The Billie Burke Estate is essentially a one-man recording project put together by Seattle’s Andy Liotta with the help of drummer Zak Schaffer. The Estate’s second album, entitled Let Your Heart Break, is a collection of smart, upbeat pop songs with a decidedly retro feel.

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By this stage in his career, a new record from Billy Bragg is like a visit from a long lost friend: it’s great to get a fresh new perspective on all the things that made you like him in the beginning, but you also get to see all the little details that led to the estrangement in the first place.

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Today, Virgin Mobile announced a tentative lineup for the third annual Virgin Festival, scheduled to be held over the weekend of September 6 and 7 at Toronto Island Park.

So far, only 10 bands have been announced, including Foo Fighters, Oasis, ex-Jam singer Paul Weller, the Constantines and the Weakerthans. In past years, the festival has offered dozens of acts performing on multiple stages, so expect many more bands to be added to this list some time after all the tickets have sold out.

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Somewhere along the line, someone in Philadelphia’s Man Man must’ve accidentally spun Swordfish Trombones at 45 RPM and gotten hooked on the sound. For the uninitiated, imagine if you will a mix of Tom Waits, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart pureed in a blender, filtered through punk sensibility, served up on a platter of childlike wonder with unbridled exuberance and recorded in bayou juke-joint in the forties. That’s Man Man for you.

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The Emerald Isle has given us many great bands - U2, the Pogues, Stiff Little Fingers, Planxty - but sadly, Bell X1 is not one of them. Although the band was enthusiastically received by the crowd at the el Mocambo last night for their first ever gig in Canada, their flat, paint-by-numbers performance killed any need I might have had to see them again.

For me, the highlight of the night was David Ford’s opening set, which he kicked off in fine form with “Go to Hell,” the opening track from his most recent album Songs for the Road. The wandering Englishman utilized his box of toys to full effect on this tune, spontaneously recording one part, looping it, then overdubbing another until he had created a multi-layered mini-symphony to accompany his impassioned vocal delivery.

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David Ford is a British singer/songwriter who approaches his craft with a refreshingly honest and easy going nature that really comes through in his writing. His latest record, Songs for the Road, is finally available in North America after being out for several months in the UK. I recently had a nice, long conversation with Ford about his music and the trials and tribulations of constantly being on the road.

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I feel a deep obligation to check out every new Bob Mould record. The early work of his old band, Hüsker Dü, was one of the driving inspirations leading to the purchase of my first guitar, and his debut solo album Workbook never left my turntable when I went through my first really bad break-up. Plus, he wrote the theme music for the Daily Show! His music has gotten me through some pretty rough times, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful.

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For the last big night of Canadian Music Week, I hauled ass to the Royal York for the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards, a celebration of the spirit of independent music in Canada.

Yes, awards were handed out in every category from Favourite Metal Artist (3 Inches of Blood) to Favourite Children’s Artist (The Smudge Fundaes), and there was lots of conjecture in the press pool about what it might sound like if those two acts collaborated on a few tunes.

But the real reason for me to be there was the performers, many of whom had played earlier in the week while I was taking in other artists.

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For my third night of Canadian Music Week, I decided to finally find out for myself what Hawksley Workman is all about. For years, many people have told me about his amazing talents, but I’ve never had a chance to check him out for myself, so this year I decided to change all that.

For the most part, the rumours are true: Workman is an amazingly talented singer/multi-instrumentalist, and he’s surrounded himself with a diversely talented band (the inventive violin/mandolin/guitarist was especially impressive) with which to tour his sixth album, Between the Beautifuls. You’d think that with all this incredible talent under one roof I’d have my socks rocked off, but after two and a half hours of watching these performers showing off I was surprised to find myself bored silly.

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As the second night of Canadian Music Week rolled around, I found myself running just a wee bit behind. I got to Lee’s Palace just in time to catch the tail end of Rebekah Higgs‘ set. I’m not sure what the rest of her material’s like, but it’s pretty obvious that I’ve caught her and her band on their “rockin’ out” number, which seems to consist primarily of Rebekah wailing wordlessly into a microphone with far too many effects while the band bashes one chord as enthusiastically as possible. Pity.

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