The Shark Club Dives Into Kirkland Nightlife

----------------------------------------------------------------- Club preview

Get Off The Stage, The Shark Club, 52 Lakeshore Plaza, Kirkland, tonight, 9:30 p.m. Cover, $5. 889-9000. -----------------------------------------------------------------

As most Eastsiders know, there's a slew of popular watering holes circling Kirkland's downtown and waterfront areas, from the decades-old Central Tavern, Smokie Jo's and the original sports bar Hectors to relative newcomers like DaVinci's, Pelican's Wharf and The Roaster House.

The newest entry into these waters, The Shark Club, is housed in what used to be one of the oldest Kirkland stopping spots, The Flame, which was also briefly The French Quarter. But any resemblance to either now is strictly accidental.

The Shark opened for pool and brew last year and it has done very well. The crowd is young, and the place is busy, especially on weekends. With the warm weather, some of the pool tables have been moved outside.

The upstairs recently opened with even more pool tables and games, and in the main room a stage was built for the bands that began playing two weekends ago.

The Shark has been alternating Friday and Saturday nights with rock, R&B and reggae. Tonight it's rock, R&B, funk and anything else the 14-piece Get Off The Stage decides it wants to do.

Get Off The Stage has been together roughly 15 years. That it came together at all was an accident, says de facto leader and drummer Steve Thompson.

"A bunch of us were sitting around one afternoon having some beers and reminiscing about each of our teenage-band days. When we were kids, everybody had a band for about two weeks. We were laughing about the equipment we still had stashed in our parent's attics. So we decided to bring it out and maybe get together once a week to play instead of bowling or softball or darts. Then we started playing parties for our buddies and from there it just took off."

The band doesn't play out often, about six to eight times a year. "We like squishing all 14 people onto that little stage at the Central in Pioneer Square, and of course it'll be nice playing the Eastside. And we always work some Christmas parties. We never expected we'd be doing this 15 years after we started, but it's not like a job, so we keep doing it."

Thompson and several other members attended Shoreline High School in the early '60s.

"The North End was a hotbed of band activity in the early '60s," Thompson says. "All kinds of bands like Merilee Rush, The Viceroys, some of (Paul Revere and) the Raiders, Jim Valley, Springfield Rifle, Jimmy Hanna, all kinds of bands. And as we rolled into the early '70s there were plenty of places to play. The G Note, The Rainbow, The Warehouse, The Walrus, Parker's when it the Aquarius, Parker's when it was Parker's. . .

"There were lots of us baby boomers and we drank lots of beer and played. Things were good. Of course, we all got older, got jobs, couldn't drink that much beer anymore and stayed home so all of those places eventually closed except for the Square. But it was still fun."

For Thompson and company it still is. They keep it fresh by really mixing up the list: a core of Northwest R&B along with hit tunes from the last four decades, Neville Brothers things, instrumentals, all manner of funk and more.

For the record, the current 14-member line up is: drummer Thompson; vocalists Gil Rene, Jana Swenson and Paul Minden; lead guitarist Frank Cartensen; rhythm guitarist Mark Strom ; bassist Jim Brandt; keyboard player Tom Loewen; percussionist Gary Jarr; and horn players Dave Dewey, Don Venetti, Craig Daly, Dave Willeiksen and Carlos the Jackal.