Actually, there's nothing criminal about Matt Jerzyk. Not since he cut off that ponytail, anyway. I was just smooshing together our two main features in this week's Phoenix.

Jerzyk is a (formerly ponytailed) activist-turned-insider: a lefty bomb thrower and shrewd political organizer who now holds a key post in Providence Mayor Angel Taveras' administration.

A break from politics and media to report the passing of an icon in Rhode Island music: Thom Enright, a blues guitarist who played in a number of important bands - including the Young Adults, a 70s rock outfit fronted by present-day Phoenix columnist Rudy Cheeks

Here are some Enright testimonials from local luminaries that we ran in the paper in 2008 on the occasion of a tribute concert to the ailing musician (he died Monday of brain cancer).

The Occupy Providence folk are planning Occu-Stock, a "masquerade music festival," Friday-Sunday in India Point Park. There will be plenty of music - Brown electronica phenom Nico Jaar is among the scheduled performers. And Big Nazo will bring its big puppets.

Admission for the event, 4-11 pm each day, is free. But attendees will be asked to donate to Occupy Providence.

Rhode Island rockers Deer Tick - don't call 'em "alt-country," if you want to stay in their good graces - are releasing their fourth album in five years. And the record, "Divine Providence," is the first to be recorded in their home state.

The first single, "Miss K," can be downloaded for free here, if you're willing to share your email address.

In today's Phoenix, I've got an interview with Brown University's hip-hop scholar Tricia Rose. She penned one of the best-known academic treatises on rap music from its early days, Black Noise, and takes a fresh look at the form with Hip-Hop Wars. She's got a provocative view on what is, arguably, the nation's most important cultural force: hip-hop, she argues, is in a creative crisis and is promoting a dangerously narrow view of black American life.

Deer Tick, the big winner in this year's iteration of the Phoenix's Best Music Poll, is set to appear on Late Night with David Letterman tonight.

Another step forward for the alt-country act, profiled in the Phoenix in June, which has just released its third album - "The Black Dirt Sessions" - recorded in upstate New York late last year.

In this week's Phoenix, we've got results from our annual best music poll, with readers' picks for local and national acts. Among the local winners is alt-country act Deer Tick. But don't call them alt-country, they hate the term. I wrote a piece on the band a few months ago.

Also this week: I've got a piece on Rhode Island's upstart National Public Radio affiliate, WRNI, vying to become a major player in the local media market - and irritating some at the ProJo in the process.

Providence rockers The Low Anthem will be making their first hometown appearance on their North American tour April 21, with The 'Mericans and Tallahassee in support. Noteworthy enough. But now, the band has decided to turn the show, at Lupo's, into a benefit for flood victims.

From the Nonesuch blog:

The show is now free, with donations being accepted on behalf of the United Way's Rhode Island Flood Recovery Fund.

An old-school event - the Newport Folk Festival - ran headlong into the new media in recent weeks as hints of this year's line-up seeped out in dribs and drabs. But today, the official unveiling. Among the highlights: comedian Steve Martin will be picking his banjo and local heroes The Low Anthem are perfoming. Tickets go on sale Friday.

Happy New Year, all. And we start 2010 with a departure from the usual political and media fare, for an interesting bit of arts news: a small coup for Lupo's, with alt-country superstars Wilco scheduled to play the Providence venue April 4 - one of the smallest spots on an international tour that will include a stop at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon.