ground round…
Saturday, November 8th, 2008Ryan 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.