Real Coolock

Now then, now then, guys'n'gals. Here's a band from Coolock who sound like all your favourite pop groups from the 1960s, who dress in colourful Carnaby Street chic, and whose name sounds like a well-known, silver-haired television personality who likes to clunk-click every trip. 'Ow's about that, then, eh?

Saville are not, however, named after the venerable Sir Jimmy (with one l) although you could easily picture the old cigar-chomper introducing them on a vintage edition of Top Of The Pops. These twenty-somethings weren't around when The Kinks, The Move, The Beach Boys, Petula Clark and Simon Dupree & The Big Sound were strutting their Chelsea boots on pop telly, but you can be sure they'd love to have been there. This fine bunch of rock'n'roll dandies took their name from London's legendary Saville Row, where dedicated followers of fashion would get fitted out in the finest gladrags.

"It's the idea of grace and elegance," explains the band's singer, Ken O'Duffy. "There's a great line in Withnail & I, where the guy says to Withnail, where are you going in that old suit? And he goes, old suit? Hawkes of Saville Row!"

O'Duffy certainly does look spiffing in a suit and bright red shirt, and I would be the last person to suggest he might have bought it off the peg - or in an Oxfam shop. Beside him sits guitarist/keyboardist/kitchen sink player Tosh Flood, hunched up in the usual manner of eccentric pop geniuses, looking a little more understated in bright Tshirt. Drummer Stamp and bassist Vinny Duffy have yet to arrive and complete this fab and flashy foursome. Ken may resemble a retro Peter Buck from REM and Tosh may look like Phil Spector's hillbilly cousin, but between them this pair of unlikely lads have written the finest Irish album of the 21st century - so far.

Is Anybody Happier Today? is a fresh, invigorating splash of psychedelic loungecore. The music - a mixture of northern soul thrills, manic mod spills and easy-listening bellyaches - is the perfect antidote to lumpen rock band blues. Ignore the po-faced purveyors of post-Radiohead angst, or the grim, gothic torchbearers of grunge - listen instead to songs such as The First Pop Star In Space, Dancing Star and The Ballad Of Dandy Damned, and get happy. Real happy.

Hearing the eclectic mix of 1960s styles which sparkles from every digital bit of their debut CD, you could almost believe that Coolock was a major Mod enclave, a cool suburban corner which outclasses even the Kings Road for style. The reality, unsurprisingly, is a lot more pedestrian. "If you look at a place like Finglas, where The Brilliant Trees come from, there's a real musical scene there," says Ken. "But in Coolock there's nothing doing. We'd love to build up a following in Coolock, but the problem is that there are no real rock venues there. It's a shame that we can't play on our own home turf."

What is surprising, given their origins, is that Saville sound nothing like Oasis or Aslan. Their surroundings may have been grey, but their music is a multicoloured phantasmagoria of ideas, a glamorous, tripped-out vision of 1960s pop heaven. Austin Powers would love it; Ray Davies loved it so much he dedicated a song to Saville; the local lads down the pool hall, however, would probably hate it.

"That's part of the fun," nods Ken. "We're kind of playing up the fact that we're from Coolock, and saying, don't pigeonhole us. What we're trying to do is break through the usual perceptions and do something different. We're trying to turn things on their head and be dancing stars in Coolock. It's a bit more subversive that way - if we were just a meat-and-potatoes band it wouldn't be so interesting."

With nowhere in Coolock to play the dancing stars, Saville set out for the bright lights of An Lar, where they landed a regular slot at the now-defunct DA Club.

There were no showcase gigs, no big A&R presence, no big-figure record deals, and no hyperbolic press releases. There was, however, word of mouth, and it got around pretty fast, gaining the band a cult following of mods, soul rebels, lounge lizards and punk popsters.

"What we've tried to do right from the beginning - and it was the hard way - was to build it up from the street," says Ken. "We weren't gonna go for the big deal right away. The idea was to let people hear it for themselves. With the audience, it's all word of mouth, so we always get a good crowd when we play live."

Street Cred, however, doesn't pay the recording costs, so Saville had to cobble together their album without the aid of hi-tech studios or high-profile producers. Is Any- body Happier Today? was pieced together in the band members' houses, yet it sounds like it fell straight out of studio heaven. "What we did was, we gigged and gigged in 1998, and got the money up for the album. And we recorded the album in 1999. Basically, the drums were done in Stamp's shed, and the rest of it in my bedroom."

The makeshift recording arrangements didn't stop the band from trying out some ambitious studio trickery. On The Ballad Of Dandy Damned, for instance, Tosh admits he laid down a grand total of 78 different instrumental tracks, including pianos, accordion and ukelele. No wonder he's known as the band's resident Brian Wilson.

"The lads slag me about it," admits Tosh. "I'll be walking down the street, and it's guaranteed there'll be orchestras going off in my head. But it's great to get the chance to get that out. Some people spend half a million pounds trying to sound lo-fi, but we knocked ourselves out trying to make something that sounded like it was recorded in a big studio."

It has paid off in spades: Is Anybody Happier Today? has all the critics smiling, and the music media have hailed Saville as Irish rock's best-kept secret. Larry Gogan shared the secret with millions of 2FM listeners, making it his Album Of The Week. "He says it's gonna be huge, and you don't disagree with Larry!" laughs Ken. "It's funny - I was in Northside Shopping Centre the other day," says Tosh, "and I heard something on the radio and thought, that's good, I'll nick that - and it was us!"

With press and distribution in place - courtesy of NB Publicity and Record Services - the next step for Saville is to gig outside Dublin and bring their sparkling songs to audiences in Ireland, the UK and Europe. There's also the tricky matter of rustling up the moola to make the next album. "Our difficult second album won't be on a musical level - it'll be on a financial level," notes Ken.

Saville already have a following outide Ireland - in southern Spain. For the past four years, the band have performed at a flamenco festival in Lebrija, just outside Seville, the first non-Spanish group ever to play there. Somewhere between Coolock and Espana, Saville heard of the death of the great Andalusian piss-artist, Ignacio Espeleta, who, on once being asked "why don't you work?" replied, "why should I work, I am from Cadiz."

"There's this piece that was written by the Spanish playwright, Lorca, about the theory and function of the duende," explains Ken. "The duende is that thing which makes creativity special, and has a certain darkness. It's an amazing story, but there's this little guy who's in the footnote of the story, Ignacio Espeleta, and he knows the duende. So Ignacio, who's just a footnote in a Lorca play, is the central character in our album. Ignacio is the guy who wouldn't be accepted in our society, because his whole thing is creativity, and he's not adding to the economy. That's the idea behind the song, Is Anybody Happier Today? Does having all these acquisitions of modern life make you any happier? It's all about the commodification of life."

If you add just one more acquisition to your array of mobile phones, DVDs, digital cameras, matching Volvos, his & hers facelifts, holiday homes and lottery tickets, make sure it's a copy of Saville's superb debut album. It'll do your duende the world of good.

Is Anybody Happier Today? is out now on BDB Records. Saville play Dublin's Isaac Butt on June 10th.