Jon Monday

Chrysalis Records and the CBS Distribution Transition (1982 - 1983)

After shutting down the Visual Programming division, Chrysalis president Sal Licata appointed Monday as Head of Marketing, reporting to Licata. In this capacity, Monday coordinated the promotion, PR, sales, and marketing departments for new releases and tours. He was working with established act like Pat Benetar, Blondie, Huey Lewis, and Billy Idol. The first record Monday worked on was Toni Basil's single "Mickey." Alongside Vice President of Sales Stan Layton, Monday coordinated regional retail tracking and radio promotion. The campaign to the press, retail, and radio pushed "Mickey" to achieved the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 11, 1982.

Despite having a catalog of multi-platinum acts, in late December 1982, Chrysalis' owners announced that they pulled the label from independent distribution and entered into a distribution agreement with CBS Records, effective immediately. The structural shift was part of a broader, industry-wide economic consolidation during the 1979–1983 recession, which forced major independent labels, including A&M, Arista, and Motown, to switch from the independent regional network of distributors to major label distribution.

The transition resulted in the immediate termination of approximately 80% of the label's domestic staff, including executive leadership such as President Sal Licata and VP of Sales Stan Layton. Monday was one of 10 employees retained by the company to help execute the transition. Monday's role was to plug into the marketing arm of CBS, prompting a relocation to New York City in early 1983.

At the first meeting with his counterparts at CBS to discuss the upcoming tours and new releases, which would require support at all levels: national and local secondary radio markets and in-store merchandising support. The same functions previously done by the network of Independent Distributors. At the first meeting with his counterparts at CBS, Monday laid out the new release and tour schedule, and outlined the support that would be needed. The guys from CBS said, "We're not doing any of that. We'll get your records into the stores, but that's it." It was a great shock. Monday reported the exchange to the acting president, who said the owners would take care of it. Monday resigned from Chrysalis a month later - believing it was likely the end of the label.

Work with Huston Smith

Monday's work with Huston Smith yielded two DVDs, The Roots of Fundamentalism, in 2006 with Phil Cousineau interviewing Huston about the genesis of modern Christian Fundamentalism, which came into existence around 1900 in reaction to modern scholarship into the origin of the biblical scriptures, which raised questions about who really wrote them and when they were written. The second DVD was from 2012, The Arc of Life: Huston Smith on Life, Death & Beyond, was Huston being interviewed by noted American gerontologist and psychologist, Ken Dychtwald. In 2015, Monday released a biographical documentary video about Smith's association with Vedanta and how it impacted his life and career.

In tribute to Huston Smith, Monday received donations to research and restore the original 16mm films of Huston Smith's TV series from the 1950s that ran on National Educational Television (NET), the precursor of PBS. Most of the episodes of The Religions of Man, were located in the archive of the Washington University in St. Louis. A few missing episodes were found in the Library of Congress. Most of the episodes of Smith's second NET series, Search for America, were also found and digitized. Permission for public viewing was granted by all the original stakeholders: KETC, Washington University, NET (via WNET the successor), and the Smith family. The archive includes both NET television series: Religions of Man and Search for America