Vini Happy Returns

Happy birthday, Vini Reilly, born 4th August 1953.

 

John Frusciante has described Vini as "the greatest guitarist in the world". Brian Eno once cited The Durutti Column's LC as his all-time favourite album. 

 

As I commented on a recent post over at Bagging Area, Vini Reilly's vast body of work with The Durutti Column has become an increasingly regular listen and a late education for me thanks to Swiss Adam's posts, which have introduced me not only to the music but also the alternately heartwarming and heartbreaking background stories that have inspired and informed it.

To say that Vini's overcome some huge obstacles would be understating and trivialising his story to put it mildly, but as a latecomer to his music I find it incredibly moving to see and hear Vini still playing, as highlighted in my post a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm in any way familiar either with The Durutti Column or Vini's work as a solo artist and collaborator (his significant contribution to the debut album by the Manchester Racist, for example) but I've put together a selection in two sides which I hope in a small way highlights his brilliance.

The selection focuses on the period 1979 to 1989 and mainly the first three albums, The Return Of The Durutti Column (1980), LC (1981) and Another Setting (1983), plus the 1985 EP/mini-album Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say. This is simply because I'm even less familiar with The Durutti Column albums from the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s apart from Short Stories For Pauline, which came out in 2012 but was in fact an unreleased album from 1983.

 

Thin Ice originally appeared on the seminal A Factory Sample 2x 7" single in 1979, which recently featured on The Vinyl Villain. This selection features the unedited version - about 90 seconds longer - which appears on Daylight Upon Magic, a Les Disques Du Crépuscule/Factory Benelux sampler which I unexpectedly and gratefully received as a freebie when ordering an Anna Domino CD reissue last year.

The Sea Wall is a 'lost' song from 1983 that first appeared on the 1991 compilation Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone) and then the eventual release of Short Stories For Pauline in 2012, albeit re-named College.

Real Drums - Real Drummer (belated happy birthday to Bruce Mitchell on 6th June) appeared on The Sporadic Recordings, Vini Reilly's sole solo album in 1989, and subsequently an expanded 1996 reissue of The Durutti Column's 1989 album, titled Vini Reilly. 

Silence was originally recorded - as A Silence - for Short Stories For Pauline in 1983. The version here is a beautiful re-recording featured on 1985's Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say. 

 

The selection opens and closes with songs from the 1980 debut. I've got the expanded reissue of The Return Of The Durutti Column and I've read that there have been multiple and repeated bog ups with the sequencing and incorrect naming of tracks. Therefore, track 1 may be either be Beginning or a completely different and untitled song. I've not been able to compare and contrast the tracks, so I've plumped for the former song title, with my fingers crossed. 

 

I'm more confident about the final song, Sketch For Summer, because it also appears on a Best Of compilation that I picked up prior to taking a deep dive into The Durutti Column catalogue. It remains one of my favorite DC songs, even more so on a fine summer's day as I type these words.

It's both daunting and wonderful that there's so much more out there to discover for the first time. I have to give a tip of the hat (again) to Swiss Adam and Bagging Area for a trio of essential primers:

 

Half An Hour Of The Durutti Column

Sketch For Vini 1

Sketch For Vini 2 

Have a good one, Vini, and thanks for your wonderful, beautiful music. 

 

Side One

1) Beginning (1980)

2) Real Drums - Real Drummer (1989)

3) A Room In Southport (1983)

4) Pol In G (1989)

5) Thin Ice (Unedited Version ft. Colin Sharp) (1979)

6) Silence (Re-Recorded Version) (1985)

 

Side Two

1) Piece For An Ideal (1980)

2) Jacqueline (1981)

3) The Room (Single Version) (1985)

4) Response (1983)

5) Katharine (Album Version) (1980)

6) The Sea Wall (1983)

7) Sketch For Summer (Album Version) (1980)

 

1980: The Return Of The Durutti Column: A1, B5, B7

1980: From Brussels With Love: B1

1981: LC: B2

1983: Another Setting: B4

1985: Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say EP: A6, B3

1989: The Sporadic Recordings (by Vini Reilly): A2

1989: Vini Reilly: A4 

1991: Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone): B6

2012: Short Stories For Pauline: A3 

2021: Daylight Upon Magic: A Sampler From Les Disques Du Crépuscule & Factory Benelux: A5

 

Side One (24:18)

Side Two (23:33)