Press Roundup

In the hours leading up to Red Rock‘s Toronto launch on SATURDAY MARCH 24 1-4pm at the Gladstone Hotel (and at Facebook, here), herewith, a rundown of the not insubstantial, if we do say so ourselves, recent coverage the book has picked up:

Metro on jWc’s Toronto book launch

An Asia Society interview with jWc reposted on the Atlantic‘s website

An audio interview recorded after a talk to the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club on Forbes Magazine’s website.

Shanghai Talk on jWc’s Shanghai International Literary Festival appearance.

Bookclub In a Box talks to jWc.

Open Book Toronto on jWc’s workspace in the “At the Desk” column.

The Toronto Standard interviewed jWc.

The Toronto Reference Library blog’s detailed yaogun 101 entry in advance of jWc’s talk there in February.

An account of jWc’s talk at the Toronto Reference Library at Other Peoples Books.

See you at the Gladstone Hotel, Toronto-based yaogunners!

From Motherland, back to Homeland

A long, intense, strange trip, which, in classic fashion, ended before our hero could properly blog about it. Alas…

You were last left in the Shanghai region, where, many time zones ago, I spoke to Lit Fest audiences and university students alike. Then it was on to Beijing, where awaited the Bookworm International Literary Festival. First, though, two audiences, one of grades 6-8, another of 9-12, at the Canadian International School of Beijing seemed to be more taken by yaogun than I’d given them credit for. At the Bookworm, I participated in the Pop-Up Magazine event, in which I provided the gathered readers of the Beijinger magazine a bit of a quick look at whence the yaogun of the magazine’s pages came. The blooze-rock outfit I left behind, Black Cat Bone, reunited for one last gig, as did, in a new form, my other former band, RandomK(e), with a late-nite/early-morning fiesta at the best little rock club in the world, 2 Kolegas

Continue reading “From Motherland, back to Homeland”

Still in the Motherland…

Red Rock‘s first China event, at the Shanghai International Literary Festival was, in no small part thanks to the man with the guitar, below, a rousing success.

Continue reading “Still in the Motherland…”

Back in the Motherland…

Ladies in Gentlemen, I present to you: Shanghai in a Nutshell.

Our hero arrives, thanks to the good graces of the Canadian Consulate, off of a fourteen hour plane ride just dazed enough to get himself to the Death Cab For Cutie show, to finally get a chance to see one of our hero’s musical heroes.

Said concert leads to the invitation to not only check out this band:

…but to do so from the corporate boxes of the Mercedes Benz Arena, one of the slickest and, because of what it represents to the future of the industry, most important arenas in the world.

In said corporate boxes, sipping freely- and eagerly-poured hootch, our hero receives an invitation to address a group – nay, the group – of foreign correspondents on the virtues, vices, venality and, yes, sure, venerability of yaogun, the subject that has brought him back to the People’s Republic, a subject that kept him in the People’s Republic and the subject about which he has spent approximately a fraction of his time thus far expounding upon.

Meanwhile, he has Brunched like the Expat Kings of Olde Shanghai

at the legendary dining room overlooking the colonial past of the city and toward, across the river, at its future – and, if our hero was being honest, and excited, and one to prognosticate on such matters, the future of the world – thanks to the good people at the Shanghai International Literary Festival, who have invited him to squeeze in what was an exciting and engaging conversation with his publisher, Old China Hand, proto-yaogunner, and much more on the topic of how Chinese rock music has come to this point into an otherwise packed schedule.

(Oh yes, and our hero did, in fact, make it into local rock institution Yuyintang to catch local rockers the Fever Machine outrawk Beijingers Steely Heart, so there was, in fact, some yaogun in these, his first hours in-country)

Ladies and gentlemen: Pay attention to this part of the world. Magical things happen.

More to come, including jaunts into the university system, a return to the Capital, and more…

Red Rock: The Toronto Launch

Witness the global power of rock ‘n’ roll as three insiders from the front lines of China’s explosive rock music movement talk about the musical phenomenon Yaogun and rock’s impact on the cultural transformation of China. Join music journalist and ALDTV host Al Di as he talks with Nova Heart’s lead singer, Helen Feng and author Jonathan Campbell at the launch of Campbell’s book, Red Rock, The Long, Strange March of Chinese Rock & Roll. This special afternoon TINARSevent features rare performances by two Beijing bands, Shanren and Nova Heart who appear courtesy of Canadian Music Week. Presented by This Is Not a Reading Series, the Gladstone Hotel, YGTwo Productions and The Toronto Review of Books

 

Details:
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Gladstone Hotel, Main Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West
Special Afternoon Show Doors open at 1 pm; Event begins at 1:30 pm
Admission is $5 or FREE with purchase of a book

Facebookers: Join the event here

For more info:
Jonathan Campbell at jon AT jonathanWcampbell (dot) com
This Is Not A Reading Series: Anna Withrow awithrow AT rogers (dot) com

 Before all this goes down, Campbell will be on a China Tour of Unprecedented Proportions. Details are here, and also here.