"Of the People"

“Of the People” - written by Christa Renee © 2015 Christa Renee

For a while there, Floodwatch was playing gigs at a pizza joint in Laconia called Heat. One of the groups we met there was the Christa Renee Band, a high-energy rock/funk/reggae/jam band led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Christa Renee. They were a great bunch of people, always friendly and always musically fun and interesting. They also always had people dancing, something Floodwatch was not necessarily bringing to the party. We became close with Christa in particular and shared gigs with the band. Christa and I also had a couple of side projects together. She is a wonderful person and a great writer, with lyrics both personal and social justice centered. “Of the People,” from the album New Life, is a perfect example of Christa weaving both of those threads.

Initially, my version was going to be done as dark synth pop but twisted, with icy vocoder backing vocals in an ironic angle regarding the modern obsession with AI (AI is BAD) juxtaposed with Christa’s lyrical themes about humanity. I took inspiration from Depeche Mode, particularly the Violator album, but also Josef Zawinul’s mind-bending album, Dialects, especially the track “The Harvest.” As someone who started his musician’s journey as an electronic keyboardist and synthesizer obsessive, I went hard into my semi-modular Behringer ARP 2600 clone, working up the multiple layers of sample & holder filter chatter that start the song and burble throughout. For drums, I got some deep 2600 tips from Alex Ball’s amazing “Depeche Mode Drums” YouTube video as well as bass synth videos by Anthony Merinelli. However, I realized I’d gone too far down the rabbit hole and needed to rehumanize. Synth bass was out, fretless bass was in, and the jam band/fusion vibe of the C.R.B. got reinjected. Weird grooves ensued.