other usually came.  It’s hard to only invite a dog to an event, but we tried and Ryan would be in tow.  Unfortunately Ryan left this world just a few days before Halloween.

Once, after returning from gigs in Texas, I found Ryan on the balcony of my French Quarter apartment repairing our Central AC.  He looked up smiling, waved and stated to me that, “Your house is fucking HOT,” as if my wife hadn’t made that perfectly clear at midnight the night before when it broke.

Another time we spent the afternoon each with a 64oz frozen Daiquiris (each with the obligitory two extra shots of 151) and made Jambalya.  After the all-you-can-eat sausage and rice fest we picked up two more Daiquiris and proceded to attempt a rehearsal with drummer Bryan Besse.  Bryan had a lot of patience with us that night.  And I think that that night brought a friend to actually hear us rehearse.  He bought fresh Wisconsin cheese curd and is now a district attorney for a major southern city.

I remember us driving around playing music for each other.  Just before Katrina he had started getting into the bass playing of Graham Moby (who had a pretty cool trio with piano/pop hero Joe Jackson) and thought the song Airships by VNV Nation was cool enough to purchase the entire album.  The best thing about listening to music in Ryan’s car was that when his cell phone rang his car stereo would squelch our this horrid loud Satanic-like Static Yelp. 

Kristen and I have always had plans to return to NOLA and Ryan was always involved in my musical future.  Ryan, along with Bryan Besse (Bryan/Ryan is were the Ground/Round thing came about) and I had this rock power-trio called REEBATIBA that recorded a lot, but only played a few times live.  All three of us were busy with so many other bands that it just never hooked up right.  But I always wanted to return to that group.  Ryan and I co-wrote most of the music and I still have alot of it.  Kristen asked that we listen to it a few days after getting the news about Ryan. 

It’s good.  Then again, most things about Ryan were.

Announcement and Guestbook for Ryan.

We began looking for a new apartment a month or so ago.  Unfortunately, I had two pretty crazy weeks.  One with Drake’s and the other with gigs.  After clocking in over 122 hours between the two over 10 days Kris and I sat down to actually look at places.

Today we finally found a place worth seeing.  Two, actually.  I had an abortion of an appointment yesterday.  Replace carpets, people.  The afterbirth of New Years Eve 1998 is not something I want to see when I wake up on my living room floor after barely making it home when Mike Dulle comes to town.

The first place was cute, but we were stood up.  The drive thru the neighborhood of the second place was so wonderful we turned around and stood them up.

ANYWAY…..    THE INLAND SEA