Just like the Decemberists now knows, everyone knows that you're going to have to play Houston sooner or later, no matter what dumb thing you may have said about the city in the past. We have often repeated this silly, surely-said-in-jest comment that Neko Case said at a Dallas show a few years ago: "We'd never fucking play Houston...because Eddie Money lives there, and he's a fucking mean guy."

At the time I scratched my head and said, fine, good riddance, lady. I'm pretty sure Eddie Money doesn't live here, and even if he did, I have never heard of Eddie Money being anything other than a perfectly mediocre singer who, at worst, has addled us with Two Tickets to Paradise, but I'm not sure that's the definition of "mean."

Since then, I have become a huge Neko fan. I have memorized her latest album, Middle Cyclone, front to back. And I have listened to the title track from the New Pornographers' Challengers so many times that it plays in my dreams.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw on Warehouse Live's site today that the red-headed siren has a show scheduled for November 22. Tickets go on sale tomorrow, August 12. $22.