It's a piano sort of day, here in Montreal. Clear skies and brisk breezy roads, clumps of snow at the street-corners, people sauntering around and singing to themselves. No sign of birds, yet, but I'm sure that they're en route.

Professor Longhair - "Go to the Mardi Gras". I first heard Mr Longhair through Mr Kafkaesque, which is sort of embarassing because Longhair's one of the founding fathers of New Orleans R&B, and that speaks to my knowledge of early r&b. This was his signature tune, with several different versions (with slightly different titles) recorded. It's a fantastically bouncy boogie-woogie-ing number, saxophone bumps over a hush-and-stumble drum patter, a bright and friendly whistle, Longhair singing with matter-of-fact exuberance. "If you go to New Orleans," he says, "you oughta go see the Mardi Gras." And then there's the whistle solo at the end, the rhythm section cutting out so that there can be a little smiling moment.

Gordon Downie - "Chancellor". The Tragically Hip are the biggest band in Canada, and so it follows that their vocalist must be the biggest rock singer in the country. But listening to Downie's solo debut, Coke Machine Glow, the idea seems preposterous. The album's got spoken word and peculiar broken songs, Julie Doiron and Atom Egoyan, people yelling from the backs of rooms and hardly an electric guitar to be heard. What it showcased, however, was Downie's remarkable panache for vocal delivery as well as for lyrics. "Chancellor"'s melody is something lovely and unforgettable, dancing with absurd imagery and letting the gushing flow of Downie's voice carry it up and around mossy outcroppings. It's difficult to identify precisely why the song is so wonderful, so starry and quietly fine, but the proof's right there - in the clattering drums, the generous piano, the acoustic guitar strum; in the way that in 2001 I kept it on repeat for hours, in the way that I'm compelled to now do so again.

You may notice a new description of stg on the right sidebar. Obviously, I take this business of good music very very seriously. (Do you boys and girls think I need to put in something about 'supporting artists'? If you ask me, anyone who reads this thing knows and does, many times over. But I wonder...)