"Watchout! There’s Ghosts" Returns To The Music Scene
Written By Cash Spicer of The Demo Team Podcast
The “RawrinxD 20s” have been a resounding success for alternative music. The last three years(!) have been nothing short of Halloween on Christmas for all of those who terrorized malls in the 2000s and early 2010s. A rising tide of band reunions, genre resurgences, and festival resurrections (except for The One) has raised so many nostalgic ships, and while it might feel greedy to ask for more out of the resurgence of 2000s scene music, there have been a few blindspots to the revival. Particularly, the neon clad, flat ironed, autotuned, 808 programmed MySpace era of synth pop of the late aughts felt like it never got the respect it deserved, back in its heyday and especially now. And that’s despite being one of the most commercially successful subgenres of alternative music with acts like Cobra Starship, Metro Station, Breathe Carolina, and 3OH!3 all finding mainstream pop success, while also directly influencing the likes of Kesha, if not most of the late 2000s to early 2010s period of mainstream electro pop music. But after those handful of acts that broke through, is a long list of forgotten and underappreciated artists struggling to describe what MySpace was or figure out what people are calling their genre of music this week (is it electropop, synth pop, electrocore, synthcore, tron pop, crunkcore?).
And yet, despite being a once highly influential but now mostly forgotten and unnamed offshoot of the MySpace/Warp Tour era, there does seem to be some positive momentum brewing for this subgenre for the first time in about a decade. Crunkcore pioneers, Brokencyde reunited for So What?! Fest. MySpace queen, Melissa Marie of Millionaires, regulars the Emo Nites across the country. Club-music-meets-emo producers, The Medic Droid, nearly played the canceled When We Were Hungry Festival and then teased an announcement on Facebook (they still haven’t made the announcement). Raunchy hitmakers, 3OH!3 dipped their toes into Hyperpop and collabed with Rebecca Black (speaking of the past). Even Cobra Starship knocked off Steve from Blue’s Clues’ sorry-for-abruptly-leaving-you-during-your-adolescence-without-an-explanation video. But, perhaps, the most striking development in the potential revival of scene kid party dance music is the return of Watchout! Theres Ghost to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their only album Ghost Town. Could this be the jumpstart of another genre resurgence in the current alternative music renaissance?
Announced by vocalist Jordan Blake on Saturday December 3rd’s episode of the Local Band Smokeout, it appears that Blake and guitarist Richie Abelia (of Outlined in Black) are pulling out all the stops for the return of Watchout! Theres Ghosts. During the interview Blake listed off a handful of cities from coast to coast he hopes to hit on an upcoming national tour and even floated a potential return to Japan, the country W!TG had originally marketed itself too. A few days after the interview, on December 6th, the newly revived project also inquired on their instagram story if their fans were ready for new W!TG music, hinting at new singles or even an album that could drop in the near future. Jordan Blake will also likely continue making appearances on Local Band Smokeout and The Demo Team Podcast, the two outlets he’s become most comfortable delivering news to since he began reviving his music career in 2021. Suffice to say, the return of Watchout! Theres Ghosts will have plenty to offer both long time fans and those just hopping on the bandwagon.
Similarly, to Watchout! There’s Ghosts’ original formation, the return of this group comes off the wake of the success of Jordan Blake’s other band, the legendary Sacramento area post-hardcore outfit, A Skylit Drive, who reunited its original line up in early 2022 with Blake on lead vocals. Fortunately, the (re)formation of Watchout! Theres Ghosts comes under much more positive circumstances this time around. After releasing the monumentally influential album She Watched The Sky with A Skylit Drive in 2007, a health scare for Blake would sideline him right before the recording of the band’s sophomore release “Wires…And The Concept Of Breathing”. With Michael Jagmin then taking over lead vocal duties for A Skylit Drive, Blake would, in 2008, turn his attention to forming Watchout! There’s Ghosts with guitarist Joshua “DJ” Stotts, of Return From Exhile, moving away from Blake’s proto-Warped-Tour-Era brand of Post-Hardcore for a more poppy and electronic offering. After signing to Rise Records, the group would drop Ghost Town in 2009, which would be ground zero for an emerging scene of emo and post-hardcore influenced dance music, with similar acts Breathe Carolina, Kill Paradise, and The Medic Droid all dropping their most well known albums during this year (Hello Fascination, The Second Effect, and What’s Your Medium, respectively). And while the competition was certainly stiff in 2009, Watchout! Theres Ghosts had little issue distinguishing themselves from the pack, with Ghost Town being the most grandiose of that year’s other major MySpace synthcore releases. While it lacked the debauchery of Hello Fascination, and the darkness of The Second Effect, or the club-readiness of What’s Your Medium, Ghost Town made up for it by being a more theatrical and personal musical experience. Ghost Town might’ve been written for house parties and raves, but the impeccable production value and soaring, anthemic choruses of songs like “I Ruin Dreams, Not Nightmares'' and “A Beautiful Goodbye” could’ve lent themselves just as easily to stadiums or arenas. There’s also a refreshing sincerity and earnestness in songs like “Never You” and “Don’t Shoot Me Annie Oakley” that just wasn’t as readily available in the more sex, drugs, and dance pop focused music of their peers, not that W!TG couldn’t indulge in that as well. “The Shakeup” could’ve easily found itself on a top 40 station, sandwiched between “Boom Boom Pow” and “Poker Face” without anyone batting an eye, had it had the right exposure at the time. It just goes to show that in a genre that required a tremendous amount of range, Watchout! Theres Ghosts might’ve had the most and plenty of heart to go with it too.
This grander vision for MySpace synth pop plus the built-in fans of Jordan Blake’s time with A Skylit Drive, secured Watchout! Theres Ghosts a small but rabid cult following, but, unfortunately, the momentum would peter out for W!TG, breaking up once in late 2009 and then doing so again in early 2012 shortly after teasing Ghost Town 2.0. Rise Records would drop the band and that would be that, until Jordan Blake attempted a comeback and even teased new music in 2017 with Richie Abelia originally joining at that point, but the comeback did not materialize. In 2021, interviews with The Demo Team Podcast and Local Band Smokeout highlighted Jordan Blake’s decade long struggles with record labels, substance abuse, and loss, but would also get the ball rolling for a 2022 reunion of the original A Skylit Drive line up. Blake would spend most of the year fronting A Skylit Drive as they played multiple music festivals through the spring, summer, and fall, performing songs off of She Watched The Sky to an extremely positive reception. Unfortunately, it wasn't unanimously positive, as the vocalist that replaced Jordan Blake in A Skylit Drive in 2008, Michael Jagmin, has been attempting to sue the band for reuniting without him. But this has not deterred the Jordan Blake fronted A Skylit Drive in any way, with the band currently in the process of recording and mixing a true follow up to 2007’s She Watched The Sky. Blake explained in his latest Local Band Smokeout interview that he plans to tour with Watchout! Theres Ghost during the down time of the ASD recording and mixing process not only to celebrate the 15th anniversary of a project he’s tremendously proud of, but as a mechanism to maintain his sobriety, believing that keeping busy is the best method of doing so.
Regardless, 2021 has been a year of redemption for Jordan Blake and, by all accounts, it seems as if things are only getting started for him on his newly reignited musical journey. The question remains, though, whether the return of Watchout! Theres Ghosts is enough to spark the return of the pop and dance music inspired side of emo and post-hardcore. Will The Medic Droid finally announce whatever it is they were teasing on their Facebook page? Could Breathe Carolina make the jump back from EDM to their 2000s MySpace roots? Could Nickasaur! and Breathe Electric and Lets Get It all secretly be planning a comeback? Is Cobra Starship ready to start partying with us again? Who knows. But a whole era of extremely lucrative pop music from about ‘09 to ‘12 almost owes its whole existence and popularity to the kids on MySpace with swoopy hair and synthesizers (and Hyperpop might too but that’s still up for debate), so it only seems fair that they get to get in on the late career renaissance that so many of their peers are currently enjoying. The return of Watchout! Theres Ghost is certainly a move in the correct direction for the future of MySpace era neon emo synth pop core, or whatever we’re calling it. Whether we see a resurgence in this genre of music or not, I’m sure Jordan Blake is simply just excited to once again see us “get on the dance floor” and “see our bodies hit the floor”.
Sources:
https://en.everybodywiki.com/Watchout!_There%27s_Ghosts
https://www.last.fm/music/Watchout!+There%27s+Ghosts/+wiki
https://gekirock.com/interview/2010/09/watchout_theres_ghosts.php