Sharing the Stage: learning from experience

By Juli Goetz Morser • February 28, 2017 1:30 am
Left to right: Students Joziah Cladoosby, Chick Webb and Isaiah Montemayor of Ouch Pouch rehearse for Sharing the Stage. They will open for Seattle band Tacocat Friday at the Red Bike. (Harris Levinson Photo)
Left to right: Students Joziah Cladoosby, Chick Webb and Isaiah Montemayor of Ouch Pouch rehearse for Sharing the Stage. They will open for Seattle band Tacocat Friday at the Red Bike. (Harris Levinson Photo)

If, as the proverb states, experience is the best teacher, then the community-building organization Sharing the Stage provides invaluable schooling for aspiring youth musicians. Hosting its 13th show on Vashon and 15th overall, Sharing the Stage (STS) will give Vashon High School (VHS) students another chance to learn what it is like to perform in a professional setting when they open for the headline Seattle surf-punk-pop band Tacocat at 8 p.m. Friday at the Red Bike.

The youth acts will include Twice Nice, Ouch Pouch, Petrichor, Giacomo “Kuz” Kuzma, Max Moore and James McCracken. Many of the musicians will perform original songs. After successfully auditioning for a spot with STS, the students have received feedback and help with their performances by island composer, record producer and keyboardist Jason Staczek.

VHS student Maijah Sanson Frey is a veteran of STS and one of the first musicians to perform while still in middle school. Her new band is Twice Nice.

“While I’ve had lots of performing experience, STS has really helped shape my musicianship in the way that mentors give advice and critique along the way. Not often do I get listeners to constructively criticize my music,” she said. “It’s also awesome getting to open for musicians who are older and more developed because it shows what can be down the road if I keep working on my music,” she said.

STS is the brainchild of islanders Rob Bordner, Harris Levinson and Fred Strong, who conceived the idea in 2009. The first band to play with students was Visqueen in 2009, followed by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis in 2010. Other headliners have included Blue Scholars, Tangerine and Brothers From Another, among others.

As for this year’s band, Tacocat is garnering acclaim around the region, with the band’s third record voted No. 12 on KEXP’s top 90.3 albums of the year. KEXP wrote that the album “is an excellent set of punkish power-pop with crunchy, occasionally surfy guitars, energetic rhythms, sugary melodies and often-biting, wickedly humorous lyrics skewering sexism and other societal ills while celebrating friends and good times.”

Tickets are $15 for adults and $7 for students and are only available online at brownpapertickets.org or by contacting Harris Levinson at Vashon High School. No tickets will be sold at the door.