Pitchfork

Erin Go Bragh and so forth! It's St. Patrick's Day, everyone's favorite excuse to eat all kinds of sweaty meat and salty vegetables, ingest a gallon or so of green dye, and then spend the next week peeing it all out.

And what better way to soundtrack this most culturally sensitive of all holidays than with the music of trad-Irish punks the Pogues? While Shane MacGowan and company will shamrock the hell out of New York's Roseland Ballroom this evening, all across the world, Pogues cover bands aplenty will revel in their big moment before, you know, going back to their cubicles tomorrow morning, Tylenol in hand.

But K.M.R.I.A., who play Portland's Crystal Ballroom tonight, well, they've got the luck of the Irish with 'em. Once tonight's set is through and all that Jameson runs its course, all of them will go back to being in bands of their own. K.M.R.I.A. is a bit of a who's who of Pacific Northwest rock, featuring Chris Funk and Jenny Conlee of the Decemberists, Derek Brown of eels, Casey Neill, Ezra Holbrook of Dr. Theopolis, Hanz Araki of the Whyos and Paperboys, and Jesse Emerson of Amelia.

The band, who play Pogues music and Pogues music only, take their name-- an acronym for "Kiss My Royal Irish Ass", don't you know-- from a bit in James Joyce's BEST BOOK EVAR Ulysses, touched upon in the Pogues' classic "Transmetropolitan".

Beyond, like, famous people, the band's got something most of those other Pogues cover bands don't: the approval of a real life Pogue. According to the K.M.R.I.A. Myspace page, James Fearnley helped teach Chris and Jenny how to play "the impossibly arcane middle section of 'Bottle of Smoke', which neither Jem [Finer] (who wrote the damn middle section) nor Terry Woods (who never plays the same thing twice) can actually get through without extemporizing." Fearnley adds, "neither can I, truth be told. But at least I know how it's supposed to go."

Could it be that this ragtag bunch are gonna out-Pogue the Pogues' brogue? Nah, not quite, but I'm sure they're gonna have a real kickass time trying.

As they say in Ireland, Beannachtai na Feile Padraig! Man, I bet that's hard to say after a sixer of those big Guinness cans.