Jon Monday

Jon Monday (born in San Jose, California in 1947) is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, Chalmers Johnson, and Charles Bukowski. He is also President of Benchmark Recordings, which owns and distributes the early catalog of The Fabulous Thunderbirds CDs and a live recording of Mike Bloomfield.

Monday got his start in multimedia through his own psychedelic light-show company in the Bay Area in the sixties, providing visuals for concerts by Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin's Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Steve Miller's Blues Band at local Berkeley, California venues and The Fillmore in San Francisco.

In 1970, Monday was hired by John Fahey at Takoma Records in Santa Monica, working with guitar artists such as Leo Kottke, John Fahey, Mike Bloomfield, and Peter Lang. Eventually, he became Takoma's Vice President and General Manager, and also provided art direction, engineering, and/or produced albums by such artists as George Winston, Norman Blake, Peter Rowan, Jim Kweskin, Maria Muldaur, Loudon Wainwright III, and Joseph Byrd.

In 1979, Fahey sold Takoma Records to a new company formed by music business attorney Bill Coben, veteran producer/manager Denny Bruce, and Chrysalis Records. Monday continued with the new company as General Manager. During that time, Takoma signed and released albums by The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Canned Heat, and T-Bone Burnett.

Eventually Monday was brought into Chrysalis Records as its Director of Marketing, working with Blondie, Jethro Tull, Huey Lewis, Pat Benatar, Billy Idol, and Toni Basil.

In 1984, Monday relocated to Silicon Valley and had a 2nd career

 as an executive in various software and high-tech companies, including co-founder (with music research pioneer Larry Heller) and President of MusicWriter, a kiosk-based retail system for the on-site manufacturing and distribution of MIDI files and sheet music. He also held senior management positions or consulted with major 3rd party video game publishers, such as Epyx, Eidos Interactive, and Capcom. He was also Vice President of PlayNet, working with founder Nolan Bushnell.

Monday retired and moved to the San Diego area in 2004 and launched two labels: mondayMEDIA and GemsTone; producing, directing, and distributing original and archival material.

In 2006 Monday brought together many notable recording artists and produced The Revenge of Blind Joe Death: The John Fahey Tribute Album, which was released on the Takoma Records label, distributed by Fantasy Records. Participating artists included, George Winston, Michael Gulezian, Alex de Grassi, Country Joe McDonald, Peter Lang, Stefan Grossman, Rick Ruskin, and Canned Fish (a one-time collaboration between Canned Heat members Adolfo de la Parra ("Fito") and Larry Taylor, and Country Joe and the Fish member Barry "The Fish" Melton).

Monday is currently working on two feature-length documentaries: Save KLSD: Media Consolidation and Radio and an authorized biographical documentary about the life, career, and impact of world religions scholar Huston Smith.

He also maintains an active relationship with Bob Citelli's @Sales & Marketing, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, working with a variety of companies to establish distribution and assist with sales and marketing efforts.