Words by Jason Lee. Cover image by Michelle LoBianco a.k.a. Brooklyn Elitist
“Am I Just Bored” is the name of Granite Garden’s debut single and it contains one or the more of the following elements—churning fuzzed-out guitar chords, cowbell *and* handclaps, a shimmy-inducing breakdown section, which is pretty much mandated when you’ve got both cowbell and handclaps on a song, plus a full-on bass guitar solo and highly melodic bass playing in general with lyrics depicting the uncanny valley between romantic despondency and disinterest—which really we’re jus’ messing with ya cuz it contains all of the above elements…
…which is smart seeing as your debut single could always end up being your final single too what with recent studies showing that 75% of bands who put out a debut single never release a follow-up, and while we just made this statistic up it sounds plausible to us, so why not pull out all the stops while you’ve got the chance to not that “Am I Just Bored” sound at all overstuffed with too many ideas cuz it’s pretty sleek actually, and not that not that there’s any chance Granite Garden won’t be releasing a follow-up cuz they’ve already got a second single in the chute plus a full-length planned for the fall, but either way ain’t nobody getting four-LP contracts these days so if you’re going go the DIY route–and who want to risk messing with major labels these days, or ever–then you gotta go for broke right out of the gate…
…or in other words that first single needs to *POP* goddammit and if you’re friends with any skilled auxiliary percussionists or high-profile hand clappers now’s the time to call in those favors (hand claps are notoriously difficult to record btw but it’s amazing how such a basic element can almost single-handedly make a song) with perhaps the prototypical example of the latter being when the Rolling Stones enlisted none other than John Lennon & Paul McCartney to provide hand claps for the cod-psychedelia of 1967’s “We Love You” (hand claps are better suited to power pop and soul music anyway) so why not go ahead and swing for the fences which is exactly what front person Cameron Silliman and the rest of Granite Garden have done with long-term musical partner Seamus Good on guitar, Pete Michaels Jr. on bass, and Jon Schneider on drums…
…with the question of “am I just bored / or in love with you” urgently raised and repeated several times near the song’s conclusion and it’s a question at the very heart of why bands form and put out debut singles in the first place innit with “boredom” and “being in love” (especially of the unrequited and dysfunctional varieties) being the two top motivations for starting a band [editor’s note: citation needed] and it’s notable that when feelings of either boredom or thwarted love get too intense it can totally upend and distort reality as you know it or thought you did anyway which is exactly what a good piece of art should do…
…and here we gotta shout out the Buzzcocks’ “Boredom” as the ür-song on the subject and what’s more with Buzzococks being the first punk band to be known for writing a bunch of love songs or love-gone-wrong songs to be more accurate, with ‘Boredom” taken from what many consider the Rosetta Stone of punk’s first wave, i.e. the Spiral Scratch EP, the first self-released punk record and thus a DIY touchstone, with “Boredom” encapsulating punk’s two-fingered F.U. salute to the straightjacket of conventionality and putting on airs in general with a guitar “solo” that merely repeats two notes over and over again, a perfect sonic embodiment of boredom which, nonetheless, manages to build up a fair amount tension by never going anywhere…
…with “Am I Just Bored” likewise dealing with the tension created by a relationship that’s going nowhere fast and not to be presumptuous but based on what we’re gleaning from the song’s lyrics we’d like to submit a vote for “just bored” when it comes to the question of “am I just bored or in love with you?” (note how the title doesn’t even bother with a question mark) cuz, I mean, you gotta be pretty bored to stay with a dithering on again/off again partner who gets pissed when you dance to music they don’t like which let’s face it is totally lame to take but one example shared in the lyrics but hey what do we know of such matters…
….and when it comes to the music itself, granted we’re only heard the one official release from the band so far, but based on this and other stuff we’ve heard from them Granite Garden’s melding of diverse musical elements (for instance bass solos are typically the province of prog rock, cerebral jazz, or KISS concerts, styles far removed from the more power-pop-and-post-punk-leaning “Am I Just Bored”) indicates a musical collective who refuse to settle for the boredom of adhering to the established expectations of a single genre or even two cuz if you’re gonna go to all the trouble of turning your rock ‘n’ roll fantasies into reality then why bother “living in a movie / which doesn’t move me” as Howard Devoto put it…
…with the band’s stated goal of being able “to revel in the joy and power of live performances with friends, families, enemies, and strangers alike” further demonstrating the revolutionary potential of boredom in the crossing of social boundaries and siloed demographics—throwing the doors open and seeing what transpires—which sounds pretty darn punk rock to us regardless of the musical style in question…
…not to mention the song being bestowed with a brand new music video just today (talk about burying the lead!) (go back up top to watch the video!) which should eliminate any lingering traces of boredom one may be feeling from the f*cking drudgery of day-to-day scraping by just to survive so that others may enrich themselves from your labors or it will for three-and-a-half- minutes anyway with Cameron Silliman animatedly strutting, running, stomping, and stumbling across various barren, boring landscapes in the borough of Brooklyn with not another human being in site (empty city streets, warehouses districts, disused train corridors with graffitied walls, weird pedestrian bridges made of rusting cast iron) and you can’t get a much better example of taking boredom and frustration and turning into something to love than that…
Studio photos by Morris Gabriel
OFFICIAL BAND BIO:
Granite Garden is a charismatic force from NYC that delivers hard hitting songs spiked with a strong dose of theatricality. They fill their shows with a wide range of emotions and complete commitment. Their goal is to revel in the joy and power of live performances with friends, families, enemies, and strangers alike.
The journey began as a desperate attempt to stave off the mundane rituals of a long distance relationship. Cameron Silliman and Seamus Good would write songs together while living in separate countries. Once finally reunited in New York City in 2021 they decided to start performing some of this material and quickly discovered the rich community of artists in the NYC music scene. This would eventually lead to Jon Schneider and Pete Michaels Jr. joining the ranks and contributing their creativity and experimental approach to the sound of Granite Garden. Together the four members have been working to pack their shows with as much energy and adventure as they can.
2024 is the year Granite Garden releases music into the world. Their debut single, “Am I Just Bored,” will be out on all platforms on June 7th, followed by a second single, and finally, a full length album in the fall.