James Curd

James Curd is best known for his role as resident beat-maker in Chicago-based band Greenskeepers.  Rewind 10 years to a time long before James was jet-setting from London to Tokyo slinging records on the decks…he was spinning loft parties and raves at the ripe old age of fifteen in Chicago. By nineteen, he had already established himself as a premiere DJ on the Chicago club scene and surrounding cities.  By twenty, he was guesting as a DJ at Chicago's best dance clubs and holding down residencies alongside Derrick Carter, Diz and Gene Farris.

Production work with Nick Maurer soon followed under the Greenskeepers guise on labels including Derrick Carter’s ‘Classic’ (‘What’s Your Man Got To Do With Gan?’ was a favourite with John Peel).  The success of the initial singles saw James decide to expand the Greenskeepers ‘band’ further by welcoming Mark Share and later Coban Rudish.  3 albums were released on Om Records – ‘The Ziggy Franklin Radio Show’, ‘Pleetch’ and ‘Polo Club’ which saw Greenskeepers booked to play live from festivals like T In The Park, to underground clubs like Fabric, to Japanese shows and everywhere in between.

In amongst all that, James continued to DJ around the world and set up 3 record labels: Greenskeepers represents the true sound of modern Chicago and is still going strong today; G-Swing carved out a whole new niche of bumped up jazz and swing, and; Igloo became THE bootleg label of the early-mid 2000’s by releasing cheeky re-edits of major artists such as Missy Elliot and Stevie Wonder by the likes of Diz, Derrick Carter and No Assembly Firm.  Igloo paved the way for other boompty-bootleg labels like Peaches and Guess Who.

Back to the present and Greenskeepers are still in extremely high demand and filling venues worldwide, but it’s also time for James to focus once again on his solo production work.  The ‘Hand Weight’ EP for Drop comes at a similar time to EPs for Guesthouse and Alphabet, as well as remixes for Lost My Dog and Defected.  As one of the truly versatile producers of recent years, James Curd shows little sign of letting up as he takes his quirky Chi-town influenced sounds further and wider!