I've learned from past experience that, if you want to catch Lewis Black when he is calm and displaying socially acceptable behavior, it must be in the morning.

But when I call him at his New York City apartment at 10:30 in the morning, I'm already too late. He's been watching the impeachment hearings.

"You elect somebody who doesn't, who never took a civics class," Black says, his voice rising with his anger, "and then you've got a portion of the country THAT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS RUN?"

What is it that Alan Murphy wants from his band, The Mighty High and Dry?

"I'm looking for a churchy Americana vibe," he says, "but we have some stuff that people can dance to, soul, soul and blues."

He wants different voices, so he's co-written songs such as "Little Red Dress" with Zahyia Rolle of the local R&B band Vanishing Sun. And a couple with Vanessa Mangione, one with a "Johnny Cash vibe," Murphy says, and another he describes as "a gospel party song."

It's 8 p.m. on a snowy Wednesday night in November, and a crew of musicians is gathered in the cozy third-floor attic of Ben Morey and Katie Morey-Preston's home, which doubles as a recording studio and rehearsal space.

The group is gathered to rehearse for a rather unconventional event: a live performance of Harry Nilsson's "The Point!," which will take place at the Cinema Theater on South Clinton Avenue on Nov. 23 and 24. The all-ages event is a fundraiser for The Submarine School of Music, a community music school that the married couple hopes to launch in fall 2020.

Music is a time machine. Thirty-six years, "It's hard for me to get my head around that … " says Joe Locke.

It's been almost four decades since the birth of "In Front of the Silver Screen," if you're lucky enough to find a vinyl copy of it, the only form in which it officially exists. It's the hard-to-find debut album by who was to become one of the world's pre-eminent jazz vibraphonists. The liner notes insist the album was recorded on June 1 and 2, 1983, although Locke thinks it might have been two sets in one night. But he concedes his memory of the event might be a little off. He was only 22 at the time, and maybe a little caught up in the moment.

His first album!

Black Violin is not a Frankenstein creation, where we can see all of the parts stitched together, the bolts sticking out of the neck, the lumbering gait. “We approach the performance like rappers, but the music is approached sort of like Beethoven,” says Kev Marcus.

Black Violin. Kev Marcus on violin, Wil B on viola. Plus a DJ and drums. On Thursday, they’re bringing this surprising fusion of classical and hip-hop to Kodak Center, 200 W. Ridge Road.

The band’s new album, “Take the Stairs,” was released earlier this week.

There are times when Greg Townson seems to be spread so thin, you can read these words right through him. He’s a co-founder of The Hi-Risers, the glorious garage-rock trio, a steady part of the Rochester scene since 1989. Playing guitar on tours with soul singer John Ellison and pop singer Eleni Mandell. Or he’s jetting back and forth between here and London as a hired guitar, or to produce a record for a band like the Swiss rockabilly outfit Hillbilly Moon Explosion. The song, “My Love For Evermore,” Townson says, “is a standard in Europe, people have it tattooed on them.

Water Street Music Hall, which had been the most-significant club on the local scene since the late 1980s, is rising from the ashes of discord once again. The two-headed entertainment center announced its return Wednesday afternoon with a ribbon cutting ceremony at the red brick, turn-of-the-last century old warehouse tucked away off of Andrews Street in the St. Paul Quarter.

Owner Peter Sewell explains that the extensive renovations are working alongside a repurposing of the two rooms, a restaurant called Jack’s on Water Street and the larger music venue side, Water Street 2020.

A re-branding of Water Street was essential. Sewell says the venue’s nights of bad economic management and hip-hop brawls are over.