Enjoy top-notch comedy and musical improv with Ad Libretto, along with each week’s featured artist.
This week’s guest is songwriter/pianist Simon Kendall.
Doors open at 7 for mingling and complimentary refreshments; the show begins at 7:30. Tix $10/each, kids 12 and under free, and maximum charge is $25/family.
Please inquire in advance regarding group and student rates at 604-987-2114 or info@fnlnorthvan.com
Simon Kendall was born in Wicklow County, Ireland and moved to Vancouver with his family at the age of six. He grew up on a diet of classical music interspersed with the suburban folk of the Kingston Trio and the twisted offerings of The Goons and Tom Lehrer. In the mid-sixties he fell off his high horse, trading the baroque for blues and the beatles, and his french horn for a bass guitar. He played in several psychedelic teenage hippie bands at be-ins and coffee houses in Vancouver culminating in creating music for the notorious 1969 Arts Club Theatre production of ‘The Beard’ which was busted for gross indecency.
In the early seventies, the transition from halcyon hippie days to the reality of playing bottom 40 music in Hastings St. strip clubs sent Mr. Kendall screaming into the hills. Literally. For several seasons he planted trees in B.C.’s hinterland, using his hard-earned cash to support explorations into underground film-making in Montreal and partially finance an NFB documentary on treeplanting life ‘Do it with Joy’ in 1977.
In 1978 Simon got the call to join his old music buddies and transplanted Toronto graphic artist Doug Bennett in Vancouver’s upstart indie band ‘Doug and the Slugs’. This lead to 15 years as the band’s music director and goofy gargantuan keyboardist. They released 4 gold albums and performed from New York to the North Pole as one of the decade’s premier Canadian touring acts. Their independent 1979 single ‘Too Bad’ took the band by surprise by charting across the country and has been reborn in 1999 as the theme song for NBC’S’ The Norm Show’.
During a band hiatus in 1989, Simon returned to his pre-slug roots in film and theatre, music-directing plays and composing for film and TV. He won a Jessie Award for outstanding musical direction of ‘Herringbone’ in 1991 and shared the best musical score Genie Award with co-composer Al Rodger for ‘Cadillac Girls’ in 1993. The following year he retired from the band to pursue a full-time freelance career. He recently formed the instrumental R&B group ‘Sharkskin’ with three members of the Odds, and currently divides his time between composing, producing and performing.
