Tonight you can go see the Shins play the KeyArena as part of Deck the Hall Ball (with Pete Yorn, Gnarls Barkley, My Chemical Romance, Snow Patrol, Taking Back Sunday, and more), or you could laugh your goddamn ass off at Neumo’s, where Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter (Stella, the State) will be performing.

In this week’s paper, Eric Grandy made a mix tape for Michael Showalter, which featured songs by the Smiths, Simon and Garfunkel, Pavement, and Nation of Ulysses. Then Mr. Show turned it into something funny, as he usually does. Here’s a taste:

Beck: “MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack” I never smoked crack. I’ve smoked a few hams in my day. Other drugs I’ve never done include PCP, GHB, and Special K. Before we did our own show, the State was on this show called You Wrote It, You Watch It. It was hosted by Jon Stewart. Every night after work we went to this bar on the Upper East Side, drank beer, ate wings, and played video Jeopardy. It was disgusting. I did irreparable damage to my digestive track.

In the “interview” he also talks about his first band (a hiphop trio called “Disposable Rappers”), Michael Richards (“Let’s just admit that we’re all filled with hate and rage”), and sandwiches. Read the whole hilarious thing here.

And if you’re a Shins fan, check out Tony Ware’s interview with frontman James Mercer where Mercer admits this about the band’s new, insanely-anticipated material: “In the past, I spent a lot of time being earnest, in a way that almost creeps me out. I wanted to find some ground—a little less indie pop and a little more somber.”

Also tonight, should neither of those options interest you:

Laptop Battle National Championships at Chop Suey, the Blood Brothers with …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead at the Showbox, and this show at the Sunset…

NORFOLK & WESTERN, THE STARES, LAURA GIBSON
(Sunset) Portland’s Adam Selzer founded Norfolk & Western in the late ’90s, and over the course of the intervening years the band has cultivated a gentle, mesmerizing approach to Americana. Rachel Blumberg began collaborating with Selzer on the project early in its existence, eventually leaving her post as drummer for the Decemberists in order to focus more fully on Norfolk & Western (both are now members of M. Ward’s band). The Unsung Colony, Norfolk & Western’s fifth and latest long-player, is a solid collection of plaintive, quirky, indie-folk songs anchored by polished songwriting and accented with (literally) bells and whistles, as well as a musical saw. Pairing them with the complementary sound of Seattle band the Stares, with their shimmering chords and hushed vocals, as well as fellow Portlander Laura Gibson, seems only natural. MATT GARMAN