The Greenskeepers
Encyclopedia
Greenskeepers are an alternative rock
/indie rock
band
from Chicago
. One of their most notable tracks is the cult
hit "Lotion", a song that pays homage to Buffalo Bill, the fictitious serial killer
featured in the 1991 film, The Silence of the Lambs. The chorus of "Lotion" comes from Buffalo Bill's most recognizable line of dialogue in the film, that being "it rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again." "Lotion" also came in at #90 in the 2004 Triple J Hottest 100
.
The band made a song for the videogame Grand Theft Auto IV
called "Vagabond". The song was featured in one of the commercials, in the game itself, and on the soundtrack.
The band was heavily championed by British
DJ John Peel
, their track "Low & Sweet" appearing in his 2001 Festive Fifty
.
.
In early 2001 Maurer and Curd went in the studio together to record the single "Should I Sing Like This?", which became an international club hit. After its success, Maurer moved to Germany
and Curd collaborated with many other artists who shared his love of electronic music
. This included keyboardist/producer Mark Share, who had three of his songs featured on the Greenskeepers' debut album, The Ziggy Franklin Radio Show. Maurer became a full member in 2004 and Mark Share brought his bassist and life long friend Coban Rudish on board.
The four went in the studio to work on their second album Pleetch, which was released by Classic records in the U.K and OM records in the United States. It featured guest vocalists and included Maurer on two of the songs that he created with the new band on a week long studio trip to his native Chicago
. Pleetch was well-received across the music world. The song "Lotion", inspired by the fictional character Buffalo Bill from the film The Silence of the Lambs, was an underground hit. Curd directed a video using the original film footage and uploaded it online. In less than two weeks, the music video for "Lotion" had been downloaded over one million times. Pleetch also had commercial success by licensing songs to T.V and film. "Lotion"," Back In the Wild", and "You Don't Know Me" were all featured on the prime time show Grey's Anatomy
. "Slippin" was featured on CSI: Miami
, and "Keep It Down" was featured on Point Pleasant
.
With a new album, they began touring. This included dates from Scotland
and Jerusalem, all the way to Los Angeles
. They toured as a three piece band for all of 2004 and then Maurer moved back to Chicago to rejoin the Greenskeepers and debuted the full four piece band at a Miami music conference in 2005. Billboard called it the stand out performance of the conference.
The Greenskeepers then began working in the studio again, resulting in the two disc album Polo Club
, released on OM. The album met with enthusiastic reviews and full marks in magazines around the world. Their version of a Huey Lewis and The News hit song, "I Want A New Drug," which pays overt homage to Nine Inch Nails
' song "Closer
", was featured in the film What Happens in Vegas
.
The band began touring again at some of the most respected clubs and festivals around the world. This included Park life in Australia
, T In the Park in Scotland, Fabric in London
, Avalon in Los Angeles, Electric Daisy in Ireland
and SXSW in the U.S.
Rockstar Games
contacted Curd with a request to feature a song on their game Grand Theft Auto 4, which resulted in the song "Vagabond", a collaboration between Share, Curd, Maurer and singer JDub. Rockstar used it for their worldwide T.V. ad campaign.
It was at this time in 2008 that the Greenskeepers name transformed to represent Curd as a solo artist and his collaborations with other musicians. In the summer of 2009, he is due in the studio to work on a new Greenskeepers album featuring many guest vocalists and artists. A new Greenskeepers EP is set to be released soon introducing Dan Scalpone on vocals.
Their song "Live Like You Wanna Live" is used in the soundtrack to the video game Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
.
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
/indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. One of their most notable tracks is the cult
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
hit "Lotion", a song that pays homage to Buffalo Bill, the fictitious serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
featured in the 1991 film, The Silence of the Lambs. The chorus of "Lotion" comes from Buffalo Bill's most recognizable line of dialogue in the film, that being "it rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again." "Lotion" also came in at #90 in the 2004 Triple J Hottest 100
Triple J Hottest 100, 2004
The 2004 Triple J Hottest 100 was announced on 26 January 2005. It was the twelfth such countdown of the most popular songs of the year, according to listeners of the Australian radio station Triple J....
.
The band made a song for the videogame Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 open world action video game published by Rockstar Games, and developed by British games developer Rockstar North. It has been released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and for the Windows operating system...
called "Vagabond". The song was featured in one of the commercials, in the game itself, and on the soundtrack.
The band was heavily championed by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
DJ John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
, their track "Low & Sweet" appearing in his 2001 Festive Fifty
Festive Fifty
The Festive Fifty was originally an annual list of the year's fifty best songs compiled at the end of the year and voted for by listeners to John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show...
.
Biography
Greenskeepers was founded in 1999 by childhood friends James Curd and Nick Maurer. Their first release was "Whats Your Man Got To Do With Gan" on Classic Records. The stand out song on the EP was "Low and Sweet", which was named one of the "Festive Fifty" by British DJ John PeelJohn Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
.
In early 2001 Maurer and Curd went in the studio together to record the single "Should I Sing Like This?", which became an international club hit. After its success, Maurer moved to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Curd collaborated with many other artists who shared his love of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. This included keyboardist/producer Mark Share, who had three of his songs featured on the Greenskeepers' debut album, The Ziggy Franklin Radio Show. Maurer became a full member in 2004 and Mark Share brought his bassist and life long friend Coban Rudish on board.
The four went in the studio to work on their second album Pleetch, which was released by Classic records in the U.K and OM records in the United States. It featured guest vocalists and included Maurer on two of the songs that he created with the new band on a week long studio trip to his native Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Pleetch was well-received across the music world. The song "Lotion", inspired by the fictional character Buffalo Bill from the film The Silence of the Lambs, was an underground hit. Curd directed a video using the original film footage and uploaded it online. In less than two weeks, the music video for "Lotion" had been downloaded over one million times. Pleetch also had commercial success by licensing songs to T.V and film. "Lotion"," Back In the Wild", and "You Don't Know Me" were all featured on the prime time show Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy is an American medical drama television series created by Shonda Rhimes. The series premiered on March 27, 2005 on ABC; since then, seven seasons have aired. The series follows the lives of interns, residents and their mentors in the fictional Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital in...
. "Slippin" was featured on CSI: Miami
CSI: Miami
CSI: Miami is an American police procedural television series, which premiered on September 23, 2002 on CBS. The series is a spin-off of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation....
, and "Keep It Down" was featured on Point Pleasant
Point Pleasant (TV series)
Point Pleasant is a television series that first aired on the Fox Network in January 2005. It was cancelled in March 2005 due to poor ratings....
.
With a new album, they began touring. This included dates from Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Jerusalem, all the way to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. They toured as a three piece band for all of 2004 and then Maurer moved back to Chicago to rejoin the Greenskeepers and debuted the full four piece band at a Miami music conference in 2005. Billboard called it the stand out performance of the conference.
The Greenskeepers then began working in the studio again, resulting in the two disc album Polo Club
Polo Club
Australian hip hop group, Polo Club, comprises vocalist Dyl Thomas and producer Cameron Chapman. Polo Club is notable for innovating a fresh approach to Hiphop/Beat Making/Ideas/Flows...
, released on OM. The album met with enthusiastic reviews and full marks in magazines around the world. Their version of a Huey Lewis and The News hit song, "I Want A New Drug," which pays overt homage to Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
' song "Closer
Closer to God
"Closer" is a song written by Trent Reznor and featured on the 1994 Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral. In mid-1994, the song was released as the second single from the album. Most versions of the single are titled "Closer to God", a rare example in music of a single's title differing from...
", was featured in the film What Happens in Vegas
What Happens in Vegas
What Happens in Vegas is a 2008 American romantic comedy film from 20th Century Fox starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. The title is based on the marketing catchphrase, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."-Plot:...
.
The band began touring again at some of the most respected clubs and festivals around the world. This included Park life in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, T In the Park in Scotland, Fabric in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Avalon in Los Angeles, Electric Daisy in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and SXSW in the U.S.
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games is a major video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of UK video game publisher BMG Interactive. The brand is mostly known for Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, L.A...
contacted Curd with a request to feature a song on their game Grand Theft Auto 4, which resulted in the song "Vagabond", a collaboration between Share, Curd, Maurer and singer JDub. Rockstar used it for their worldwide T.V. ad campaign.
It was at this time in 2008 that the Greenskeepers name transformed to represent Curd as a solo artist and his collaborations with other musicians. In the summer of 2009, he is due in the studio to work on a new Greenskeepers album featuring many guest vocalists and artists. A new Greenskeepers EP is set to be released soon introducing Dan Scalpone on vocals.
Their song "Live Like You Wanna Live" is used in the soundtrack to the video game Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit may refer to three games:*Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, 1998 video game developed by EA Black Box*Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, 2002 video game developed by EA Black Box...
.
Members
- James Curd - Electro-percussionist
- Nick Maurer - Vocalist
- Coban Rudish - Bassist
- Mark Share - Keyboards
External links
- http://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Curd/115748748453533 Official Facebook Page Of James Curd
- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenskeepers-Official/105267409517788Official Facebook Page Of Greenskeepers