With Spider-Man 3 swinging into theaters on May 4, next week the soundtrack comes calling in a variety of packages. Featuring exclusive songs from Snow Patrol, Wolfmother, The Walkmen, and The Killers, the soundtrack includes a track from the Flaming Lips that has my mind salivating with possibility at the title "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to Be in Love." A limited-edition eight-inch box set is made to resemble Spidey's rubberized suit, with a 32-page hardcover book, collectible cards, and one more Flaming Lips song, as the band rips through the "Theme from Spider-Man." Turntable spinners aren't left out, either, as a two-LP gatefold set and a series of four different picture discs are due from Record Collection Records. Spider-Man fever is also burning up Broadway, as Tony Award winner Julie Taymor (of Lion King fame) is working with Bono and The Edge of U2 on an upcoming live-theatre production.

Singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer tells about a friend who leads a group of people who knit for the local food bank. They'll set up somewhere and knit with a sign that reads, "Knitting for the Food Bank."

"People will come and talk to them," Newcomer said in a phone interview last week. "Folks who might not maybe go up to someone on the corner and talk to somebody who has a sign will sit down with a group of women knitting and talk about the issue. 'What's happening with the food bank?'"

Patti Smith and Lou Reed - two grandparents of punk - have seriously mellowed out and are releasing surprisingly mature new works next week.

Most people think of bluegrass as music for old people, and Alex Kirt of the Woodbox Gang doesn't disagree. He calls it "timeless," but as a performer that has one big advantage.

By the time you hit age 50 or so, you can't credibly play metal, punk, or hard-rock music. "You're probably going to look ridiculous," said Kirt, a singer and multi-instrumentalist with the southern-Illinois "trashcan Americana" band that will be performing at the Bent River Brewing Company on Saturday, April 7. And the age-imperviousness of bluegrass is important, because the 33-year-old wants to be playing this music "forever."