Smuggled Sounds: Green Velvet

Green_velvet Curtis Alan Jones is an electronic and house music singer, songwriter and producer born April 26, 1968 in Chicago, Illinois. His style of house music has been compared/inspired by the likes of Kraftwerk, Prince, Gary Numan and Nitzer Ebb.

During in the early days before he became a house musician, he earned a degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Up until this point music had been a hobby fueled by cobbling together tracks on his "sixty buck keyboard, a cheap four-track and a cheap drum machine" while still an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. This DIY method of production was never taken seriously and when childhood plans to become a doctor were shelved Jones was firmly committed to a career as a chemical engineer. His dad was an occasional DJ and eventually became a budding musician. As time went on Jones discovered what was his innate love and understanding for house music, a sound that had grown throughout the mid-80s out of Chicago's deep-rooted disco scene. As a child he was into sci-fi movies and time travel TV shows like Doctor Who and would spend hours pondering over the possibilities this would open up. He played the saxophone at school and had a talent for trying to play with a keyboard but remained largely un-interested in what he saw as his father's passion. It was this cut-up, tacky, production style of the early house sound that Jones absorbed and translated into the 'Underground Goodies EP', his first release as Cajmere (that's CAJ as in Curtis A. Jones) put out in 1991 on his own recently started Cajual label. A year later he had his first massive hit as Cajmere with the brilliant house tune 'Coffeepot (It's Time For The Percolator)' also out on Cajual. He then teamed up with Chicago-based vocalist Dajae for 'Brighter Days' (he entered #2 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play), a high impact, more mellow house tune that came out on Emotive.

Greenvelvet4 Desperate to make something totally different to his normal Cajmere moniker, Curtis created Relief as an offshoot to his Cajual records in 1993. The label gave birth to his first Green Velvet production 'Velvet Tracks'. Green Velvet (a name given to him by a friend's dad) emerged as the flamboyant, neon-haired 'Electro Punk', he created excellent mid-90's hits like 'Preacher Man' (a Moral Majority type of preacher spoke over this track), 'Answering Machine' (a darkly funny house track consisting of 'taped' messages from an answering machine, including a bad news message from a girlfriend and a noise complaint message from his landlord), and 'Flash' which was a #1 US dance hit in 2000 and has been included on many DJ-mixed compilation albums. after playing DJ under both of now infamous monikers, he released his first album Constant Chaos in Beligian Music label Music Man in 1999, which showed Green Velvet's style of house progress into styles similar to Prince (artist) and Kraftwerk, his spoken word lyrics also took a bizarre turn, In Abduction he sings about little green men turning up while he's doing the washing up.

By the time 'Constant Chaos' came out Jones had already halted activity on his labels. Still DJing as Cajmere he'd narrowed the Green Velvet persona down to live performances only, taking time out to re-group and work out what to do next. When he gave Velvet a new hairstyle — from spiked, green foam nodules to yellow mohawk, He unleashed his sophomore album the Dark Whatever which was a step away from his Kraftwerk inspired sound Extrema_070_Green_Velvet (although Sleepwalking had similar style) to a Darker, more political Punk style. on the album he tackled such issues as racism (highlighted on the song When?) Drug Use (highlighted on Genedefekt and La La Land) Alienation (highlighted Sleepwalking) and been told what to wear and do by the system (highlighted on the heavily Punk inspired track GAT). The more industrial, punky songs on the album apparently came from hours spent listening to bands like Nitzer Ebb and Liaisons Dangerous, and lots of "underground American industrial stuff". He released his first single La La Land in 2001, a tribute to the wonders of pill taking, which was later followed by Genedefekt His live act had now became more like a rock band also, with the Curtis playing a keytar, and two other musicians (aptly named 'Mr. Zook' and 'Spaceboy') backing him playing heavily distorted synths. Initially Jones, as both Cajmere and Green Velvet, was receiving more attention in Europe than he did in America, playing a Radio One live session on the Jo Whiley show, and playing a host of festivals. After appearing under a host of different names for his various remixing and sideprojects, Green Velvet dropped his 3rd album Walk In Love in 2005. This album showed a more, housey style to it, but the odd Prince/Punk sounding tracks still remained, as Curtis actually got a live guitarist to play on Come Back, and the closing track Pin Up Girl had a similarity to new york based Electroclash group, Fischerspooner. after Walk In Love, Green Velvet is producing/remixing releases for fellow Relief Records artists and himself, and playing a host of live shows in 2006.