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Jon Campbell

Agent-manager-promoter-and-then-some returnee to Toronto after a decade in Beijing

About Me

arriving in Beijing in late summer 2000 with no idea of how to put his ma in China Studies to use other than studying mandarin, jon campbell used his extra-curricular time to join a string of bands and discover the local music world. before his arrival in beijing, he had been a writer, drummer, radio dj and program director in sackville, new brunswick canada; in seattle, washington, usa, he was also on the radio at the station currently known as KEXP (it was kcmu then). until his departure from beijing in late 2010, he had been many things there: drummer, writer, promoter, booster, observer, chronicler, agent and then some.

his work continues in toronto canada.

beginning in 2000 campbell began writing more and more about the music that he loved, hated, and loved to hate, contributing to many media outlets including: south china morning post, the wire, paste magazine, the globe and mail, the toronto star, the ‘foreign devil’ column at popmatters.com, and more.

he began organising events under the name YGTwo in 2005, but had been putting on shows in beijing and around china since 2002. he started the time arts jazz series at peking university in 2005. he was the foreign affairs director at the midi music festival in 2006 and 2007, worked with the inmusic and nine gates festivals. he's appeared in many documentaries, reports, books, articles, theses and international music conferences.

campbell played with many beijing-based bands, most recently with space-plus rockers RandomK(e), whose debut album was released in march, 2009 and blooze outfit black cat bone, who released their debut album in november 2008.

campbell is hard at work on what he hopes will be the book on chinese rock; certainly it will, at least, be a book on chinese rock, and it is scheduled for worldwide release in the fall of 2011 on earnshaw books.