Narwhal vs. Narwhal at the Comet! Tonight!

Narwhal vs. Narwhal, the Transport Assembly, Vanishing Kids, the Royal Bear
(Comet) Best band name of the week, hands down. Maybe even the year. Narwhal vs. Narwhal evokes visions of an epic battle at sea—underwater unicorns duking it out, thrashing each other, fighting for the respect of all the other sea creatures. Starfish, seahorses, and those little crabs that walk along the bottom of the ocean with spirally shell houses look on. The band’s sound is less volatile. Start with really early Modest Mouse—the kind of Modest Mouse that sounds defeated, like they weren’t sure if they’d ever make it out of Issaquah. Now hype up that sound with a little basement-dance-party vibe—it feels better, more confident, the keyboards fill out the garage-band sound. And now, to make sure that they’re true originals, N vs. N… wait for it… have horns. Yeah, horns. Trumpets, in fact. And I think a saxophone—sometimes it’s aggressive like Plastic Mastery’s screamo moments, other times you wanna clap your hands in the air and shake your ass. If these kids got on a bill with Coconut Coolouts the world would explode. Narwhal vs. Banana Man. Now that’d be funny. MEGAN SELING

Also tonight:

DJ Shadow at Showbox at the Market
Just go to this show—it’s the right thing to do. What makes it right? DJ Shadow simply means it can’t go wrong. The legendary Bay Area producer, remixer, and scratcher will be in the house with Cut Chemist. (The two recently released a collaboration called Hard Sell.) Kid Koala, the turntable genius from Montreal, will also be in the house. Indeed, this is less a show and more of a temporary temple for a hiphop art that was eclipsed many years ago by the self-obsessed rapper. (Showbox at the Market, 1426 First Ave, 628-0888. 8 pm, $30 adv/$35 DOS, 21+.) by Charles Mudede

And from this week’s My Philosophy:

On Sunday, February 10, Wizdom is headlining a show of local up-and-comers over at Chop Suey with Life Cycle, Tulsi, Tac-Town’s Can-U, and Night Crawlers. Wiz is currently hard at work on his next album, featuring production by D.C.’s Epidemmik and guest spots from the Physics’ Thig Natural, Grynch, and New Balance (you know, #81—Nate Burleson), among others.

For those of you planning on staying home—log on to Line Out around 8 pm to watch the Grammys with me. I’ll be liveblogging the whole show (or as much of it as I can take, anyway). I’d love it if you would join me.