Jonathan Segel (born September 3, 1963) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. He has played with

Camper Van Beethoven Camper Van Beethoven is an American rock band formed in Redlands, California in 1983, later based in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Their style mixes elements of pop, ska, punk rock, folk, alternative country, and world music. The band ini ...

, Sparklehorse,

Eugene Chadbourne Eugene Chadbourne (born January 4, 1954) is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic. Life and career Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twe ...

, and Dieselhed.

Early life and education

Segel was born in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fran ...

, France, and grew up in

Davis, California Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Da ...

and

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive ...

. His parents, both professors at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, were biochemist Irwin H. Segel and microbiologist Wiltraud Pfeiffer. Segel went to college at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

, where he studied under Peter Elsea and experimental music pioneer Gordon Mumma. He later obtained a master's degree in

music composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called c ...

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was r ...

, studying with

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock ...

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Ce ...

, Alvin Curran and Joëlle Léandre.

Musical career

Segel joined the

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

group

in 1984, while in college at Santa Cruz. His contributions as violinist became the band's hallmark, creating a distinctive identity and sound. Personality conflicts with frontman David Lowery caused Segel to leave the band in 1989, prior to its 1990 breakup. Ten years later, Segel returned at Lowery's invitation when the group reunited. He has remained a member of the revived group . During the period from 1989 to 1997, Segel was based in San Francisco, where he formed the experimental band Hieronymus Firebrain, which dissolved and reformed as Jack & Jill. He joined Dieselhed in 1989, and appeared on their 1993 self-titled debut album. He recorded or performed with projects such as Granfaloon Bus, Sideways, and Virginia Dare, and with

. From 1997 to 2001, in Los Angeles, Segel worked with sound editor Dane Davis at Danetracks, a film sound post-production facility. During this time, he performed and toured with Sparklehorse, Clyde Wrenn, Magnet, and Eugene Chadbourne, among others, in addition to Camper Van Beethoven. Segel returned to the Bay Area in 2001, where he taught music theory and

electronic music Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...

at the College of Marin and

Ohlone College Ohlone College (Ohlone or OC) is a public community college with its main campus in Fremont, California and a second campus in Newark. It is part of the California Community College System. The Ohlone Community College District serves the ci ...

until 2009, and worked for

Pandora In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: , derived from , ''pān'', i.e. "all" and , ''dōron'', i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving") was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hes ...

from 2009 to 2012. In 2012, Segel moved to Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and daughter. Segel has collaborated since 2014 with the Copenhagen-based improvisational group Øresund Space Collective. In addition to the revived Camper Van Beethoven, Segel records solo projects and leads the Jonathan Segel band, performs improvisational electronic or avant-garde music (either solo or, since 2004, with Chaos Butterfly), and he is an occasional contributor to music from the Big City Orchestra. His compositions have also included six chamber music scores written between 1989 and 2011.

Partial discography

Solo recordings

* ''Storytelling'' (1988) * ''Edgy Not Antsy'' (2003) * ''Honey'' (2007) * ''All Attractions'' (2012) * ''Apricot Jam'' (2012) * ''Shine Out'' (2014) * "Superfluity" (2017)

Electronic and electro-acoustic solo projects

* ''Non-Linear Accelerator'' (2003) * ''Rauk'' (2005) * ''Amnesia/Glass Box'' (2005) * ''Summerleaf'' (2006) * ''Underwater Tigers'' (2007)

Selected side projects

Hieronymus Firebrain

* ''Hieronymus Firebrain'' (1991) * ''Dr. Firebrain's Plane Crash Tape, Vol. 1'' (1993) * ''There'' (1994) * ''Here'' (1994)

Jack and Jill

* ''Chill and Shrill'' (1995) * ''Fancy Birdhouse'' (1997) * ''Scissors and Paper'' (2000)

Chaos Butterfly

* ''Live at Studio Fabriken'' (2005) – live in Gothenburg, Sweden, with Biggi Vinkeloe * ''threelivingthings'' (2005) * ''Radio'' (2005)

References

External links

*
Official website
for recorded music
Jonathan Segel
at

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

Magnetic Motorworks
– recording label (1993–2011) co-founded with

Victor Krummenacher Victor Krummenacher is an American bass guitarist and guitarist. He is a founding member of alternative rock band Camper Van Beethoven. Career In addition to co-founding Camper Van Beethoven, Krummenacher is also a co-founder of CVB offshoot ...

Jonathan Segel collection
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

's live music archive * {{DEFAULTSORT:Segel, Jonathan 1963 births Living people Musicians from California American male violinists Experimental composers Male classical composers 20th-century American composers Camper Van Beethoven members Dieselhed members 21st-century American violinists 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Mills College alumni