Guest Blogger #1: Andrew Burgess

SAYWam is trying out something different, readers. I have invited a couple of my writer-friends to be guest bloggers! Are you excited? I am. : ) Enjoy!

Watchout! Theres Ghosts
By Andrew Burgess


Once in a while, a band comes along that is so offensive, so blatantly asinine and musically absurd, that I feel the need to provide commentary to the small amount of readers who care about my opinion. As of yesterday evening, that band is "Watchout! Theres Ghosts."

Check out this sick track.


If you can actually keep your stomach contents down throughout the entirety of this video, then I applaud you.

I hate when people blindly judge music and ensembles, so I always like to do a little research before I do my hating. I don't know if this duo is brand fucking new, or the hip scene thing to do is provide no information about yourself, but I couldn't find an ounce of useful information about these guys. The only material regarding Watchout! Theres Ghosts I found was myspace comments left from preteens girls proclaiming, and I quote, "my favorite band is back. thank god. this world needs good music," and the singer's amazingly profound tweets such as, again I quote, "me myself and irean is funny!" and "hood rich."

Yes, we do need good music in this world. Too bad you'd have better odds of proving human parthenogenesis than finding good music from two scene asshats with a MacBook and an undying lust for Taco Bell. Turns out you're more than likely attracted to them physically, not musically. Listen to the song without looking at their sweet Myspace profile picture and see if you still have the same opinion. If by some rare chance you do, I'd suggest hopping the next flight to Norway to go spelunking with some lemmings; Darwin would appreciate it.

Aside from the obvious absence of prefrontal cortex stimulation from their fans, I don't even know where to begin on how offended I am with this band. On all levels. First off, their name; "Watchout! Theres Ghosts." Here we go. "Watchout!" is actually two words, geniuses. I figured maybe they're jumping on the bandwagon of the multiple word band name bludgeoned into one word, but then they pull a Hail Mary and space out "Theres Ghosts." By the way, "Theres" is a contraction; it needs an apostrophe. I know it's hard to tweet via mobile phone, because you have to bring up the symbol menu and everything, but sometimes a little extra effort goes a long way. That is, you won't look like completely uneducated Cro-Magnons to the potential fans who haven't heard your awesome Garage Band preloaded beats yet.

Yes, I'm aware that proper grammar and social awareness has nothing to do with their music. So I'll drop the fact that Me, Myself and *Irene was not only spelled incorrectly, but it hit theaters a decade ago and wasn't really that funny. (Seriously. If Me, Myself and Irene was funny, than Scary Movie 4 was a fucking riot.) On to the actual musical aspect then.

Holy auto-tune, Batman! The song in the video posted above makes Cher's use of auto-tune in "Believe" seem reasonable. I see more and more use of auto-tune in the budding underground artists, and I don't understand why. Then I saw this video below and had an epiphany:


They can't fucking sing. Not only that, but the guitarist sounds like a deaf Fran Drescher with the mother of all sinus infections. Let's try enunciating your poignant message of how "There is a line and you crossed it. There it is. There it is" and afterwards we can work on blowing your nose and singing in a range your vocal cords can actually handle, after all Rome wasn't built in a day right? My favorite part of the video is at 2:42 when the guitar solo kicks in. I'm not asking him to be Yngwie Malmsteen, but I would expect a guitar player to possess the ability to actually play guitar in tune and on time. Hey, dickhead. Watchout! Theres Notes. I know you don't have colors flying at you like in Guitar Hero, telling you when to hit the notes and giving you rad star power, but it's not too difficult if you actually try.

This band is proof that making it is not about your music, but the unfortunate circumstances of what you look like, who you know, and how much money your parents have. Thankfully this band is no longer signed to a label, and I may start attending church again to pray that they lose funding and their drive to succeed as "musicians." If I'm missing something, someone please regale me. Otherwise, I hope to see you all in church with me next Sunday.