Born September 3rd 1963, grew up in Davis, California (with a couple years' side trip to Tucson, AZ.), went to college at UCSC in Santa Cruz, CA, studying with Gordon Mumma and Peter Elsea. In Santa Cruz he hooked up with Camper Van Beethoven, apparently or life. He moved up to San Francisco in 1989, moved to Los Angeles in 1997 to work for Dane Davis at Danetracks, a film sound post production facility, then back to Oakland in 2001, where received a Master's Degree in Music Composition at Mills College, studying with Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, and Joelle Leandre.
While in Santa Cruz, he played with Camper Van Beethoven, Eugene Chadbourne and various other semi-musical projects, while in SF with Sideways, Virginia Dare, Granfaloon Bus, Dieselhed and his own bands Hieronymus Firebrain which dissolved and reformed as Jack and Jill, which later led to various records of rock music under his own name. While in Los Angeles, besides doing shows with Eugene Chadbourne, he played with Clyde Wrenn (as Clyde Wrenn and the Container), with Mike Marrt's Beaumont, occaisonal shows with Mark Goodman's group, Magnet, and spent a great deal of time touring the globe with Mark Linkous' group, Sparklehorse.
Upon return to the Bay Area, Jonathan has been playing rock shows with his own eponymous band, as well as a reformed and revitalized Camper Van Beethoven. A new Camper Van Beethoven cd will be out in the fall of 2004. In addition to this, a self-ostracization from Los Angeles and the film and music industries led Jonathan back to the world of improv and electronic music, and he has been performing improvised music for instruments and computer around the world for the past few years, including shows in the SF Bay Area, New York, Europe and Japan.
2003 saw the cd release of several improv collaborations with notable artists such as Fred Frith and Joelle Leandre, and with Shoko Hikage, and one electronic music cd.
He has also been composing music for the Nesting Dolls Dance Company since 1992, and has composed music for Curt Haworth's Dance Company, and Maxine Moerman