This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening To….. The Durutti Column July 16, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....trackback
Based around the talents of guitarist / keyboard player Vini Reilly The Durutti Column have been on the go since the late 70s, releasing over 25 albums in that period. They were one of the initial artists on Tony Wilsons Factory Records.
The music is based around Reilly distinct guitar style with many songs instrumentals although Reilly does sing on quite a few tracks. I’ve read them described as “peerless, majestic melancholy” which is fairly apt.
Various guest vocalists have also been enlisted over the years. Drummer Bruce Mitchell (seen below in Jacqueline) has been playing in the band since 1981, managing it for periods too.
The band’s name comes from the Anarchist Column led by Buenaventura Durruti during the Spanish Civil War.
The band’s first album “The Return of the Durutti Column” had sleeves made of sandpaper. Reilly was a contemporary of Joy Division , New Order and featured in the movie 24 Hour Party People.
Such is the volume of work its difficult to pick out a small sample of tracks… although I have. 
“For Belgian Friends” , an instrumental, is one of those songs that you can listen to over and over and never tire of. It was originally released in 1980.
“Jacqueline” originally appeared on the 1981 album ‘LC’
“Rest of My Life” is from the mid 90s album “Sex and Death” which like a lot of the post Factory stuff has a number of fairly fast uptempo numbers.
“Missing Boy” is about Ian Curtis and features Reilly on vocal duty.
“Never Know” is also from ‘LC’ is another haunting track.
“Requiem Again” is from the 1996 album “Vini Reilly”
Excellent stuff, a great great series of albums and as important in it’s own way to the Factory story and late post punk as many much more feted groups.
Yeah Brilliant dreamy music I’ll certainly check them out.
What a waste of a good name
Hmmmm.. He’s a very fine guitarist and beautifully melodic, I hope and suspect Durutti, who was a good guy in my book, would be flattered.
The interesting thing is that it’s a double quotation – the Column was led by Buenaventura Durruti, two Rs one T. The mis-spelling comes from Le retour de la colonne Durutti, a Situationist-inspired comic strip put together by some students in Strasbourg in 1966.
I always liked Vini, but by a cruel twist of fate I opened IEL’s post just after arriving home from Richard Thompson’s solo gig in Vicar St. Poor Vini is Gary Twigg to Richard’s Pele.
Richard Thompson’s solo gig in Vicar St.
F*** – how did I miss this?!
Please be kind enough not to tell me more.
Sorry, SofS. The last thing you’d want to hear is how RT played everything you’d hoped he would, from Who Knows Where the Time Goes to VBL 1952, to this:
I’ll spare you the details, too, of the genuine standing ovations, the collective wail of adulation after the fifth encore, the hundreds emerging into the rain and hurrying home to put their guitars in the attic.
Thanks….
I’ll feebly try and comfort myself with the memory of a solo show in the Project in the late 70s/ early 80s (?) where he did a version of ‘Dark End of the Street’ and, although, obviously, I can’t remember the notes of the solo, I remember a feeling that I would rarely again hear anything like it.