Chicago, IL · tech-house · acid house

Green Velvet

3 upcoming festivals

Chicago house royalty with a green-haired alter ego and a catalogue of acid-house hooks that never stopped filling floors — 'La La Land' still detonates.

Green Velvet is one of several aliases used by Curtis Alan Jones, a Chicago producer who also records as Cajmere. Trained as a chemical engineer, he moved into house music in the early 1990s and founded the Cajual and Relief labels, which became key outlets for the city's stripped-back, acid-tinged sound.

Under the Cajmere name he cut the much-sampled "Percolator"; as Green Velvet he built a run of tracks including "Flash," "Answering Machine" and "La La Land," pairing deadpan spoken vocals with squelching 303 lines and hard, minimal grooves. The persona comes with bright green hair and a taste for the absurd, and he has remained a constant touring presence across house and techno bills for three decades.

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