Our weather continues to be a topic of conversation this week. Here’s a forecast for you: there’s a green, funky breeze coming from the Midwest toward Manhattan and it can’t come soon enough!

The Milwaukee-based quintet Whiskey of the Damned specializes in an intoxicating brand of music that’s high in energy, tangy, punky, and deeply funky, all at once. They have just released the excellent Monsters are Real. Formed by Dublin-born, Wisconsin-raised singer-guitarist-songwriter Eoin McCarthy, Whiskey of the Damned has been a live-performance favorite in pubs and halls throughout the East, South and Midwest, thanks to an incessant touring schedule and invariably good word-of-mouth. That word of mouth has moved to the Northeast; they will be making their way to Paddy Reilly’s on Friday May 16.

Eoin (pronounced O-wen) McCarthy first performed in public at age six. As a 15-year-old punk rocker accompanying his musician-comedian father to a pub session in Dublin, he receivedguitar-playing tips from “a guy” who turned out to be Van Morrison.

“I was playing Irish folk ballads here with my dad,” McCarthy explains. “He decided to move back and I decided to stay in Wisconsin. I found these musicians and started jamming with them and it has been great!”

Gina Romantini, bassist Matt Schuetz, accordionist Brian Link, and drummer Andrew

Weber. are industry veterans who have shared the stage with the likes of the Wallflowers, Van Morrison, and everything in between. McCarthy says the diversity in their tastes is the secret sauce of the band’s chemistry.

“Gina had some experience with Irish music, country and classical. Andrew had a more metal drummer--really hard and fast,” he explains. “He will definitely put a metal edge to Irish music, and that’s a great opportunity for us to play our part in having this type of music evolve.”

You can hear the furious aggression of heavy metal slamming the fiddle through your speakers on boisterous tracks like “Another Day Dead,” “The Good Rat,” and “Thumpkeg.”

“I would say our music is Celtic gypsy bluegrass punk,” McCarthy says when asked to explain the band’s sound. “Everyone in the band has their own taste of music and there are days we will listen to death metal music and the next day we listen to Bach for inspiration. How we build this into something wild and crazy.”

Be sure to catch this Celtic tornado when it touches down in Manhattan next month! For more information on the band, check out http://www.reverbnation.com/thewhiskeyofthedamned