The Name
Saint Monday is a fictitious holiday invented by skilled artisans in 1600s Europe who would work all week and get paid on Saturday, drink and make merry through Sunday, and often keep the party going strong into the following Monday if the wine lasted that long. To anyone who questioned why they weren’t at work, they would say they were “observing the feast of Saint Monday“.
Saint Monday the band was born in a beer garden in Marin County, where the food, drink, music, and merriment are a daily way of life. It’s a place where the skilled artisans of today can work hard, play hard, and keep our spirits lifted. The band’s name is a reminder to enjoy your time, connect with good people, and never forget the humanity all around us.
Workers’ Strike Back
There is a workers’ rights dimension to the idea of Saint Monday that’s interesting to consider. It became popular after the Black Death killed roughly half the population of Europe, and significantly changed the relationship between the working class and the ruling class. With so many workers gone, labor became much more valuable, and workers could negotiate for better hours and pay than they could have ever dreamed of before. Deciding not to come in on Monday is a rebellious middle finger to bosses everywhere, and it was made possible at this time because there were so few people available to do so much work.
We saw this re-negotiation happen again in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, where workers in massive numbers decided to stay home rather than endanger the lives of themselves and their families for an hourly wage. Those wages, which had remained basically unchanged in 30 years and hadn’t kept pace with the cost of living, were revealed as the gross insult when compared to the danger of contracting a deadly virus. Again, workers en masse flipped a middle finger to their bosses until companies had no choice but to raise wages, offer benefits, and improve the conditions of work.
The Wages of Love
Ted’s musical awakening started in junior high and high school in the late ’80s early ’90s when the alternative scene and grunge revolution signaled a a corrective shift away from the superficial and materialistic vibe of the1980s to a focus on simplicity, anti-capitalism, do it yourself, and intensely authentic human relationships. Stripped down gritty guitars, soulful vocals, and punk energy replaced the bloated fake soundalike hair bands that hogged the charts then. He’d sneak out of bed to watch 120 Minutes after midnight to see grainy surrealistic videos from pasty white Brits with jangly phased guitars, crowned with clouds of reverb. He had a thriving side hustle of copied cassette tapes across school with the tastiest sounds around.
So What is Saint Monday?
We’re trying to capture the excitement, the romance, the immediacy of this golden age of alternative music right now in the present. We’re trying to be the soundtrack to your endless nights carousing, your days ditching work, and baking in a sunny afternoon by the Bay intertwined with someone warm and willing.
Further Reading
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-14/history-of-the-weekend-work-sunday-trading/12868460
