Bio.
A longtime member of New York City's indie-pop underground, Dave Jay Gerstein (aka, Dave Jay), working under the moniker The Sound of Monday, builds a bridge between past and present, pulling from the classic sounds of his heroes — from The Beatles and The Beach Boys to XTC and the MGM movie musical. The result is an outside-the-box theatrical approach to forward-thinking indie pop, with songs that find room for more than just the classic sounds of electric guitars and harmony vocals. Touches of horns, woodwinds and strings create the chamber pop sounds reminiscent of many of his past and present influences, and add a new dimension to his longtime blend of hooks, humor, and adventurous arrangements.
Dave Jay began writing songs at age 9, aspiring to be the 5th Monkee, eventually creating his own personal musical category, summed up onomato-poetically as, J’Blammo Pop! He smirkingly states, “Hey, come up with your own name, you’ve got your own genre!”.
The Sound Of Monday began in mid-1990s New York City, championed by the likes of Danny Weinkauf (They Might Be Giants), Brandon Wilde and Len Monachello (This Way), and Charles Newman (The Magnetic Fields). Since those glory days, Dave Jay’s production company and record label, Insightful Entertainment, has carried the torch, releasing a fury of TSOM singles, EPs and LPs. For Dave Jay, these releases mark a continuation of a career rooted in musical ingredients that never grow old: ageless melodies, constant innovation, and an indie sensibility, while simultaneously reflecting Insightful Entertainment’s mission to “Raise Joy, Lift Spirits, & Inspire Insights”.
Raised on 20th Century music ranging from the Great American Songbook to 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s Pop, and comedians like Mel Brooks, Steve Martin, and Peter Sellers, Dave Jay grew up with an appreciation for clever lyrics and even smarter songs. "I listened to everything from Irving Berlin to Buddy Holly, The Kinks to Adrian Belew," he remembers. "The common denominator between all those artists was a willingness to add these surprising, unexpected turns — lyrically, melodically, and structurally — to their songs. There's a similar element of surprise in comedy, where you're being led down one road and suddenly you take a left-hand turn. That always excites me." A budding musician and stand-up comic, he interned at Saturday Night Live in college, developing a reputation for sliding jokes under Dennis Miller's door, and hanging out with original cast SNL writers like Tom Schiller and Tom Davis. Although he'd later become a Finalist in the Connecticut Comedy Festival (which aired on PBS), Dave Jay soon folded his comedic chops into his true calling: music.
The Sound of Monday began with a classifieds ad in the Village Voice. "I was looking for bandmates, so I listed a bunch of my influences at the top of the ad: Beatles, Squeeze, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Aimee Mann, Robyn Hitchcock," Dave Jay remembers. The first person to respond was Danny Weinkauf, who would go on to become a Grammy-winning member of They Might Be Giants. The two became friends, and when Dave Jay went into the recording studio to record The Sound of Monday's debut album, Weinkauf joined him on bass.
While Dave Jay continues to write and record new music, he’s also expanded into acting. After years of local, regional, children’s and dinner theater, as well as extra and industrial TV gigs, Dave Jay entered the New York International Fringe Festival in 2008 and won Outstanding Solo Show for johnpaulgeorgeringo, an entirely improvised one-man show in which he smoothly morphs between an impersonation of all four members of the Beatles. Dave Jay took the acclaimed show on the road, even performing it during "Beatles Week" at the band's original stomping grounds: The World Famous Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. Back in the US, he continued to earn accolades with his own music over subsequent years, landing a spot on ABC-TV's The View, where Barbara Walters remarked, “Dave Jay Gerstein--we just want you to remember the name.”
The Sound of Monday’s songs have been licensed for shows like MTV’s The Osbournes, and indie projects, such as filmmaker, Alejandro Montoya Marin’s latest film, The Unexpecteds. Plus, Dave Jay was tapped to pen a bunch of kids tunes for BMG’s Push Pop Jr. label.
The Sound of Monday’s newest slated release, The Ballad of Peter Parker, a hook-laden pop/rock romp that cleverly conveys the backstory of Spiderman’s secret identity in just over 2 rip-roaring minutes, features XTC’s Dave Gregory who provides his signature thrilling melodic lead guitar runs-n-riffs. Following up their renowned cover of the Spiderman Theme, which has garnered 16 million streams to date and counting, with over 1 billion uses on TikTok, TSOM tapped the talents of Producer Michael Bergman along with the happy horns of Indofunk Satish on trumpet, Stefan Zeniuk on saxes, and Len Monachello on bop-bam-boom bass and drums, with Co-Producer and front man, Dave Jay’s character-distinct vocal styling on lead and harmonies.
With a slew of releases coming down the pike throughout the balance of 2024 and beyond, stay tuned for an abundance of new content, live shows, fun surprises, and the hi-jinx musical adventure that ensues!