Trip Diaries

San Francisco Trip – Pre-Trip

Well I’m headed off to San Francisco in less than an hour, and I realized that this not only is my first real “business trip” but also it’s the first time I’ve really gone anywhere I’ve never been before by myself. For me being a type J, this is quite intimidating. I’m excited to see …

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Common Shiner

Common Shiner in the GR Press

Check it out, my band Common Shiner was featured in the Grand Rapids Press weekly music column called “In Your Ear.” Here it is: Common Shiner strives for style, universal appeal Thursday, August 03, 2006 By Rachael Recker The Grand Rapids Press GRAND RAPIDS — Common Shiner takes the commonplace and makes it unique. Whether …

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Song Lyrics

Too Many Metaphors

Newer song. I will confess it’s quasi-inspired by the Office Season 2 finale. Too Many Metaphors Longing to say the words that always felt so wrong from my lips All the things that we could be, and all the reasons it can’t be this But I can’t move, I may never walk again Please don’t …

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Common Shiner

GR Press Review

Another review we go for our new CD. The music: The folk-rock approach of Grand Rapids’ Common Shiner might most resemble the music of Barenaked Ladies but also plows new ground with distinctive tunes that “highlight the beauty found in the common experience we all share.” Taken from the Grand Rapids Press. The least informative …

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Trip Diaries

Finally a New Post, Vancouver Day 12

Well, I’m finally updating. After posting almost daily while in Vancouver, it was weird to not have a chance to post all last week. I got back and my band had a CD Release party (you can buy this CD on www.cdbaby.com/commonshiner if you’re interested) in downtown GR that took a lot of setting up …

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Trip Diaries

Vancouver Trip – Day 11

My last full day in Vancouver. Even though this trip did go by pretty fast, I do feel like I’ve been here a while. It’s also been nice to be here long enough that we could have some chill out time, and not worry too much about trying to cram everything in in a certain …

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Trip Diaries

Vancouver Trip – Day 10

Well now that there’s 5 people in the apartment, I was relegated to the air matress instead of the sofa. However, all five of us slept in until about 11, which was almost 10 hours of sleep for all of us. So there wasn’t much breakfast time, as it was basically already lunch when we …

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Trip Diaries

Vancouver Trip – Day 9

Well the usual sleeping in, reading, and lounging in the morning. Then we headed off to a place called Moderne Burger that I mentioned in day 8 (mainly because we tried to go there in Day 8, but were unsuccessful. It closes at 7:45pm for some reason. Weird). So I’d heard a lot about this …

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Trip Diaries

Vancouver Trip – Day 8

Day 8 was actually quite wonderful, in the laid back just hanging out with Ryan and Jacqui sense. We didn’t really do much sight seeing or any kind of stuff like that but just basically hung out all day. It was great. We ate lunch at Mongolian Barbecue, which may have been one of the …

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Trip Diaries

Vancouver Trip – Day 7

Well I don’t know what happened, but Day 2 disappeared for some reason, and I don’t really feel like recreating it. I really have no idea what happened to it. So to sum up, on Day 2 we drove around for a while and had 24 hour theatre. Well not too much to talk about …

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