There's a golden rule of seeing music live that says that all music sounds better in the gloaming of a warm summer evening. Nothing quite matches the experience of laying back on the grass as the stars reveal their centuries old light to the naked eye and listening to your favourite songs. I…

The legend of Belle Starr's been inspiring creativity for a century now: there's been dime store novels by too many authors to name, movies and songs from artists like Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler that have riffed on the Texas outlaw's tale.

I'm loathe to miss a good show, but sometimes fortune doesn't shine kindly. The phenomenon known as Shovels & Rope last played Vancouver on August 2nd of 2012, the same night as the phenomenon called Wagons was playing at the Railway Club. We make our choices and I chose the Wagons--a good choice too, since the show I did go to was pretty killer. Sometimes,…

The show had just started when the text message came in from a singer/songwriter friend: "Drinking game: everytime Billy Bragg expresses a political opinion, do a shot." This elicited a solid chuckle from the group of friends I was sitting with at Vancouver's Vogue Theatre watching Billy Bragg on stage. We were about three songs into the set and it's fair to say that…